January 29, 2026
By Aitzaz Ibrahim & Mateen Ali
In 1988, Darshan Masih and twenty other bonded laborers, held in forced confinement on Punjab’s brick kilns under the peshgi system, wrote a letter to the Supreme Court of Pakistan through human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir. That letter led the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice for the first time in Pakistan’s history, recognizing a letter as a human rights petition under Article 184(3). The Court ruled that slavery and forced labor have no place in the Constitution and declared the peshgi system illegal, holding it in violation of Article 11. The judgment went beyond the release of the workers and became the constitutional foundation for the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1992. Today, the case of Darshan Masih remains a legal reference whenever workers are trapped in debt, confinement, or forced labor.