Every day, religious minorities in Pakistan face extreme persecution and systemic discrimination.
We fight against that.
WE EDUCATE AND EMPOWER
Women without education are treated worse than property in Pakistan. They are responsible for raising children, taking care of the household, and in some cases supporting the entire family.
They endure abusive relationships and are often forced into sex slavery or bonded labor.
Because girls are considered a financial burden, parents sell their daughters into domestic servitude, prostitution, or forced marriages, and women are traded between tribal groups to settle disputes or as payment for debts. They are forced to endure abusive relationships for the sake of honor.
Women fleeing from these relationships find a safe shelter at RAM’s Sablone House, where they can learn skills and basic business practices to become self-sustaining and care for themselves and their children.
We have chosen to focus on skills that are quickly marketable in rural settings. Our local female teachers train women in tailoring. After training, the women are able to earn a living from their newly acquired skills or sell their manufactured goods to the local community.
WE HEAL THE SICK
In partnership with World Compassion Foundation, RAM’s new medical clinic provides medical care free of charge to those in need in the community and at brick kilns. 100 people arrived for care on the first day.
Mothers in particular receive special attention as they are the central pillar of a family unit. When they are sick, weak or dying, the whole family system collapses.
Unfortunately, young women do not get proper care while they are children, and most of them are physically very weak at the time they become mothers. As girls are married at a very early age, they are physically, mentally and emotionally inadequately equipped to handle their pregnancies. Without proper help and education, they are at great risk of dying while giving birth and their babies are born very weak or even in many cases, die in infancy.
WE fight for justice
RAM Foundation provides free legal aid to the oppressed who have no financial resources and no assistance. Our most common cases include defending brick kiln workers, women sexually assaulted, and minorities being taken advantage of and constantly harassed.
Often minorities are tortured and detained by employers for arbitrary reasons such as the employer not wanting to pay the employee or attempting to force the employee to convert to Islam. Legal action can initiate a swift response to recover the detained person who will urgently need medical care.
Please check out our stories of rescue to learn more.
We free slaves
Many kinds of human trafficking thrive in Pakistan, but the largest is that of bonded labor which is concentrated in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab, particularly in brick kilns.
It is estimated that over one million men, women, and children are in bonded labor in Pakistan today, working in brick-making, carpet-making, agriculture, fishing, mining, leather-tanning and production of glass bangles.
When faced with unforeseen expenses (often medical emergencies) many poor and middle-class families fall prey to manipulative groups or feudal owners, who deceive desperate people by promising reasonable loan terms, or by promising to send a family member overseas for gainful employment.
Instead, the entire family is forced to work from dawn to dusk for pitiful wages, if paid at all. They are guarded like prisoners by armed guards and most brick kilns are in the middle of the countryside, so they have no opportunity to escape.
Even after many years of bonded labor, the uneducated workers are repeatedly told by the owner that their debt is still outstanding. All sorts of arguments are used so as to make their release impossible. Local police and authorities are often complicit.
RAM raises funds to negotiate the loan repayment by a donor and free families, who stay at RAM’s Sablone House as they find new employment.
Please visit our success stories to read about rescues RAM has facilitated.
As an indigenous organization, we are acutely aware of the needs local religious minorities have.
SUCCESS STORIES
Farzana’s Rescue
Farzana and Babar were a young Christian couple with two children, Sharon and Fariha, who worked in a brick kiln. RAM came to meet Farzana when she attended a vocational training workship hosted by...
Imran’s Rescue
In January 2019, Imran was working in a textile factory as a sweeper but had not received his salary since the previous October. Every time he asked his manager, he was told that he would get it in...
Arif Masih & Family’s rescue
Arif Masih is a poor Christian man born in a brick kiln where his father and grandfathers were working as a slave. Nasreen, his wife, has the same background. They got married in a brick kiln with...
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