Poor economic conditions, and scarcity of food, water and work create ideal conditions for people to recruit labor. In Pakistan, this also helps human traffickers to operate under the guise of recruiters, moving large numbers of laborers to jobs around the country. And also, children.
In the shipyards of Gaddani, a city near Karachi, we found boys as young as 13 to 15 years of age, engaged in hard physical labor during the day, while they cohabited shared sleeping spaces with other laborers, mostly older men, at night.
The focus here isn't the harsh working and living conditions. But rather the unprotected nature of their lives, with coyotes being their only link with home. We also wanted to highlight the many layers of manipulation by 'employers', 'wardens' and 'recruiters' that brings the boys to the shipyards for work, then binds them through debt and poverty.
This video was filmed and edited in 2004-2005.
