Idaho resident Aaron Hutchings arrived at a Pakistani brick factory in January.The devout Christian told Fox News Digital that he was shocked to see children turning bricks under the hot sun to work off the debts that their families had incurred, sometimes over the course of generations.Within hours of his arrival, Hutchings paid off the debts for two enslaved Christian families and escorted them to freedom, breaking the "curse that they’ve had for hundreds of years."There are up to one million Christians working in slave and bonded labor in Pakistan, according to Emma Hall, a persecution researcher working with charity Open Doors U.K.
and Ireland, told Fox News Digital.This could comprise as much as 30% of Pakistani Christians, counted at 3.3 million in the 2023 census and accounting for 1.37 percent of the population.WATCHDOG HIGHLIGHTS NATIONS WHERE CHRISTIANS FACE PERSECUTION AROUND THE GLOBEAfter paying the debts of a family of Pakistani Christians, Aaron Hutchings embraces newly-freed brick laborers. (Courtesy: Aaron Hutchings)Hall noted that "extreme poverty drives desperate families to accept advance loans (peshgri) for emergency and basic needs, trapping them in cycles of debt bondage where repayment systems are structured in ways that make exit extremely difficult."Emmanuel Hernandez said he was shocked when he first heard that Christians in Pakistan were living in debt-based enslavement in Pakistan’s brick-making industry.
After traveling to Pakistan to meet the woman who would later become his wife, Hernandez witnessed bonded laborers at a brick factory for the first time."Never in my life have I seen such hopelessness," he told Fox News Digital."At that moment, I committed myself to rescuing one family a year for the rest of my life."In January 2025, Hernandez started the nonprofit Project Jubilee.
He says that it is "by the grace of God" that people have already donated enough through the nonprofit to save 300 Pakistanis from slavery.GRAHAM FA...