Iqbal Masih

Iqbal Masih ( pa, اقبال مسیح; 1983 – 16 April 1995) was a Pakistani Christian child labourer and activist who campaigned against abusive child labour in Pakistan.

He was assassinated on 16 April 1995. On 23 March 2022, he was posthumously awarded with the Sitara-e-Shujaat by the government of Pakistan.

Family background and bonded labour

Explaining the background behind bonded labourers in Pakistan, American professor C. Christine Fair states that "Large numbers of Christians in the Punjab and Sindh, in particular, are trapped in bonded labour or slavery in work like brick kilns and carpet-weaving. Around 80% of brick kiln workers in some areas are Christians working to pay off family debts long since paid in absolute terms, yet who are illiterate and remain powerless to do anything about their circumstances. The plight of Pakistan's bonded labourers came to international attention briefly with…12-year-old Christian Iqbal Masih".

Iqbal Masih was born in 1983 in Muridke, a commercial city outside of Lahore in Punjab, Pakistan, into a poor Catholic Christian family. At the age of four, he was sent to work by his family to help them pay off their debts. Iqbal's family borrowed 600 rupees (less than US$12.00 at the time) from a local employer who owned a carpet weaving business. In return, Iqbal was required to work as a carpet weaver until the debt was paid off. Every day, he would rise before dawn and make his way along dark country roads to the factory, where he and most of the other children were tightly bound with chains to the carpet looms to prevent escape. Iqbal knew his debt would not be paid off any time soon and one day could not take it anymore. He ripped one of the carpets and got into serious trouble with the home factory owner Hussain Khan.

Escape and activism

At the age of 10, Iqbal escaped his slavery, after learning that bonded labour had been declared illegal by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He escaped and attempted to report his employer Ashad to the police, but the police brought him back to the factory seeking a finder's fee for returning escaped bonded labourers. Iqbal escaped a second time and attended the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) school for former child slaves and quickly completed a four-year education in only two years. Iqbal helped over 3,000 Pakistani children that were in bonded labour escape to freedom and made speeches about child labour all over the world.

He expressed a desire to become a lawyer to better equip him to free bonded labourers, and he began to visit other countries, including Sweden and the United States, to share his story, encouraging others to join the fight to eradicate child slavery.

In 1994 he received the Reebok Human Rights Award in Boston, and in his acceptance speech he said: "I am one of those millions of children who are suffering in Pakistan through bonded labour and child labour, but I am lucky that due to the efforts of Bonded Labour Liberation Front, I go out in freedom I am standing in front of you here today. After my freedom, I joined BLLF School and I am studying in that school now. For us slave children, Ehsan Ullah Khan and BLLF have done the same work that Abraham Lincoln did for the slaves of America. Today, you are free and I am free too."

Death

Iqbal was fatally shot by the "carpet mafia," a gang that killed slaves if they ran away from a carpet factory; while visiting relatives in Muridke on 16 April 1995, Easter Sunday. He was only 12 years old.

His mother said she did not believe her son had been the victim of a plot by the "carpet mafia". However, the BLLF disagreed because Iqbal had received death threats from individuals connected to the Pakistani carpet industry. His funeral was attended by approximately 800 mourners.

Following his death, Pakistani economic elites responded to declining carpet sales by denying that they were using bonded child labour in their factories and by employing the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to brutally harass and arrest activists working for the BLLF. The Pakistani press conducted a smear campaign against the BLLF, arguing that child labourers received high wages and favourable working conditions.

Legacy

* Iqbal's cause inspired the creation of organizations such as We Charity, a Canada-based charity and youth movement, the Iqbal Masih Shaheed Children Foundation, which has founded over 20 schools in Pakistan, and GoodWeave International (formerly Rugmark).
* In 1994, Iqbal visited Broad Meadows Middle School in Quincy, Massachusetts, and spoke to 7th graders about his life. He inspired the famous afterschool program run by teacher Ronald Adams called ODW (Operation: Day's Work). When the students learned of his death, they decided to raise money with a financially productive program called "Penny Power," and build a school in his honour in Kasur, Pakistan.
* Iqbal's story was depicted in a book entitled ''Iqbal'' by Francesco D'Adamo, a fictional story based on true events, from the point of view of a girl named Fatima.
* In 1994 he received the ''Reebok Youth in Action Award''.
* In 1996 the Movimiento Cultural Cristiano (MCC- Christian Cultural Movement) and Camino Juvenil Solidario (CJS- Youth Solidarity Path) promoted 16 April as International Day against Child Slavery in Spain and South America.
* In 1998 the newly formed Istituto Comprensivo Iqbal Masih, a comprehensive education institute comprising several schools in Trieste, Italy, was named after him.
* In 2000 he received a posthumous World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child and the Piazzale dei Traghetti Iqbal Masih was inaugurated in Genoa, Italy.
* The 2006 book ''The Little Hero: One Boy's Fight for Freedom'' tells the story of his legacy.
* In 2009 the United States Congress established the annual Iqbal Masih Award for the Elimination of Child Labor.
* On 16 April 2012, the Council of Santiago, after a proposal of Movimiento Cultural Cristiano, inaugurated a square named after Iqbal in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
* The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to children's rights advocate Kailash Satyarthi on grounds of prevention of child labour and promotion of female education. Satyarthi mentioned Masih in his Nobel Peace Prize award speech, dedicating it to him and other martyrs.
* In 2016, the "X Iqbal Masih Rugby Tournament" was held in Catania, Sicily.
* On 17 April 2017, the University of Salamanca committed itself to celebrating every 16 April as a Day Against Child Slavery on behalf of Iqbal Masih.
* In May 2019, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy released an Urdu conferred the Sitara-e-Shujaat (award for bravery) posthumously to Iqbal.

References

Further reading

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External links

"Who Was Iqbal Masih?"
mirrorimage.com.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Masih, Iqbal
1983 births
1995 deaths
Pakistani child activists
Pakistani children's rights activists
Pakistani Christians
Murdered Pakistani children
Assassinated Pakistani activists
Pakistani slaves
People murdered in Punjab, Pakistan
Deaths by firearm in Pakistan
People from Sheikhupura District
Punjabi people
Debt bondage in South Asia
Violence against children
Child abuse in Pakistan
20th-century slaves
Pakistani Catholics
Recipients of Sitara-i-Shujaat