via Humans of New York

“My sister’s kidneys were failing. We tried to raise the money to save her. We sold our cattle. We sold our property. We sold everything we had. When we ran out of options, I took a 5,000 rupee loan from the brick kiln. I thought I could pay it back by working for 15 or 20 days. But when I thought it was time to leave, the kiln owners did the accounts. They told me: ‘You lived in our house. You ate our food. You owe 11,000 now. If you have 11,000 rupees, you can go. Otherwise get back to work.’ They worked me harder. I never saw my wages. If I wanted to stop, they beat me. A few months later, my grandfather died. I asked for a few days off to arrange his funeral. ‘You owe 30,000 rupees now,’ they told me. ‘If you have 30,000 rupees, you can leave. Otherwise get back to work.’ Now I owe 350,000 rupees. And my sister died a long time ago. There’s no way out. Soon my debt will pass on to the next generation.”

*1,000 rupees = $10

(6 of 7)

(Lahore, Pakistan)

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This is the sixth post in a series on Syeda Ghulam Fatima. Known to her admirers as Pakistan’s Harriet Tubman, Fatima has worked tirelessly to eradicate bonded labor—one of the last remaining forms of modern slavery. This man is one of millions of bonded laborers in Pakistan, and one of the tens of thousands who has turned directly to Fatima to help him escape the violence and cruelty of his owners. Fatima has been electrocuted, shot, and repeatedly beaten for her activism. Despite her outsized impact, she operates on a very small budget. So we are raising money to help her in her mission.

Today is the last day of the fundraiser we are holding for Fatima’s organization, The Bonded Labour Liberation Front. We have raised nearly $600,000 so far. ($400,000 in the past six hours). Costs are low in Pakistan, so this sort of money can be leveraged many times over. We are not just increasing Fatima’s abilities to help free people from bondage. We are MULTIPLYING those abilities. Nearly 20,000 people have contributed so far. That is .13 percent of the people who follow this page. If .2 percent of people who follow this page donated, we could empower Fatima with $1,000,000. I encourage everyone to read the previous posts so far, and consider being counted in our effort to aid Fatima’s fight against modern slavery: http://bit.ly/1N9W3Ts