Brick kilns and Valentines in Pakistan!

2026-03-11 - 06:54

ON 14 February this year I visited a brick kiln just outside Lahore with officials from the International Labour Organization (ILO). The timing was not lost on me. It was Valentine’s Day and the city was dressed accordingly. Lahore that morning was full of red. Shops displayed balloons and flowers, restaurants prepared for the evening rush, and young couples moved through markets carrying gifts. Less than an hour outside the city the colour changed. The red here came from clay and dust. Families were shaping bricks by hand under the open sky. Workers moved between piles of mud and rows of drying bricks. The air carried the smell of smoke from the kilns. Children worked alongside their parents, carrying loads heavier than they should ever need to. The contrast between Lahore and the brick kiln just further out was difficult to ignore: a reminder that in Pakistan it is possible to move from celebration to hardship in the span of a short drive. The kiln we visited (Niazi Brick Kilns) was not what many people imagine when they think of brick kilns in Pakistan. It was organised. Workers had some protective equipment and there were visible efforts to improve safety and working conditions. The International Labour Organization’s engagement with kiln owners and workers had clearly made a difference. It showed that improvement is possible even in industries that have long been associated with exploitation and dangerous conditions. But the visit also left me with a lingering question. If one kiln can look like this because of international attention and oversight, what does the reality look like at the thousands of other kilns scattered across the country that operate far from scrutiny? View this post on Instagram A post shared by Geir Tonstol (@gtonstol) Pakistan produces millions of bricks every year through roughly twenty thousand kilns. Estimates suggest that between 3.5 and 4.5 million people work in this sector. For many of them there is little choice. The majority enter kiln work through the peshgi system, where a small advance loan traps families into long cycles of debt. A study by the National Commission for Human Rights found that ninety seven percent of brick kiln workers entered the sector because of urgent loans. Ninety percent have no written contracts. More than seventy percent of families live in a single cramped room. Many report verbal abuse, intimidation and physical violence. Children are deeply embedded in this system. Surveys suggest that nearly three quarters of kiln workers have children working alongside them, some as young as five years old. These children spend long days shaping bricks, carrying heavy loads or feeding coal into kilns that burn at extreme temperatures. They inhale dust and smoke that damage their lungs and eyes. Many never attend school. Stories from the kilns reveal how easily debt turns into bondage. A young worker I managed to speak with from another kiln after my visit shared that he can not visit his home in Bahawalpur unless he first pays fifty thousand rupees to the kiln owner. Another began working in a kiln when he was ten years old after his family took an advance loan. Years later the family is still trying to repay it. The bricks made by these workers build our cities. They construct our homes, hospitals, schools and government buildings. Yet the workers who make them remain among the most invisible people in Pakistan. This is why my visit to that kiln stayed with me long after I left. It showed that change is possible. But it also reminded me how rare such examples still are. The same question about safety and accountability returned to mind recently when the Gul Plaza fire in Karachi dominated headlines. As details emerged, the disaster seemed painfully familiar. Everything that could go wrong appeared to have gone wrong. Fire safety systems were absent or ineffective. Emergency exits were reportedly blocked. Basic precautions that might have saved lives were missing. The tragedy echoed the Baldia factory fire of 2012, where more than two hundred and fifty workers died after being trapped inside a burning building. Between those two tragic milestones Karachi witnessed another eighteen thousand fire accidents that barely received attention. Across Pakistan roughly twelve thousand people die every year due to workplace hazards including industrial fires, boiler explosions, exposure to toxic fumes and suffocation in sewer lines. Building collapses have taken more than one hundred and fifty lives in urban Karachi alone. Over five hundred coal miners have died in mining accidents in the past five years.At least one hundred and eighty people have died in train accidents in Pakistan over the past decade.... Pakistan’s response to such disasters often follows a predictable script. A scapegoat is quickly identified. Compensation is then announced for victims, usually paid from public funds. A judicial inquiry is ordered. Over time the tragedy fades from public memory until another disaster forces the country to confront the same failures again. What rarely happens is a serious examination of the deeper causes. Investigations tend to focus on the immediate trigger of an accident. They look for exposed wiring, a spark or a worker who made a mistake. Meanwhile the more serious underlying issues such as poor maintenance, inadequate safety training, weak inspections and corrupt approvals remain unaddressed. The root causes often lie higher up the chain. Incompetent governance, ineffective enforcement of safety regulations and the absence of a functioning occupational safety system create the conditions where such tragedies become inevitable. Many developed countries treat workplace safety as a central responsibility of the state. The United States has the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The United Kingdom has the Health and Safety Executive. Canada has provincial agencies such as WorkSafeBC. These institutions set binding safety standards, inspect workplaces and investigate accidents with professional expertise. Pakistan, even after seventy eight years of independence, has not built a comparable system. Without strong institutions unsafe practices become routine. Workers enter sewer lines without protective equipment. Kiln workers inhale toxic fumes every day. Factories operate without proper fire exits. Mines lack ventilation and monitoring. When accidents occur the victims are mourned briefly but the system that produced the tragedy remains unchanged. My visit to that brick kiln outside Lahore showed that a different reality is possible. Safer workplaces, fairer treatment and better oversight can exist. But isolated examples cannot replace systemic reform. Pakistan urgently needs to first prioritize the safety and health of its workers and then a national occupational safety and health authority with the power to set safety standards, inspect workplaces, investigate accidents and enforce accountability needs to be put in place. Until that happens tragedies like the Gul Plaza fire will continue to occur. And the bricks that build our cities will continue to carry the quiet weight of the workers who remain unseen, come Valentine’s Day next year or the one after. —The writer is associate editor and digital team lead at Pakistan Observer (abdullahgauhar7@live.com)