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Dr. Basu is a professor of Economics and International Studies. He works at the Department of Economics at Cornell University. He was once the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India and has one the Padma Bhushan Award

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Kaushik Basu, Professor of Economics, Cornell University

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Kaushik Basu, C. Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics.

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The University of Salamanca observes every April 16 (the day Iqbal Masih died) as the Day Against Child Slavery.

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The University of Salamanca observes every April 16 (the day Iqbal Masih died) as the Day Against Child Slavery.

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A book was written by Francesco D'Adamo called Iqbal. It is the story of Iqbal Masih and his couraged told from the perspective of a young girl called Fatima.  

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A book was written by Francesco D'Adamo called Iqbal. It is the story of Iqbal Masih and his couraged told from the perspective of a young girl called Fatima.  

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biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification .reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (December 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

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The death of Iqbal Masih inspired Craig Kielburger to from the organization, Free the Children. Craig Kielburger was the same age as Iqbal Masih

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The death of Iqbal Masih inspired Craig Kielburger to from the organization, Free the Children. Craig Kielburger was the same age as Iqbal Masih

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Iqbal Masih Shaheed Children Foundation was create in his honor. It is an organization that provides children with education and healthcare treatment. The organization has created 20 schools.

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Iqbal Masih Shaheed Children Foundation was create in his honor. It is an organization that provides children with education and healthcare treatment. The organization has created 20 schools.

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Kailash Satyarthi, a children's rights activist, won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. In his accenptance speech, he called Iqbal Masih a martyr. 

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Kailash Satyarthi, a children's rights activist, won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. In his accenptance speech, he called Iqbal Masih a martyr. 

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The finest carpets in South Asia are woven by children because their tiny fingers can tie small, tight knots, and because they are paid just a few rupees. In Pakistan, a 12-year-old boy who protested against child labour was murdered yesterday.

Iqbal Masih, a brave and eloquent boy who attended several international conferences to denounce the hardships of child weavers in Pakistan, was shot dead while he and some friends were cycling in their village of Muritke, near Lahore. A labourer from Iqbal's village has been arrested.

"We know his death was a conspiracy by the carpet mafia," said Ehsan Ullah Khan, chairman of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front, which is trying to stop the owners of carpet-weaving factories from hiring children. Thousands of carpets are sold every year in Britain, Europe and the United States.

Before his murder, Iqbal had received death threats for his outspoken criticism of bonded child labour. Iqbal himself had slaved on the looms from the age of four until he was rescued as a 10-year old by social activists. For working 10 hours a day, tying knots and stretching wool in a cramped, dirty room with other boys, Iqbal was paid one rupee a day. Because his family had borrowed money from the loom owner at extortionate interest rates, Iqbal was still 13,000 rupees (£260) in debt to his boss.

Mr Khan described the 10-year-old boy after being freed as "emaciated and wheezing like an old man". He claimed that Iqbal was murdered because his protests had caused dozens of factories in Pakistan to close.

In Europe, many stores now try to ensure that child labour was not used in making the carpets the shops buy from South Asia. Pakistan and India both have laws to stop children from working, but these are seldom enforced, according to activists. Human rights organisations have persuaded some stores to buy carpets from countries where child rights are protected.

Mr Khan took Iqbal to Sweden last November to speak of the misery of his workmates. "He was so brave, you can't imagine," said Mr Khan.

In India, more than 15 million children are working illegally, while in Pakistan an estimated 6 million boys and girls are so employed. If the children are freed in police raids, the families are so poor they have no choice but to sell their children back into virtual slavery.

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Boy leader of child labour protest is shot dead

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The finest carpets in South Asia are woven by children because their tiny fingers can tie small, tight knots, and because they are paid just a few rupees. In Pakistan, a 12-year-old boy who protested against child labour was murdered yesterday.

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The United States Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) has created an Iqbal Masih Award for the Elimination of Child Labor. It is a non-monetary award presented annually by the United States Secretary of Labor

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The United States Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) has created an Iqbal Masih Award for the Elimination of Child Labor. It is a non-monetary award presented annually by the United States Secretary of Labor

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The Iqbal Masih Award was named after a Pakistani child who was sold into slavery as a carpet weaver at age 4, escaped at 10 and became an outspoken public advocate against child exploitation. In 1994 he received the Reebok Human Rights Award. He was tragically killed a year later at the age of 13 in his native Pakistan.

The purpose of the award is to recognize exceptional efforts to reduce the worst forms of child labor-in view of inspiring and motivating others working toward this end. The award's two major goals are:

To honor and give public recognition to a recipient demonstrating extraordinary efforts to combat the worst forms of child labor internationally, and who shares qualities demonstrated by Iqbal Masih including leadership, courage, integrity, and a search to end the labor exploitation of children

To raise awareness about the worst forms of child labor internationally

The award was created in response to Senate Committee direction that the Secretary of Labor "establish an annual non-monetary award recognizing the extraordinary efforts by an individual, company, organization or national government toward the reduction of the worst forms of child labor."

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2021 Iqbal Masih Award for the Elimination of Child Labor

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The Iqbal Masih Award was named after a Pakistani child who was sold into slavery as a carpet weaver at age 4, escaped at 10 and became an outspoken public advocate against child exploitation. In 1994 he received the Reebok Human Rights Award.

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Around 800 people attended to mourn at his funeral

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Around 800 people attended to mourn at his funeral

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Iqbal was killed while riding his bicycle with his friends and had come to Muridke to visit relatives.

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Iqbal was killed while riding his bicycle with his friends and had come to Muridke to visit relatives.

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Ehsaan Khan believes that his death was caused by the carpet mafia

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Ehsaan Khan believes that his death was caused by the carpet mafia

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At 4 years of age Iqbal was sold by his father into bonded labour in a Pakistani carpet Factory in Punjab, in order to get his family a loan to pay for the wedding of Iqbal's oldest brother.

The debt incurred by the loan required that Iqbal weave carpets 12 hours a day, receiving one rupee for a full days work. However, due to the exorbitant interest of the loan, the loan just got bigger and bigger.

After he turned 10, Iqbal heard a speaker from the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF), a Pakistani community-based organization dedicated to freeing children from such child slavery. Iqbal obtained a copy of their Charter of Freedom, a pamphlet about the rights of children. Iqbal used this to get free. From that moment, he became an active campaigner against child slavery.

On 16 April 1995, at the age of 12, he was shot dead by the carpet mafia while cycling with his cousin in a village field.

DETAILS ABOUT IQBAL'S STORY
Iqbal is sold
In 1982 a baby boy was born to Inayat Bibi and Saif Masih. They named him Iqbal Masih. Sometime after Iqbal's birth, Saif Masih deserted the family. While Iqbal's mother worked, his older sisters took care of him and his older siblings. Iqbal did not go to school. Education was not compulsory or widely available in Pakistan. Very few poor children learnt to read and write. He spent his earliest years playing in the fields until he was ready to help his family by going to work.

By 1986 an older son of Saif Masih was about to get married. The celebration would include feasting and processions. Weddings are very important to the people of Pakistan. Wedding celebrations are often held even if a person is short of money or out of work. Saif Masih was no exception. He knew that as father of the groom, he had to pay for part of the festivities, even though he had deserted his family.

Like most impoverished child slaves, Saif had never been able to save much. No bank would give him a loan. He could not apply to the government for aid because there were few programs to help poor people. People such as Iqbal's father are forced to turn to local moneylenders, local employers, or landlords to get the money they need. In Muridke, many poor people simply borrow from a local thekedar, an employer who owns a nearby carpet factory. In return for the loan, the employer expects collateral, a guarantee of something of value to secure the loan. Said Masih's only valuable possessions were his children. Saif asked Iqbal's uncle to contact the thekedar. The thekedar was willing, probably only too happy, to lend Saif money. In return, one of Saif's children would go to work in this fast-growing business. Iqbal, a scrappy four-year-old, was considered ready to work. The uncle borrowed 600 rupees (approximately $12) from the contractor. Little Iqbal would weave carpets until all the money, including an undisclosed amount of interest and expenses, was paid back. This transaction is called a paishgee, a loan, and it ended Iqbal's childhood forever. From that day forward, Iqbal became a "debt-bonded slave."
Inhumane conditions
Iqbal's job at the carpet factory was essentially no different from that of millions of other young people who work day and night to help their families. At four o'clock in the morning, he was picked up by the thekedar and driven to the factory where he was to work for the next six years of his life. He was put in an airless room, big enough for about twenty looms. A small, bare light bulb gave out little light. It was sticky and hot inside the room because all the windows were sealed tight to keep out any insects that might damage the wool.

Iqbal took his place in front of a large wooden carpet loom. He was to squat on a small rutted wood platform. In some factories children sit on cushions. Other factories have trenches dug into the floor to hold the looms in place. The weavers sit on a plank with their legs dangling into a trench. These trenches also provide sleeping places for the children who work far from their families. Large balls of coloured wool were hung because of the gorgeous flowers, majestic trees, exotic birds, and sophisticated geometric designs woven in the carpets. The ustaad, teacher, explained the process called "knotting".

When Iqbal completed his work as an apprentice, he was then ready to weave carpets. He worked beside twenty other boys. His earnings amounted to one rupee a day (two cents), even though he worked from four o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening. The children in the shop were not allowed to speak to one another. "If the children spoke, they were not giving the complete attention to the product and were liable to make errors," Iqbal later told journalists. Many other freed child slaves told similar stories.

Lint and fluff floated in the air. Iqbal would breathe it in and cough it out. Sweat poured down Iqbal's face as he leaned close to the loom. The thekedar screamed, "Don't soil the wool!" At night he was driven back to his family. He was too tired to play his favourite sport, cricket. "I didn't have time to play ball," he explained later. It didn't take long for the bounce to fade from Iqbal's walk.

Iqbal and his fellow weavers were warned never to leave the factory during work hours. "If we tried to escape, we were threatened with being thrown in boiling oil," he said. "If we were too slow, we often got lashed on our backs and heads." Concentration was crucial. Mistaking a single knot led to fines or beatings. Daydreaming could have serious consequences. The sharp, crescent-shaped weavers' tool would slip and nick his fingers. This happened many times.

Once, when Iqbal was so exhausted he began to doze off, the sharp knife slid, digging into the flesh of his forefinger. "Hold your hand up!" the thekedar shouted. "Don't let the blood drip!" The carpet master did not want Iqbal's blood to stain the precious wool thread. To stop the bleeding, the carpet master dripped hot oil onto the wound. The oil, used to seal the wound, stung horribly and Iqbal screamed. His screams were answered with a slap on the head and an order to get back to work.

Every afternoon the child slaves were given a half-hour lunch break. Iqbal said, "We were kept hungry." The thekedar provided the youngsters a small portion of rice and lentils. Sometimes there would be a few other vegetables added to the meal. The cost of this simple meal was immediately added to the children's paishgee, increasing their debt.

The cramped, overheated conditions inside such factories often lead to disease. Weavers inhaling thousands of tiny wool fibres can get emphysema or tuberculosis. Many suffer from scabies and skin ulcers because of the "constant exposure to wool". More often than not, their posture is bowed because they are forced to squat on the wooden platform for long hours. Their hands ache with carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis.

Iqbal said, "We weren't allowed many days off. Even sick children were not allowed to rest." If a child weaver complained that he was too sick to work, the chowkidar locked him in a dark closet known as the punishment room. "they also hung children upside down until they became sicker. Children were beaten," said Iqbal.

Although most bonded children are docile and obedient, they are are not afraid to talk back. These children are often hit, chained to their looms, or locked in dark, musty closets. Iqbal would often talk back. He was beaten more often than the other children because, time and time again, he defied the master. He spoke up when he thought something was not right. "Sometimes I was fined." In a way, the fines were worse than the beatings. They raised Iqbal's debt higher and higher. Instead of paying off his bondage, he was increasing the time it would take to earn his freedom.

In factories similar to the one where Iqbal worked, children are battered for all kinds of reasons. One young boy was not a good weaver, and the chowkidar constantly hit him with a stick. A researcher reports, "Once, after he made a terrible mistake, the foreman took a shearing knife and made a deep cut between Salim's thumb and index finger. The boy was so terrified of the foreman that he did not dare raise complaint."

MILLIONS OF CHILD SLAVES

In Pakistan, children are forced to work in brick kilns, agriculture, carpet factories, restaurants, and factories manufacturing all kinds of goods from furniture, and sports goods, to surgical equipment. They also work as domestic labourers, where they are often exposed to mental and physical abuse and separated from their parents, being kept in a state of virtual imprisonment.

Brick Kiln workers in Pakistan are a clear example of slave child labour. Bricks are produced in Pakistan in manual and industrial processes. Brick factory owners get their supplies of labour force from Zamadars, labour supply agents who hold labourers as prisoners while the factory needs their services.

Slaves are bonded to the owners through a system of advanced payments (paishgee) whose interest rates are so high that workers can never repay them fully. Their children and wives are then forced to take responsibility for the debt. That creates a pool of bonded or slave child labourers who are tied to the owners of the brick making factories for life, being unable to escape their "obligation." Workers and their children are traded from one owner to another. Some workers are sold more than 10 times. Wives of the workers are also bonded labourers; they are mostly exploited, both physically and sexually.

No education or medical facilities are available for these children. Escape is not possible due to the close associations between the owners and the local police force. About 60 percent of the children start work below the age of 13. The mortality rates among children are high and they suffer from blindness due to the presence of high degrees of lead in the mud. Blindness among older workers is around 15 to 20 percent. Owners insist that the children work unless they have to look after younger siblings. Mental torture for these children is horrific. They live in fear, witness physical violence meted out against their parents. Their reactions are different from normal children, according to Mrs. Asma Jehangir, a human rights advocate in Pakistan, "They do not surround a car or a vehicle entering the kiln premises but run away in fear."

Although women are an integral part of the labour force they do not receive any separate wages. Marriages of young girls are not encouraged. The labour-suppliers run prostitution dens and supply women to the owners. Several incidents were reported where widows and abandoned women were sold to recover outstanding debts of the workers.

Illiterate workers are unable to verify their outstanding debts. As a result they, along with their children, will be slaves for the rest of their lives.

Feudalism is very strong in Pakistan because in history since the country independence most of Pakistan's parliamentarians and ministers have come from the feudal class lords of Pakistani society. They hold thousands of hectares of lands for which they have never paid for. The feudal lords and politicians are not required to pay tax and have borrowed billions of rupees from banks that they have not paid back. Some of the prominent members of this class save their black money in bank accounts in Switzerland and other countries. Due to these economic practices, Pakistan's foreign debts exceed 38.8 billion dollars.

In 1967 the Bonded Labour Liberation Front of Pakistan (BLLF) began its campaign to both free the brick kiln bonded labourers, and totally abolish the paishgee debts. The BLLF fights against slavery, private jails, forced labour and child slavery in all sectors, including brick making, carpet weaving, leather trades, medical instrument manufacturing, agriculture, stone quarrying, domestic servitude, etc. BLLF freedom movement faces challenges and opposition from strong employers in these and other sectors.

From January 1999 until May 2009 BLLF freed 30,000 bonded labourers, men, women and children from four provinces of Pakistan. They belong to different sectors like agriculture, brick kiln, stone quarrying and carpet industries. 45% of them were children, 25% of them were women and 30% were men. These bonded workers were freed through Habeas Corpus applications, which were filed in High Courts. Due to BLLF's lack of resources, they have been unable to build rehabilitation programs for the newly freed bonded labourers and many of the children are still waiting to go to school.

"Our victories amount to a hardship," says Ehsan Ulla Khan, the BLLF's founder and guiding force. "The state has done nothing to enforce the anti-slavery laws or even to inform the public that child and bonded slavery have been outlawed. It's evident that if the enslaved workers are to be delivered from bondage, private citizens will have to do the delivering. That is, we will have to proclaim the end of slavery, educate workers, monitor employer compliance, and take legal action when necessary, because the state lacks the will and resources to do so."

With little funding, the BLLF wages a two-front war against the enterprises that use child slaves. While its legal advisers engage the courts and the legislature, its field staff shuttles around the country, informing workers of their recently acquired rights and distributing a pamphlet known as "The Charter of Freedom," which enumerates those rights in simple language. If a bonded slave child or adult asks for its help, the BLLF takes whatever legal action necessary to secure his or her release.
Iqbal Masih was one of those freed from slavery in the carpet factories by the BLLF.
These days a surprising number of workers are refusing the pamphlet and turning their backs on BLLF staff members. This is an expression less of ingratitude than of fear. Employers throughout Pakistan are cautioning their workers against consorting with reformers who spread "false rumours" about the end of bonded labour. Many workers have been threatened with dismissal or violence if they speak with "the abolitionists" or are caught with "illegal communist propaganda."

So effective is the factory owners' disinformation campaign that workers literally flee when approached by BLLF staff members.

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At 4 years of age Iqbal was sold by his father into bonded labour in a Pakistani carpet Factory in Punjab, in order to get his family a loan to pay for the wedding of Iqbal's oldest brother. The debt incurred by the loan required that Iqbal weave carpets 12 hours a day, receiving one...

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They were paid two cents/day regardless of their hours

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They were paid two cents/day regardless of their hours

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Iqbal was beaten most often because he always challenged his owner

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The children working were forbidden to talk to each other.

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The children working were forbidden to talk to each other.

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After he had died, Iqbal won the World's Children's Honorary Award in 2000.

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After he had died, Iqbal won the World's Children's Honorary Award in 2000.

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Iqbal Masih became a debt slave in a carpet factory in Pakistan when he was a child. Five years later he was set free. He gave other children the courage to leave their owners.

Iqbal was threatened by the carpet factory owners and was murdered on 16 April 1995. He is a symbol for the struggle against child labour and in 2000, he received the first World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child posthumously (after his death).

Iqbal was around five when he started working in the carpet factory. He worked from early morning until evening and was often treated badly. When his mother Anayat needs money for an operation, she took out a loan from a carpet factory owner. The loan, or 'peshgi', was in Iqbal's name. That means that Iqbal owes Ghullah the 5000 rupees (ca 600 US dollars) that his mother's operation cost. Now Iqbal was a debt slave and the factory owner was in charge of his life. > Read the whole story about Iqbal's life and death here.

Experience Iqbal's life, liberation and death in this graphic novel. © WCPF

Learn more about Iqbal in the Globe Magazine (2009).

Text: Magnus Bergmar

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Iqbal was freed after years of slave labor in a Pakistan rug factory but was then murdered at 12 for fighting child labor. Watch video and read his story.

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Before he had died, he did receive death threats from carpet company owners.

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Before he had died, he did receive death threats from carpet company owners.

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He was shot by the heroine addict, Arshad, his previous owner. 

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He was shot by the heroine addict, Arshad, his previous owner. 

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The Wikipedia page of Iqbal Masih

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

Iqbal Masih was born in 1983 in Muridke, a commercial city outside of Lahore in Punjab, Pakistan, into a poor 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) 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.

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."

"Iqbal Masih, a brave and eloquent boy who attended several international conferences to denounce the hardships of child weavers in Pakistan, was shot dead with a shotgun while he and some friends were cycling in their village of Muridke, near Lahore."

Iqbal was fatally shot by the "carpet Mafia", while visiting relatives in Muridke on 16 April 1995, Easter Sunday. He was 12 years old at the time. 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 receive high wages and favourable working conditions.

Iqbal's cause inspired the creation of organizations such as We Charity, a Canada-based charity and youth movement, and the Iqbal Masih Shaheed Children Foundation, which has started over 20 schools in Pakistan.

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)[clarification needed ][citation needed ]. 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 honor in Kasur, Pakistan[citation needed ].

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 the 16 of 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, inaugurates 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 celebrate every 16 April as a Day Against Child Slavery on behalf of Iqbal Masih.

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Iqbal Masih ( Urdu: اقبال مسیح‎; 1983 - 16 April 1995) was a Pakistani Christian child labourer and activist who campaigned against abusive child labour in Pakistan. Iqbal Masih was born in 1983 in Muridke, a commercial city outside of Lahore in Punjab, Pakistan, into a poor Christian family.

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During the speech he gave after receiving the award, he described the tragedies that occurred when he was at work. He also ask American and President Clinton to stop having connections with countries and companies that use child labour.

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Through the BLLF, Iqbal Masih freed over 3000 slaves who were children.

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After he was freed, he attended the Bonded Labour Liberation Fund School.

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Iqbal Masih wrote speeches regarding his experience in child labor and presented them across the globe.

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The second time Iqbal escaped, he managed to get into contact with Muhammad Ehsaan Ullah Khan, a man who set Iqbal and the other children free. Ehsaan developed a bond with Iqbal. Ehsaan founded the  Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) , an organization that freed slaves.

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Iqbal and the children who worked with him were starved, beaten and forces to work in very hot temperatures. Very unjust conditions.

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Iqbal and the children who worked with him were starved, beaten and forces to work in very hot temperatures. Very unjust conditions.

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The carpet business owner that Iqbal worked for was a man named Arshad.

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The carpet business owner that Iqbal worked for was a man named Arshad.

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This was Iqbal Masih's acceptance speech that he gave when he was awarded the Reebok Human Rights Award

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This website gives an overview the timeline of Iqbal Masih's life

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Baby Iqbal, unaware of what dire conditions his family suffered with, was taken care of by his sisters and played in a vast field outside his small house. However, his childhood bid its farewell to Iqbal at the age of 4, when he tasted 'real life' for the first time. In 1986, the family needed money for his older brother's marriage celebration and borrowed Rs. 600 from a local carpet weaving business owner. In return, he took Iqbal as a bonded labour until the debt was recovered.

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Who was Iqbal Masih? Everything You Need to Know

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Baby Iqbal, unaware of what dire conditions his family suffered with, was taken care of by his sisters and played in a vast field outside his small house. However, his childhood bid its farewell to Iqbal at the age of 4, when he tasted 'real life' for the first time.

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Iqbal won the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1994 for his efforts. Ehsaan proposed Iqbal for the award.

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Iqbal's father left him when he was a child so his mother had to take care of him and his siblings now

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Iqbal's father left him when he was a child so his mother had to take care of him and his siblings now

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His mother's name was Inayat Bibi and his father's name was Saif Masih

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His mother's name was Inayat Bibi and his father's name was Saif Masih

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The first time Iqbal tried to escape, he went to the police. Instead of rescuing him, the police sent him back to the carpet factory. However, he was able to escape a second time.

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His parents asked for a loan from the carpet factory owner which was less than $6 (US). Iqbal had to work in order to pay off the debt from the loan. His work term at the carpet factory kept getting longer and longer because the interest from the loan was increasing.

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He worked a ridiculously high number of hours each day and was hardly given any breaks 

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He worked a ridiculously high number of hours each day and was hardly given any breaks 

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Dr. Edmonds is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College. He is the chair of International Studies and has written articles and conducted research regarding child labour. He is a researcher at the  National Bureau of Economic Research.

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Faculty Research Fellow: National Bureau of Economic ResearchAssociate Editor: Economic Development and Cultural Change

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He would work at a carpet factory where him and the other children were chained so that they were not allowed to escape. 

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He would work at a carpet factory where him and the other children were chained so that they were not allowed to escape. 

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He was born in Muridke, Pakistan in 1983. 

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He was born in Muridke, Pakistan in 1983. 