Employment in the Brick Kilns of Punjab

One brick kiln, with a capacity of producing 30 to 40 lakh units per season, usually employs around 250 workers. Estimates about the number of functioning brick kilns in India vary from 50,000 to 100,000. This means that employment in brick kilns can vary from 12,500,000 (1.25 crores) to 25,000,000 (2.5 crores) in a season. For a comparison, the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 2009–10 estimates that the construction industry employs 4.4 crores. Brick kilns alone, at the highest range, employ more than 5 per cent of 460 million (46.02 crores) workers in India.

Brick-making is considered a seasonal industry, for the reason that it remains non-functional during the rainy season, normally for three to four months. Employment in brick kilns, therefore, is alsoseasonal; workers are engaged every year for the season. Every year, brick-kiln owners must find workers, and workers must find brick kilns where they can secure employment. This process is facilitated by brokers, or labour contractors, who act as intermediaries between the owners and the workers. Contractors obtain workers both locally and from far-off places, resulting in significant annual migration from and to source districts and states

A system of advances mediates the employer-contractor-worker relationship. The employer engages contractors to obtain workers for the season by making an advance payment; and the contractor secures workers by giving an advance payment in turn. Accepting the advance is a commitment by the worker to work in the kiln of an employer whom he/she has never met or entered into a contract with. In the kiln, the worker works against the advance that he/she has taken. If the advances are not cleared, grounds are set to tie them to the same kiln (and perhaps elsewhere) through employment in the next season(s).

Bonded labour or slavery?

The brick-kiln industry in India is, therefore, characterised by the use of bonded labour. Recent literature such as the WalkFree report hassaidthat India has the largest number of slaves in the world, and also mentions brick kilns as engaging slave labour in India. However, is bonded labour slavery? And are brick kilns in India engaging in slave labour?

The Temporary Slavery Commission, appointed by the League of Nations in 1925, recommended the negotiation of a treaty for the progressive elimination of ‘slavery in all its forms’. In 1926, the Slavery Convention defined slavery and urged contracting parties to ‘take all necessary measures to prevent compulsory or forced labour from developing into conditions analogous to slavery’. It did not, however, list what constituted ‘all’forms of slavery. The International LabourOrganisation (ILO) negotiated a Convention against forced labour in 1930. It defined forced labour as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under menace of any penalty and for which the said person does not offer himself voluntarily,” with the exception of penal labour and compulsory military service. The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices negotiated by the United Nations and enacted in 1956 listed debt bondage, servile forms of marriage, and the exploitation of children and adolescents by persons other than their parents or guardians as among the ‘institutions and practices similar to slavery’. However, in Article 7(a), it maintained the definition of slavery as in the 1926 Convention.

Debt bondage, or bonded labour, has been identified as an institution or practice similar to slavery. What characterises bonded labouras slavery? Slavery is defined in Article 1(a) of the 1926 Convention as “the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.” The Rome Statute 1998 describes‘enslavement’ as a crime against humanity.

Emphasising the primacy of the 1926 definition, Jean Allain (2007), argues that the ‘right of ownership’ is the defining characteristic of slavery. Second, he states that slavery can be either a status or a condition of a person. He explains, “It may be said that the phrase ‘status or condition’ seeks to distinguish between slavery de jure and slavery de facto, whereby slavery as ‘status’ is a recognition of slavery in law; and slavery as ‘condition’ is to be understood as slavery in fact.” Third, he elaborates on the point, ‘powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised’ by quoting from UN Secretary-General’s 1953 Memorandum, which spells out what constitutes the exercise of powers attached to the right of ownership.

Allain’s argument is that the 1926 definition is valid not only for ‘chattelslavery’—a situation in which human beings “can be bought and sold, given away, inherited, paid as tax or tribute, and used for any purpose their owner’s wish” as things, and when “their bondage is life-long and hereditary.” (Suzanne Miers, 2000)—but also for all manifestations of slavery, including those termed as ‘contemporary forms of slavery’.

In contrast, Kevin Bales (2001, 2010) says slavery is an evolving phenomenon, a perspective shared by Anti Slavery International (ASI) and ILO. Besides these organisations, the concept of contemporary forms of slavery has been advocated by the UN Human Rights Council. In May 2008, the Human Rights Council appointed a Special Rapporteur on ‘Contemporary forms of slavery, its causes and consequences’. In her reports, the Chair deals with various forms of slavery, in particular, debt bondage and serfdom, servile marriage, child slavery, domestic servitude and forced labour. Bales argues that a purely legalistic definition does not capture the characteristics of contemporary manifestations of slavery. He writes, “The essence of slavery is controlling people through violence and using them to make money.” Bales says that the 1966 UN Covenants—the ‘Economic, Social and Cultural Covenant’ and the ‘Civil and Political Covenant’—accept the importance of freely chosen work, fair wages, equal pay for work of equal value, and the right to form and join trade unions. Arguing that slavery as a form of legal ownership of a person is extremely rare today, Bales gives importance to economic exploitation and introduces three dimensions of slavery, namely, (i) loss of free will (ii) appropriation of labour power and (iii) violence or threat of violence. He concludes that slavery, forced labour, debt bondage, child prostitution, forced prostitution and sexual slavery are forms in which all three dimensions are present.

Ownership at various levels, trafficking, forced labour, economic exploitation, loss of free will, appropriation of labour, violence or threat of violence are characteristics of slavery. Does this describe the reality of bonded labour?

In the 1956 Supplementary Convention, debt bondage is defined as the“status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or those of a person under his control as security for a debt if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined.”

International legal instruments clearly consider bonded labour as a form of slavery. What is the case in Indian law? How does Indian law on bonded labour relate to the international legal instruments on slavery?

BLSAAct 1976 and Slavery Instruments

The widespread prevalence of debt bondage in India and its extremely exploitative character has led the Government of India to promulgate the Bonded labour System Abolition (BLSA) Act in 1976. The BLSAAct draws heavily from Article 23 of the Indian Constitution, the ILO Forced Labour Convention 1930, the UN Slavery Convention 1926, and UN Supplementary Convention 1956.

The BLSAAct defines bonded labour in Ch. I, Sec. 2(g) as:“The system of forced or partly forced labour under which a debtor enters, or has, or is presumed to have, entered, into an agreement with the creditor, to the effect that:

in consideration of an advance obtained by him or by any of his lineal ascendants or descendants (whether or not such advance is evidenced by any documents) and in consideration of the interest, if any, due on such advance, or
in pursuance of any customary or social obligation, or
in pursuance of an obligation devolving on him by succession, or
for any economic consideration received by him or by any of his lineal ascendants or descendants, or
by reason of his birth in any particular caste or community, he would
render, by himself or through any member of his family, or any person dependent on him, labour or service to the creditor, or for the benefit of the creditor, for a specified period or for an unspecified period, either without wages or for nominal wages, or
forfeit the freedom of employment or other means of livelihood for a specified period or for an unspecified period, or
forfeit the right to move freely throughout the territory of India, or
forfeit the right to appropriate or sell at market value any of his property or product of his labour or the labour of a member of his family or any person dependent on him,
and includes the system of forced, or partly forced, labour under which a surety for a debtor has, or is presumed to have, entered, into an agreement with the creditor to the effect that in the event of the failure of the debtor to repay the debt, he would render the bonded labour on behalf of the debtor.”

The definition takes bonded labour within the framework of forced labour and a debtor-creditor relationship. From the perspective of the Slavery Convention outlined above, the definition of bonded labour addresses the ‘exercise of the powers of ownership’ and considers both the status and condition of bonded labourers. The five primary sub-clausesof the definitionestablish the status of bonded labourer, in terms of inter-generational and customary bondage. This sub-clause says that if a person is made to work as a descendent of someone, who could not repay an advance taken, or has been born into a caste or ethnicity, the person will be a bonded labourer. The four secondary sub-clauses introduce the condition of the bonded labourer. These touch on the forfeiture of wages, freedom of employment, movement and right over produce. These aspects not only locate the bonded labourer within a forced labour relationship but also satisfy the loss of free willand appropriation of labour powercriteria. The explanatory note, which says that a migrant labourer or contract labourer whose conditions of employment fall under those described in the Act, indicates the possibilities of bonded labour as trafficking for employment. Moreover, nominal wages has been explained as that less than (statutory) minimum wages or, if no minimum wage is stipulated, the customary wage for a given type of work in a given locality.

The definition of bonded labour in the BLSAAct 1976, therefore, is apparently in line with definitions of slavery in the Slavery Convention 1926, the Supplementary Convention 1956 and the ILO Convention on forced labour 1930 as well as, to a great extent, the trafficking protocol. Moreover, references to wages, freedom of employment, movement and right over produce makes the definition applicable to contemporary forms of slavery too.

However, it is one thing to say that definition of bonded labour aligns with the definitions of slavery in international instruments and another to say that the actual form and content of the bonded labour system as practised in India satisfy the criteria of the slavery instruments. The next section engages with this question, based on evidence from an empirical survey of brick kilns in Punjab. The information was obtained from 189 workers from 45 kilns located in Ferozpur, Amritsar and TaranTaran districts of Punjab. In addition, interviews were held with representatives of contractors, trade union leaders and brick-kiln owners. Questionnaire-based interviews were substantiated with eight focus group discussions.

The Brick-kiln Industry in Punjab

The brick manufacturing process comprises the following stages: material procurement, during which the clay is mined and stored in the open; tempering, during which the clay is mixed with water manually to get the right consistency; moulding, during which a lump of mix is taken, rolled in sand and slapped into the mould; drying, during which the bricks are removed from the mouldand are arranged in a herring bone pattern in the drying area, to dry in the sun; firing, during which the green bricks are arranged in a kiln, insulated with a mud pack and fired; sorting, during which the kiln is disassembled and the bricks are sorted according to colour, to be sold in the market, based on their varying qualities.

These activities are carried out manually by skilled labour. Digging the land to extract the upper soil is done by khudai workers; weathering, kneading, moulding and drying are done by patheri workers; carrying green bricks from the moulding point to the kiln is done by redi workers; placing bricks in kiln is done by bharai workers; firing the bricks in the kiln is done by jalai workers; and unloading, sorting and carrying the bricks to the stockyard or market is done by nikasi workers.

Labour Market Rigidity

Workers with these different skills are usually obtained from distant places. In the kilns studied in Punjab, for instance, there were workers from Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan besides workers from the state. A unique aspect of the kilns studied in Punjab was that most of the workers (86 per cent) came from within Punjab itself.

There exists perceptible occupational rigidity, such as caste or geographically determined specialisation of work. All the jalai workers were from Uttar Pradesh. Although about 60 per cent of workers from Punjab were engaged in patheri work, they were also engaged in nikasi (19 per cent) and bharai (22 per cent) work.

Factors that Accentuate Vulnerability: Caste, Landlessness and Illiteracy

Certain factors were common to all workers—factors that contributed to the vulnerability of potential brick-kiln workers before they choose to work in brick kilns. First, 97 per cent of the workers were dalits; all the patheris were dalits(99.4 per cent of those from Punjab were dalits). Jalais, who hailed from Uttar Pradesh, constituted most of the non-dalits reported in the study.

The second glaring element was the landlessness of the people. Ninety Eight per cent possessed less than 0.5 acres of land and 70 per cent were landless. Moreover, 98 per cent of the landless and 98 per cent of those having less than 0.5 acres of land were dalits. These figures correspond to the macro data on dalits in Punjab. The status of being a dalit and the condition of being landless combine to create a deadly vulnerability cocktail that makes them bonded labourers in brick kilns.

 

Punjab has the distinction of having the highest percentage of Scheduled Castes (31.9 per cent) of its total population, according to Census 2011. At the same time, Punjab also has the distinction of having the lowest share of dalits owning agricultural land (2.34 per cent). An obvious mismatch. Three aspects of this situation stand out. Despite being thelargest community in the state, very few dalitsown land other than the homestead land. Second, very few among these are farmers. According to the 2004–05 NSSO data, 88.9 per cent dalits in Punjab did not own any land other than homesteads as a proportion of all households (Bakshi, 2008). Dalit settlements are in the outskirts of the villages and, in many instances, even the homestead land does not belong to them. Third, landlessness has made dalits bereft of political power in the state. Various studies and scholars have pointed out this situation in Punjab, wherein despite the absence of the ‘purity-pollution syndrome’ in Punjab, the practice of untouchability in the state is seen in the deliberate denial to dalits of land ownership and political power in the state (Jodhka, 2002; Puri, 2003; Ronki Ram, 2011).

Table 1: State of Origin and Work in Kiln

	Bharai	Jalai	Nikasi	Pather
Chhattisgarh	0	0	0	1
Punjab	31	0	36	96
Rajasthan	0	0	5	1
Uttar Pradesh	3	10	3	3

Importantly, land reforms have failed to mitigate the situation by providing land to the landless dalits in the state. Under the Punjab Land Reforms Act 1972, said to be one of the most liberal land-ceiling laws (Randhawa 2013), an owner may hold up to 32 acres, if it is barren and without irrigation facilities. It has also been pointed out that the entrenched capitalist mode of agriculture in Punjab has made land reforms redundant. The implementation of the Tenancy Act, providing security of tenure, has led to transfer of land from small owners to large owners, who are leasing land from the former to have big holdings for cultivation on capitalist lines (Gill, 1989).

 

Landlessness of the dalitsmeans they are available for work as labourers. However, they do not prefer agricultural work. Seventy-eight per cent of the current sample said that they took up non-agricultural work during the off-season. This finding was in line with the observation made by Jodhkain a recent study of two villages in nearby Haryana,“Even though they continue to be landless, dalits no longer like working as labourers in the farms....Working with farmers implied accepting their domination and power.” (Jodhka, 2012) A consequence of this distancing of dalits from agrarian economy and non-availability of remunerative non-agricultural employment was that they remained relatively without work during the off-season (for brick kilns). This was also the period when workers took advance payment from prospective brick kiln owners through their agents.

 

The third element that contributes to the vulnerability of brick kiln workers istheir chronic illiteracy. The illiteracy level was as high as 71 per cent in the sample. Education is necessarily numerical literacy, the absence of which has deprived the brick kiln workers have a grasp on their work, wages, loans and deductions. Education is also that which will give workers the capacity to understand exploitative processes and take corrective measures. High levels of illiteracy create impediments to having informed negotiations with employers and their agents in the labour market and at work.

 

Workers enter the brick-kiln labour market in this condition of vulnerability, which is exploited by the industry. Two factors guide the workers into an employer-employee relationship that is exploitative and akin to slavery. These are (i) the role of the contractor and (ii) the power of the monetary advance or loan, as a pre-requisite for gaining employment in brick kilns.

Exercise of Powers of Ownership

Role of the Contractor

Contractors are central in the structuring of the labour market in brick kilns. Despite the majority of workers being from the same or nearby districts in Punjab, there was no worker in the sample who was not linked to a contractor. Workers will not be in action in brick kilns if they are not linked to a contractor. What functions does the contractor satisfy?

 

The contractor can be seen as part of a triangular relationship: contractor-community, contractor-employer and contractor-worker. The relationship is continuous through the ‘work-cycle’ of the labourers before, during and after they work in the kiln. No worker engaged in direct manufacturing of bricks in a kiln is independent of a contractor. It means that ‘free labour’ does not have direct access to the kiln. Even if the worker is from the same locality, she/ he necessarily is attached to a contractor.

 

The contractor identifies the workers, links them to a kiln, gives them advance, ensures that they work to repay the loan, monitors the workers so that they do not run away and ensures that the employer does not lose the money that has been advanced.

 

Contractors are usually from the same caste as that of the workers, demonstrating certain rigidity in the brick-kiln labour market. For example, the contractors for patherisare dalits whereas the contractors for jalaisare other backward castes (OBCs). The rigidity is also manifested in occupational ‘closeness’ rather than specialisation in labour supply; the patheri contractor supplies only patherilabour and the nikasi contractor supplies only nikasilabour. Caste-determined occupational trades, reinforced by caste-determined labour sourcing and supply, keep brick-kiln labour markets closed and rigid.

The Status of Being Bonded

Advance as a General Condition of Bondage

The system of taking loan is so pervasive that among the brick-kiln workers interviewed, 94 per cent said that they had taken advance. Over 99 per cent of thepatheris had taken advance, showing that they were the most vulnerable. Interestingly, 30 per cent of the jalais had not taken advance. This could be linked to two other parameters—the caste to which the worker belongs and control of key resources, such as ownership of land. Ninety-four per cent each of the landless and those who own less than 0.5 acres of land had taken advance. Whereas about 17 per cent from the general category had not taken advance, only 6 per cent among the dalits had not.

 

Considering the source of income and assets of the workers, the advance they receive is quite high. In the study, 61 per cent took more than Rs30,000 as advance; 35 per cent took more than Rs50,000 and 17 per cent took more than Rs70,000.Arelevant question is whether workers can obtain work in a brick kiln without receiving an advance. Only6.5 per cent workers in the sample did not take an advance, which points to the possibility of obtaining work in the kiln without taking an advance.

 

Workers took advances mainly to meet daily expenses (51 per cent). Advances were taken during the lean season when work was not available and used for daily expenses. Moreover, the weekly payment they received when they were at work was not sufficient to meet their daily expenses.Significantly, 17 per cent considered taking an advance as mandatory to secure work in the brick kiln. Other major reasons for taking an advance have been health (9 per cent) and marriage (6.7 per cent) expenses. About 5 per cent of the workers (nikasi and bharai) took the advance to purchase tractors for carrying bricks.

 

The weekly payment (for daily expenditure) by the employer is added to the advance account and adjusted against wages at the end of the season. No one reported any other way of settling the debt. Of those who had taken an advance, 72 per cent were in the same kiln for more than one year, 8 per cent for more than 15 years and 29 per cent for more than five years. Workers explained the situation this way, “If we earn more wages, we can take some money home. In case the expenditure money and the advance is more than our wages, we then either have to work in the same kiln next year or we are asked to stay back in kiln during the off-season period. We are made to do some work in the kiln and forced to work in the next season too.”Of the 6.5 per cent,who had not taken an advance,it remains to be seen how long they can remain debt-free.

 

There is no transparent and verifiable process of wage determination and wage settlement against advances. Whereas the contractors claim that they do not take a commission from workers, the testimonials of workers are to the contrary. One nikasi worker from RK Brick Kiln said, “On an average, 10 nikasi workers take out around 35,000–40,000 bricks per day. At present,nikasi workers get Rs 195 for 1,000 bricks. The contractor’s share is 10 per cent of the payment to each nikasi worker he has recruited.” At any rate, there is no transparent system in which the advance is adjusted against the wage. If the employer decides that the wages the worker earned during a season are not equivalent to the advance he took, workers are compelled to stay back during the lean season or to work against the old advance in the succeeding season, by which time the worker would have taken another advance, perpetuating bondage.

Exploitation and Forced Labour Conditions

Freedom of Mobility

The system of working against advances has implications for the freedom of mobility of workers. We have already seen that the role of the contractor, once a worker is in the kiln, is to ensure that he works, does not run away and repays the advance. Employers also engage security guards, who ensure that workers do not run away. There are three compelling factors that keep workers within the premises of the kiln. One, the advance system makes it obligatory on the part of the workers to remain in the kiln. They also feel it is unethical and wrong to change the brick kiln of a person, who lent them money. Second, advances and payments through the mediation of a contractor give little scope for workers to find another brick kiln where they can work. Work is seldom freely available. Third, the remuneration for almost all activities in the kiln is on a piece-rate basis; workers,thus, prefer to work long and odd hours, to produce more units, earn more to pay back the loan and make some additional earning. Therefore, the structure and logic of work in the brick kiln is mobility restrictive. The only way in which they can move out of the kiln without being assaulted is to obtain an advance from another employer to pay back the advance of the original employer and to continue to work to repay the advance from the second employer.

Problem of the Determination of Wages

Besides a lack of transparency in the payment of advances, the distribution of expenditure money and the final settlement, there are three factors that create a situation in which “the products of labour of the individual of servile status become the property of the master without any compensation commensurate to the value of the labour.” First, workers, especially patheris, who constitute the majority, are not recruited as individual workers but as families. The contract the employer gives the contractor is to procure worker families. Families come to a brick kiln, stay as a family, work as a family. A family necessarily includes the wife, husband, brother, children. Second, this arrangement results in a gross undervaluation and intensification of women’s work. Women work long hours not only in the kilns but also at home, cooking and managing the children. All women in the sample worked above 10 hours in a day, with about 50 per cent saying they worked for more than 12 hours a day. However, women are seldom considered individual workers; they are appendages of males and the settlement of their wages is done with the men unless they represent single women households. Third, children assist parents in brick-making;their contribution is again unaccounted for. A patheri’s children, between the age of 4 and 8 years, help in rotating bricks to dry them in the sunlight. Children of 8–12 years of age also carry bricks on their own or on the redi to their parents. A patheri from NF brick kiln observed, “One person from the family will get up early in morning and mix soil with water; then the entire family starts moulding bricks. The number of bricks produced largely depends on the number of working members in a patheri family. On an average, one family produces around 500–800 bricks in a day. We get wages on piece-rate,that is, at Rs 432 per 1,000 bricks.”

 

The method of wage determination in brick kilns is such that the wages are never commensurate with the value of labour input by the workers. Moreover, it is extremely exclusionary and discriminatory. Brick kilns are in the schedule of the Minimum Wages Act 1948 and the government of Punjab publishes the minimum wages of brick-kiln workers. The declared minimum wages are for per thousand units, giving tremendous scope for employers to manipulate the compensation package. Figures that the workers are quoting as the wages they receive are not tallying with the piece-rate wages declared by the government, indicating restricted flow of information on wages to the workers and scope for adjustments by the contractors and the management.

 

If we take the upper limit of the wage range reported by the patheris (800 bricks per day), 26 days of continuous work will yield 24,000 bricks, which must give them Rs20,800 a month. Assuming the average size of a patheri family to be five, this monthly earning works out to a per capita per day income of Rs69.00 (US$1.1), barely sufficient for subsistence living and much below the international standards of poverty.

Poor and Dehumanising Working Conditions

In Punjab, kilns are registered under the Factory Act 1947, which makes it obligatory on the part of factory management to provide certain amenities at the workplace, such as safe drinking water, separate toilets for men and women, a crèche for children, etc. It also stipulates the working hours, safety at the workplace, maintenance of muster rolls and provision of ID cards. Being an organised industry, the kiln management is also expected to follow the provisions of the Payment of Wages Act as well as social security Acts such as the Gratuity Act, Provident Fund Act and Maternity Benefit Act.

 

Even for the most basic rights, such as access to drinking water, 22 per cent reported in the negative, and 58 per cent said that they do not have toilets at their workplace. Eighty-four per cent said that there was no separate toilet for women workers. In the brick kilns, there is no major distinction between the working and the living places. The absence of toilets, specifically for women, therefore, means that women—young, pregnant and old—compromise on their basic physical needs of sanitation. This compromise they make day and night, so long as they are in the brick kiln. Women are forced to defecate and take bath in the open. The contribution of the denial of basic amenities and systematic de-humanisation and humiliation of workers, on their status and condition of servility,cannot be overlooked.

 

A similar pattern is seen with respect to other legal entitlements and welfare benefits provided to all citizens. Seventy-nine per cent said that the ration card does not help them to access food, 98 per cent said that the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana had not helped them in securing health benefits, 80 per cent do not have a caste certificate or an MNREGA card, 78 per cent are without a personal bank account. Surprisingly, 25 per cent said that they did not hold a Voter ID Card and, among them, 94 per cent are above 18 years of age.

Conclusion

The examination of the status and the conditions of work of brick-kiln workers in Punjab, in light of the definition of slavery in UN Conventions, ILO Conventions on Forced Labour and the Indian law against bonded labour, corroborates the argument that brick-kiln workers are subjected to contemporary forms of slavery. Caste, landlessness and illiteracy augment the vulnerability of people; labour against mandatory advance defines their status of being slaves; exploitative conditions of work that denies full realisation of their labour, restrictions on mobility and denial of access to basic entitlements and social protection reinforces servility. The ubiquitous contractors, who dominate the labour market, cement the exercise of ownership-like powers over the workers—albeit in varying degrees, but undeniable, by the employers and the contractors.

 

The brick kilns in India call for radical restructuring of the way the industry is organised, the technology employed and the labour market functions. Slavery in brick kilns cannot be the edifice on which the super structure of liberal and democratic India is built.


This article is based on a study conducted as part of an ongoing intervention in the brick kilns of Punjab to end bonded labour. Volunteers for Social Justice (VSJ), Punjab and Centre for Education and Communication (CEC) are partners.
The field research, interviews and case studies for this article were done by Bhupali Vitthal Magare (CEC).

Please see the References and Reading List for this article at the end of the journal.

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