By Bilal Zuberi

Brick making is a valuable industry to Pakistan – indigeneous and providing employment in rural areas where agriculture may not be enough to sustain all the people.

I met today with a German consultant today who has visited Pakistan several times to help local industry improve their brick-makng processes. My meeting encouraged me to learn a bit more about this industry, and how Pakistan fared in it.

I wasn’t surprised to learn we had a large brick industry, but I was horrified to read the work/living conditions of labor that was employed in these brick kilns (bhattis). These photographs depict the difficult lives of labor in this neglected industry, but also highlight how application of new technologies and mechanization can be useful.

Many brick factories today are built in extremely rural areas, and often employ the poorest (and most vulnerable) people from our society. Afghan refugees, for example, easily find employment in brick kilns since they are more willing to work under the gruesome conditions in the field than to return back to the troubles in their own country. As such, it has become more common to see a worseing of the work conditions,

Adil Najam

This was not a very good weekend for tailors in Karachi. The first headline to catch my attention was The News (9 June, 2006) proclaiming:

Doctor held for stealing kidney

And then there was the second one, also in The News on, same day:

Murdered for illicit sexual liaisons

It turns out that both headlines are about tailors (the second one about a ‘tailor master’). But let me let the news-item speak for itself.

Adil Najam

This picture just brought back a flood of memories.

This picture was taken in Peshawar in May this year. But it could have been me so many years ago. I remember that blue sweater, that tie that never kept in place (that is before the uniforms changed to ‘malitia’ shalwar qameez), those pale-yellow choona painted walls (or pale green or pale blue).

The only thing I do not remember is having that big a smile on my face for the morning ‘Assembly’, which I assume this may be. And speaking of smiles, is this not a wonderful, infectious, honest smile.

I wonder, however, what the ‘266’ and ‘306’ written in chalk on that desk signify? Any ideas?

Originally uploaded by annesh on Flickr.com, see here.