Help us to call out investors and officials driving modern slavery, child labour and dangerous working conditions within Cambodian brick kilns.

Cambodia is in the midst of a construction boom fuelling the demand for huge quantities of bricks. Our academic research has uncovered evidence that this demand is being met through debt-bonded labour, with 10,000 adults and children working in appalling conditions including slavery.

Our research suggests that the kiln workers ordinarily begin as indebted farmers and labourers in rural Cambodia. Due to floods and droughts brought about by climate change, as well as a lack of affordable health services and an under-regulated microfinance sector, their debts begin to spiral. They then have no choice but to accept loans from brick factories.

In return for such loans, whole families are forced to move to brick kilns to work off their debt bond. Wages are very low, so many workers take years to pay back their debt-bond, or even pass it on to the next generation. Children as young as 12 have to work on-site producing these 'blood bricks', even though child labour is illegal in Cambodia. Labourers are commonly prohibited from leaving, and are often arrested and brought back if they try to escape. Conditions in the kilns are dire, with many reported injuries and even unexplained deaths.

It is a grave injustice that people should be exploited in this way. It is especially shocking because their labour is being used primarily to build luxury hotels and tower blocks – some of which appear to be funded by western banks and invested in by UK pension funds.

We intend to expose irresponsible kiln owners and investors who have profited from debt bondage, and turned a blind eye.

In 2018, we produced a report shining a light on this issue, which you can read here.

The practices have not changed: families are still suffering, and children are still being robbed of their childhood by debt bonded labour in these kilns. Furthermore, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, an employment crisis in Cambodia means that thousands more families will likely move to brick kilns in the coming months as a way of paying off debts.

Now, we want to bring legal action to hold the individuals and corporations responsible to account, but we can only do so with your help. 

Our intention is to submit a petition to the UN, in order to expose abuses of both investors and officials. We want to ensure that brick workers receive fair wages, good working conditions, and ideally compensation for past exploitation. These petitions have a history of leading to real change. 

Before we bring any legal action, we need to raise money to carry out independent investigative work to produce evidence suitable for use in court which tests our academic findings, so our legal team may provide full advice. Please support us and ensure that debt bondage and child labour are no longer an acceptable means of providing profits for construction tycoons and brick sector industrialists.

Thank you.

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Our team

Blood Bricks research team, receiving legal advice from Payne Hicks Beach and a group of barristers

We are 3 academics - Prof Katherine Brickell, Dr Laurie Parsons (both Royal Holloway, University of London) and Dr Nithya Natarajan (King’s College London). We are currently receiving legal advice pro bono from a legal team at Payne Hicks Beach, and barristers Ben Douglas-Jones QC, 5 Paper Buildings, Shu Shin Luh, Doughty Street Chambers, and Ella Gunn, Garden Court Chambers.

The Blood Bricks study has been shortlisted for “Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences” by the Times Higher Education Awards 2020. Please note that legal advice by its nature may suggest exploring other avenues of litigation and we reserve the right to apply funds raised to other aspects of litigation to expose these human rights abuses.

Credit: Photograph of a child labourer in a Cambodian brick kiln by Thomas Cristofoletti (copyright Thomas Cristofoletti/ Ruom https://www.thomascristofoletti.com)