I love brick houses; specifically the feel of those rectangular blocks. But when I know the hands that made those bricks were of a 12-year-old who couldn’t afford a decent meal in the morning, I don’t want to even see one let alone live in one. I cannot hold a passion for those houses anymore.

Bonded labour is a shameful reality in Pakistan, which many are unaware of, as we celebrated our so called independence last week.

So my question is, are we really free?

Without sounding metaphoric, there are helpless people in our country who have been condemned to lifelong labour without or with less than sufficient wages. Brick kilns are being ruled by the rich and powerful through exploitation of our fellow men’s destitution. The owners lend them money in exchange for labour, which has been seen to bind generations upon generations.

The severity of this situation was made clear to me, an average Pakistani, through the American photographer and journalist Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York. On his tour of Pakistan, he shed light upon the story of Syeda Ghulam Fatima who has been working tirelessly for this cause. She is a Pakistani woman who has been ‘shot, electrocuted, and beaten numerous times for her activism’. She is a Pakistani who is fighting our war alone.