Iqbal Masih
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Iqbal Masih (Urdu: اقبال مسیح) (b. 1982 - April 16, 1995), was a Pakistani boy who was sold to the carpet industry as a child slave at the age of 4 for the equivalent of 12 USD.
Iqbal was held by a chain to a carpet loom in a small town called Muridke near Lahore. He was made to work sixteen hours per day. Due to long hours of hard work and insufficient food and care, Iqbal was undersized. At twelve years of age, Iqbal was the size of a six-year old.
At the age of 10, he escaped the slavery and henceforth put effort into the liberation of other child slaves, and the struggle for freedom and rights for children in Pakistan.
He was murdered on Easter Sunday 1995. It is assumed by many that he was assassinated by members of the "carpet mafia" because of the publicity he brought towards the child labor industry. Five years later, when The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child was formed, he was posthumously awarded this prize as one of the first laureates.
Masih's work and subsequent death inspired the then 12 year old Canadian boy, Craig Kielburger to devote his life to the boy's cause and organized Free the Children.
[edit] Sources
Gay, Kathlyn and Martin K. Gay. Heroes of Conscience: A Biographical Dictionary. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO inc. , 1996
D'Adamo, Francesco. Iqbal: A Novel. Trans. Ann Leonori. New York: Aladdin Books, 2003
[edit] External link
- A Bullet Can't Kill a Dream — an account of the story of Iqbal Masih from an American point of view
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Masih, Iqbal |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | former child slave, activist against child labour and bonded labour |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1982 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Muridke, Punjab, Pakistan |
| DATE OF DEATH | 16 April 1995 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Muridke |
