New York Photographer Raises $2Mln to Fight Forced Labor in Pakistan

The obstacles are major – according to Stanton, at least one million men, women and children nationwide are facing a lifetime of growing debt and hard labor in the kilns, the wealthy kiln owners are so influential that police and officials protect them and Fatima has been threatened, beaten, electrocuted and even shot because of her work. Now his debt is 350,000, the equivalent of $3,400. In Pakistan, Syeda Ghulam Fatima has worked tirelessly to fight against the evils of bonded labour in her country.

But fans of Humans of New York have stepped up to help her quest against bonded labor.

“Throughout rural Pakistan, illiterate and desperate laborers are tricked into accepting small loans in exchange for agreeing to work at brick kilns for a small period of time”, Stanton wrote in one of a series of posts dedicated to the exploitation. “Iran holds a special place in my heart because it was the first worldwide trip that I ever made with HONY”, said Stanton in a Facebook post on Wednesday evening, returning to the country after three years. And, as heartbreaking as Fatima’s story is, it’s incredibly moving to know how powerful social media (despite all its negatives) can be in improving the lives of people around the globe. We tried to raise the money to save her. We sold our cattle.

Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind the popular blog Humans of New York, has been traveling in Pakistan for a couple of weeks now.

However, according to a recent ILO report – and the testimonies of workers – the problem persists.

A spokesperson for PILER said it estimated there were 10-12 million people in bonded labor in Pakistan, out of a population of around 191 million.

To help Fatima reach her goal of, as Stanton puts it, “providing education, legal assistance, and rehabilitation” to these workers, Stanton created an Indiegogo campaign that aims to raise money for the cause (he notes that Fatima’s organization now functions on a very limited budget).

“I was walking to court to attend a hearing against a kiln owner when suddenly I was surrounded by a group of men”, she said.

Within 72 hours, it had doubled. This month, however, he visited Pakistan and posted images and the stories of the people he encountered there – including Syeda Ghulam Fatima, a campaigner against what’s known as bonded labor. Their stories gathered worldwide attention.

Pakistan passed an act called the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, which includes fines and imprisonments for offenders.