The world's slave - debt camp has 45 million people

Azad Nagar is a small country, about 200km north of Karachi City in Pakistan. Most of the homes in this community that live in an area of 11 hectares are made of baked mud and straw roofs tied together.

Azad Nagar means free land. Earth was purchased in 2006 by the Green Organisation of Rural Development (GRDO), a Pakistani NGO, with the help of Action Aid.

“The concept of Azad Nagar was of a transit camp where the workers released from debt slavery come and stay before they find another”Says Ghulam Haider, one of GRDO's cofounders for Al Jazeera.

Today, more than 100 families live in this camp, where homes have no electricity or water. Pakistan is known as a predominantly Muslim country, but the majority of its inhabitants are Hindus, and they also have a small temple where they pray.

Almost 45.8 million people worldwide are “connected by forced labour” due to debt.

Pakistan is home to over two million of them, according to the Global Slave Index.

A small loan borrowed from a worker, a small project, or a marriage may soon turn into a spiral for him. The owner finds every excuse for “captured”, enslaving him. Some of them seek help, or they emigrate in the inability to pay off the debt.

Otherwise called “The labor connected” can be found in agriculture, mineral industry, fishing or brick ovens.

The situation these people find themselves with is something I can't describe”, Says activist Syeda Ghulam Fatima, who has won an award for her engagement.

The parliament building you see is made of bricks these people have made, but there is no law that helps them. Hospitals are made of bricks, but there is no health structure for them. There is no education for these poor people even in schools made of bricks. There is no justice for them, although courts are built with bricks made in hot ovens”, She said.