PESHAWAR - Over half a million Afghan brick-kiln workers, most of them children, are caught in debt traps across Pakistan and unable to join the stream of refugees trickling back home, according to OneWorld.Net.

These Afghans fled to Pakistan in the early 1980s after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Since then, they have lived and worked in unhygienic conditions in the premises of the brick kilns.

You could call them castaway refugees. Neither the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) nor the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees (CAR), agencies responsible for refugee care, has registered them because they are scattered across Pakistan, away from the refugee camps.

All-Afghanistan Federation of Labor Unions secretary-general Mir Ali says these Afghan men, women and children are only sinking deeper into debt by the day. Owning little more than the shirts on their backs, the refugees have been in debt since the very day of their arrival from Afghanistan, having taken loans from kiln owners to get on with their daily lives and agreeing to work for them in order to repay the loans.

But it only turned out to be a vicious cycle. Not only have the refugees failed to pay back the principal, they're also adding to the ballooning interest by borrowing just a little more to meet their daily expenses. Each family now owes anything between US $ 80 and US $ 1,300.

With dirt-poor wages, their chances of getting out on their own look slim. The workers get paid around US $ 2 for making 1,000 bricks. But it is impossible for a single person to meet the target. So the women and children pitch in, too.

Despite the collective effort, the wages earned aren't enough to feed the family, which means another reluctant trip to the kiln owner for yet another loan.

Widows and women also toil in the brick kilns. Gul Zari, 50, a widow, owes a little more than US $ 200 and she works as bonded labor with her two sons and two daughters. "I make 600 bricks a day with the help of my children for which I receive Rs 70 (about US $ 1.20). The amount isn't enough to feed my children so I am compelled to borrow more from the kiln owner," she says.

The debt trap apart, most of the children suffer from skin diseases, mental disorders and cancers of the kidney and blood. Those who aren't sick or dying suffer from severe malnutrition because of an unbalanced diet.

The children don't have any educational or health facilities and, strangely, non-governmental organizations working for the welfare of Afghans seem to have ignored this aspect.

Some kiln owners don't release the refugees even after they've got their money back. Refugees who try to resist this are often implicated in crimes and harassed by the local police. For such rapacious kiln owners, the refugees are too cheap a source of labor to let go.

The legal counselor of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Syed Shabir Ahmad, says a brick kiln owner kept in illegal confinement 97 Afghans who had repaid their loans and had been registered by the UNHCR for repatriation. It was only through mediation that the NRC was able to convince the kiln owners and send the Afghans home.

Ahmad says the NRC provides only legal assistance. He says the NGO has settled 113 cases of police harassment and 40 cases were settled through mediation.

Ahmad says even if the Afghans are released under the Bonded Labor Law, they face the risk of being dragged back by Afghan contractors with powerful connections back home. These contractors provided the surety for the loans given by the kiln owners.

Ali says international agencies must dig deeper into their wallets. "We have appealed to the UNHCR and the International Labor Organization to secure the release of these bonded laborers by paying off their debts. Temporary camps could be set up in Afghanistan so after repatriation they could live there till alternative arrangements are made," he says.

But Ali also points out that 70 per cent of the Afghans working as bonded labor do not have any personal property, house or business back in Afghanistan and if repatriated, they would be jobless and homeless.

Kiln owners reject allegations of cruelty and say the refugees are free to go if they repay the loans. One such owner, Rehmanud Din, says the loans aren't given with a view to trap the Afghan refugees.

The refugees, says Rehmanud, borrow money for weddings, medical treatment and other major needs and in return they work in their kilns. "We provide them free accommodation, electricity and drinking water," he claims.

He says the refugees' dealings aren't entirely above board. "Recently, a refugee named Gul Rahim took a loan of US $ 200 from me and with that he bought opium in Afghanistan. He will resell it for a profit," he says.

That's Rehmanud Din's side of the story, but the sight of thousands of little boys and girls toiling away the best years of their life in the pits tells an entirely different tale.