Documentary: Invisible chains - bonded labour in India's brick kilns

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We used to get up at midnight 12 or 1 am

and work through the day
making clay ready for molding.

We lined up the brick for drying
and changed bricks sides later

I like reading,

but my father had to take me
to the brick kiln to work

as he did not have money.

The children in the brick kilns
are getting punished in many ways

Children are denied
their basic right to education--

whether they are working
or not in the kilns.

The children's health
is significantly affected

and in a bad situation.

One of my sons is 14 years old,
another is 9, and the third one is 7.

Children have to work at any cost,

what would they eat if they don't work?

The water is so bad.

Neither we can wash utensils, nor the clothes.

It's stagnant, dirty water,
good for nothing.

We wake up at 1 at night,
start working and later we cook and eat.

We rest for two hours
and then start the work again.

We prepare the clay for molding
and molding bricks into the cases.

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Anti-Slavery International have worked
to address force labor and child labor

in brick kiln industry

and we work on both source state
and destination

with seasonal migrants

We work in three states: Chhattisgarh,
Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab.

I have four children.

All of them have gone to Punjab
to work in brick kilns.

I stay alone at home here.

We can't survive on the land
as we have very little

and that is why people go to other places
to earn and make a living.

The government have done nothing.

What can it do?

Whatever food supply comes in,
the dealers take it all.

They are forced to migrate
to escape a starving situation.

they barely survive
and return with nothing.

So this is the ongoing--
it's a cyclic problem.

INcreasingly, there is a denial.

I mean there has always been denial

of the existence
of the bonded labor system.

And that has not changed,

and in fact it has become even more worse

because the form of bondage is changing

and if the government
doesn't keep up with that,

then we cannot address
the problem of bondage.