Pakistan (MNN) — The economy in Pakistan is heavily built on a form of modern day slavery: brick kilns, an industry that is explorative and widely accepted in the country, but also offers an opportunity for evangelism.
Nearly every commercial and residential building in Pakistan is built of bricks made in over 14,000 brick kilns scattered across the country. These kilns are operated by 4.5 million enslaved people.
Greg Kelley with Unknown Nations says that often what happens is that vulnerable people will be exploited by slave owners offering to pay their bills for them and their families. In exchange, the whole family becomes bonded to the brick kiln owner.
“And in many instances, I mean, we’ve met people that have been in these kilns for 20 and 30 years,” Kelley said. “So once they get into the brick kilns, they literally never come out.”
Brick kiln workers often never leave. Photo courtesy of Arsalanashraff71 via Wikimedia Commons.
Though technically illegal, politicians in Pakistan frequently succumb to bribery and ignore criminal activity happening in these kilns including organ harvesting and trafficking children of kiln workers.
Kelley believes that since this type of indentured servitude has been part of the culture in Pakistan for so long, it has become widely accepted.
“But I think that it’s the lowest caste, most vulnerable people who don’t have any influence,” Kelley said. “And so, you know, nobody cares about that. So they’re the ones who will suffer the most.”
However, for Kelley and his team, these brick kilns offer an opportunity for ministry.
By paying the owners of the kiln around $2,500, they can essentially buy the freedom of the workers for a day, allowing their team access to provide a meal, a time of rest, and the Gospel message to the kiln workers.
Kelley describes these days as holidays for the kiln workers. Since many of these people work every day from around five in the morning to six at night, they never have a complete day off.
“So it’s a real celebration when they do get their time off,” Kelley said. “And when we come in, we share the Gospel always. So many of these slaves, because they suffer so much, their hearts are wide open to the message of hope.”
Every time this happens, people come to Christ. Even more, recently kiln owners – a traditionally Muslim group – have increasingly been giving their lives to Christ.
Transformation happens when these owners come to know Christ, changing their behavior and setting slaves free.
“But that’s the evidence and the impact of the Gospel,” Kelley said.
From this, the kilns then offer an opportunity to establish churches. With kiln workers sharing close quarters and gathering together regularly, new believers naturally worship together, pray together, and create disciples of other kiln workers, aided by the audio Bibles Kelley’s team leaves them with.
In many communities in Pakistan, Islamic forces often impose anti-conversion laws on Christians. However, inside brick kilns, Kelley has seen success in discipleship due to the close-knit communities built there.
“Jesus said to care for the least of these,” Kelley said. “And it’s hard to think of the slaves in the brick kilns of Pakistan as being nothing other than the least of these, but these people are precious in the sight of Jesus. We need to be praying for them, lifting them up, many of them we haven’t been able to get to yet…are suffering just terribly.”
Kelley calls for prayers for Pakistani Christians to be raised up to go into the brick kiln mission field and be mobilized to create disciples from these enslaved people.
Though a harsh mission field, Kelley prays that God will send more people into these places to share the good news of the Gospel.
Header photo courtesy of Dolon Prova via Wikimedia Commons.
