Modern day slavery in Pakistan
A Westminster Hall debate on modern day slavery in Pakistan will take place on Thursday 13 November, from 1.30pm to 3.00pm. The debate was scheduled by the Backbench Business Committee and will be led by Jim Shannon MP.
Concerns have been raised over modern day slavery in Pakistan, and in particular the use of bonded labour, concentrated in the brick kiln, agriculture, and domestic service industries.
Bonded labour in Pakistan, sometimes known as debt bondage, often takes the form of impoverished people taking out loans or a cash advance, and working to pay off this debt. The debt will often spiral due to high interest rates and low wages, forcing those individuals to keep working until their debts are cleared, in often harsh conditions. The debt can sometimes be passed down through the generations.
Walk Free, a human rights group focusing on modern day slavery, produces the Global Slavery Index, an annual estimate of how many people are subject to modern slavery. The 2025 index estimates that over 2.3 million people in Pakistan are living in modern slavery (this includes forced labour, forced marriage or other forms of slavery).
A 2025 report by the US State Department states that “experts estimate 4.5 million workers nationwide are trapped in bonded labour, primarily in Sindh and Punjab provinces”.
Al Jazeera reported in 2019 that almost 70% of bonded labourers in Pakistan are children, and they make up “over one-third of the four million or so people working at brick kilns in Pakistan”. Often these children “work all day and are denied education”.