“I can make my own choices and decisions. … I have freedom.”

Muthu* was eight years old when he was sent to work in a brick kiln by his family. Though he was only a child, he spent seven days a week working, carrying 40-pound loads of bricks on his head and engaging in other tasks of hard physical labor. After 10 years at the kiln, he was offered a new position by the owner of a different brick kiln. As enticement to accept the job, the owner offered Muthu a loan of about $150 to be used for his immediate expenses.

At the new kiln, instead of being given better opportunities, Muthu was enslaved and oppressed. Laborers were not allowed to leave the facility, nor could they take days off. If rain prevented the workers from making bricks in the daytime, the owner demanded that they work through the night to make up for the lost time. Muthu recalls, “They forced us to work even when we were sick. … And they used to beat us up if we did not work.”

At the new kiln, Muthu’s first job was to mix the clay that was made into bricks by working it into a soft paste with his bare feet. There were often hidden shards of glass and metal in the clay, making this work not only physically exhausting, but dangerous. Eventually, the kiln owner changed Muthu’s job to brick maker. He and the other laborers were expected by the kiln owner to produce 1,000 bricks every day.

For all the labor he performed, Muthu was promised payment slightly over the Indian minimum wage. In reality, Muthu received far less than this – just cents a day for food. When he asked the owner about the large deductions from his wages, he was told that they were applied toward the loan Muthu had received before beginning work at the kiln. Despite these regular deductions, however, Muthu’s balance had not decreased. Instead, his debt had swelled to over three times the amount of money he had initially borrowed. The owner held this inflated debt over Muthu’s head as the chief means to coerce his labor: “This is how they forced me to work,” recounts Muthu. “I was not even sure if the debt was real.”

Despite the fact that he was receiving no real salary and was not allowed to leave the kiln or take time off, and was subject to the physical abuse of the mill owner, Muthu did not realize that he was being held as a slave, in violation of Indian national laws. He remained trapped inside the kiln for more than five years, where he worked endless hours though sickness and injury.

Muthu was released from slavery when IJM and local government officials acted to free the laborers held in the brick kiln. Upon their release, Muthu, his wife – whom he had married in the kiln – and his young son were given official certificates from the government verifying their status as emancipated slaves and entitling them to government assistance.

With the money provided to him by the government upon his release, Muthu used the expertise he had gained under such adverse circumstances to open his own brick kiln. Today, he employs his wife, sister, uncle, brother and sister-in-law, along with several members of the community and pays them all fair wages. Muthu sets some of the profits aside for savings and was recently able to purchase goats for his father, which will generate further income for the family.

However, for Muthu, the most exciting aspect of his new life is not the kiln, or the animals he has purchased, or even the savings accounts. It is freedom, no longer an abstraction to him. Muthu recently told IJM staff, “I can make my own choices and decisions. If I am not well, I don’t have to ask anyone to take leave. I have freedom. I have peace of mind.”