Into Pakistan’s Textile Factories

The “haves” have been subjecting the “have-nots” to lives of miserable, crushing toil since polarized hierarchies appeared behind the walls of the world’s first city some 10,000 years ago. The names, faces and technologies change, but so far, the legacy of exploitation remains.

This brief, haunting video takes us to Faisalabad, Pakistan’s largest industrial city, where the ceaseless, clanking thrum of machinery can be heard through the padlocked doors that line many of the city’s filthy, narrow streets, into typical, deafening and dust-filled textile factories, and puts us face to face with child laborers and one of the men who owns them. One boy says he earns 500 rupees a month. That’s less than $6. —ARK

Ammar Aziz: