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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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Over 1.75 million Vietnamese children, 9.6 percent of the population of people under 18 in the country, are laborers. Child Labor in Vietnam consists of children who are forced to work long hours, normally with little to no pay, in crowded factories or on agricultural farms. One third of the children work an average of 42 hours per week, and the majority are not able to attend school.

Labor trafficking - both domestically and internationally - is a major problem. As explained by a BBC report, trafficking gangs normally target rural villages, where they offer to take kids to cities in order to give them vocational training or technical skills. Parents normally agree because the people in these remote communities are not aware of the risks of human trafficking. Also, traffickers benefit from the "golden egg" culture of Vietnam, where children are sent to work abroad and send money back for the family.

Rather than receiving vocational training, the children taken from rural villages are forced to work, some in factories, some in domestic labor and others in agricultural labor. BBC discussed the case of Hieu (who declined to give his real name), an 18-year-old boy who was taken from the rural village of Dien Bien. Dien Bien is in the northwest, on the border of Vietnam and China. It is one of the poorest areas in the country.

Hieu was put into a small room, where he and the 11 other kids taken from his village were forced to work from 6 a.m. until midnight. They received no pay, and were beaten with a stick if they made a mistake. Hieu was finally able to escape when he and two other teenage boys jumped out the third story window at 1 a.m. Hieu has since been helped by the Blue Dragon Foundation, a Vietnamese-based charity that works to help child trafficking victims, and is now training to be a mechanic.

Groups like the Blue Dragon Foundation are making a difference. The foundation itself has rescued over 230 child trafficking victims since 2005. However, child trafficking continues to remain an issue in Vietnam, and Blue Dragon co-founder Michael Brosowski explained that it is likely getting worse because people are realizing how lucrative it can be.

Vietnam has been praised for its efforts to crack down on child trafficking internationally, since it has increased the number of prosecutions it holds to help end overseas gang activity. However, Vietnam's control of child trafficking within the country itself needs to increase. Internal trafficking only became officially recognized in 2011, and traffickers are normally not given harsh punishments. The person who trafficked Hieu and the 11 other children from Dien Bien was fined $500 and his factory was closed down, but he did not go to court.

Part of the confusion over what sort of punishment must be given those who traffic internally in Vietnam stems from the fact that some child laborers are paid. While they are normally paid only a small amount, some argue that if a child who is poor, does not have enough to eat and had dropped out of school goes to a factory and gets paid, it is not necessarily a bad thing.

While there is still debate over trafficking within Vietnam, it has been more firmly established that trafficking Vietnamese children internationally needs to be stopped. As The Guardian said, one of the major destinations for traffickers who send Vietnamese children abroad to work is Britain, where over 3000 children are sent to work on cannabis farms, in nail bars, garment factories, brothels or in domestic labor. In order to combat this influx, in March of 2015, the UK passed a bill designed to increase the prosecution of traffickers and give more rights to those sent into modern slavery. However, some Vietnamese children who are sent to the UK and forced to work in cannabis cultivation are prosecuted for their actions, while their traffickers are not.

In recent years, a lot has been done in order to stop child labor within Vietnam and to stop the flow of Vietnamese children who are being trafficked into modern slavery around the world. However, in order to continue the fight against child labor and human trafficking, laws have to be more strictly enforced and clear conditions have to be set about how to punish those who traffic internally.

- Ashrita Rau

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Over 1.75 million Vietnamese children, 9.6 percent of the population of people under 18 in the country, are laborers. Child Labor in Vietnam consists of children who are forced to work long hours, normally with little to no pay, in crowded factories or on agricultural farms. One third of the children work an average of 42 hours per week, and the majority are not able to attend school.

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FOCUS September 2001 Volume 25

Child Labor in Asia: A Review

Edelweiss F. Silan

ILO estimates that there are about 250 million economically active children (individuals below 18 years old) worldwide. Sixty one percent or roughly 153 million of these workers are in Asia. Around half of the economically active children are working full time and 20-30%, or about 30 to 46 million are in exploitative conditions or worst forms of child labor.

In Asia, many of these child laborers, some as young as seven years old, are hidden. They work as household help, workers in farming and fishing industries, providers of sex services, workers in quarries, mines, brick kilns, construction sites, and increasingly in drug trade. A lot more in many Asian societies live in full public view as scavengers, street beggars, vendors, and workers in small scale or home-based industries. Since these types of work are considered "informal," regulation of the industries does not exist and monitoring the presence of children in the workplace is not commonly done.

The Worst Forms of Child Labor in Asia
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
Exploitation of children in commercial sex trade remains the worst form of child labor in our region. UNICEF estimates that about one million children are lured or forced into the sex trade in Asia every year. More alarming is the fact that many of these children were introduced into the work by people known to them. For example, the 1995 Situation Analysis on Trafficking and Prostitution in Cambodia reveals that half of the surveyed sex workers eighteen years old and below reported that they were forced into the trade. Half of them were sold or deceived by someone they knew, forty percent were sold by parents, and fifteen percent were sold by relatives.

Trafficking of Children

The exploitation of children in the commercial sex trade is supported by increased trafficking activity in the region by organized syndicates. Trafficking for other jobs has also increased.

Trafficking of both children and adults feeds largely on the desire of poor families and many young people for economic and personal advancement through migration for work. Trafficking routes are found within countries, from rural to urban centers or to areas with large demand for unskilled labor, and across borders, usually from less developed to developing countries.

In Southeast Asia, Thailand is believed to be the receiver of a large number of children trafficked from Laos, Cambodia, Burma, and China, with the majority coming from Burma. The children are made to work as prostitutes, household help, workers in factories, farms, and fishing vessels, or couriers of drug traffickers. It is estimated that the number of children working as prostitutes in Thailand is somewhere between 27,400 and 44,900, including foreign and ethnic Thai children.

Chinese and Vietnamese children are trafficked to Cambodia mostly for prostitution. In the Philippines, there are reports of girls as young as 14 years old encouraged by parents to go to Japan to work as entertainers. They are brought to Japan with tampered passports, changing their date of birth to meet the age criterion. There are reports of Indonesian children being brought to Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan for domestic and farm work, or even for work in small factories.

In-country trafficking is rampant in Vietnam and the Philippines for domestic and factory work, and again for prostitution.

In South Asia, Bangladeshi children are trafficked for prostitution, forced and bonded labor, camel jockeying, marriage, and even sale of organs. Bangladeshi children can be found in the main cities of India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Middle East countries. Maiti Nepal, an NGO based in Kathmandu, estimates that between 5,000 to 7,000 girls are trafficked to India annually for prostitution. Boys are trafficked too, for work in the construction industry, brick kilns, tea plantations, and manufacturing industry. Pakistan is seen as a receiving country for Indian and Nepali children to work in farming, fishing, and sex industries.

"Trafficking refers to the recruitment, transportation, purchase, sale, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons: by threat, use of violence, abduction, use of force, fraud, deception, or coercion (including abuse of authority), or debt bondage, for the purpose of placing or holding such person, whether for pay or not, in forced labour or slavery-like practices, in a community other than the one in which such person lived at the time of the original act described. " UNCHR, February 2000

Bonded Child Labor

Also referred to as child servitude and child debt bondage, bonded child labor exists in Asia. It is closely linked to trafficking of children, and more extensively rooted in socio-cultural and political structures in parts of South Asia. In many cases, bonded children are delivered in repayment of a loan or other favors given in advance, real or imaginary, usually to the parents or the guardians of the child. Children work like slaves in the process, never knowing when their debt will finally be considered paid. Where the caste system still prevails (India, Nepal, and Pakistan), there are still families and children of the dalits, or kamaiyas, or peshgis from the lowest castes in debt bondage to landowners and upper class caste in spite of existing laws that prohibit slavery. Bonded child labor in South Asia is found in domestic work and in agricultural, brick making, glass, leather tanning, gem polishing, and many other manufacturing and marketing industries.

Awareness of the child labor issue in the carpet and sports goods industries generated largely by activists since late 1980s helped cause marked decrease in the incidence of child labor in these industries. But it is still probable that child labor exists in new places where subcontractors have moved in.

Bonded child labourers are children working against debt taken by themselves or their family members, or working against any social obligation (e. g. , caste factor, ethnic or religious practices, etc. ) without the children's consent, under conditions that restrain their freedom, making them vulnerable to physical and other forms of abuse, and depriving them of their basic rights. - CWA Task Force on Bonded Child Labour, May 2000

Child Domestic Work

Having a household help is an historically embedded practice of middle and upper class families in almost all Asian countries. Many children from poor families are engaged in this work, some as young as eight years old. While there are cases of domestic child laborers who are actually poorer relatives of the employers and provided opportunities to go to school while working, majority of them are in exploited conditions. Many are victims of trafficking, and are bonded by debt to their employers. They have long working hours, with very little opportunity for rest. They are exposed to hazards while doing heavy household work. And most of them are victims of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. Domestic child laborers are among the most difficult to see and reach as they are of course hidden in the privacy of our homes.

Use of children as soldiers

Internal armed conflicts in several Asian countries expose more children to armed groups and increase the probability of their forced recruitment as combatants. Children are not only sent to the front lines, they are also used as spies, porters, helpers in camps, and are often subjected to abusive treatment. Direct involvement of children in the armed forces are documented in Burma, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Philippines, and Nepal.

Scavenger children

Children and their families work and even live in the dumpsites in many of our countries - the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal, India, and Vietnam.

Gains and Challenges in Actions on Child Labor in the Region

Harnessing political will for social policy and social attitudinal change

There are some remarkable successes in certain countries in the region in creating changes in policies and in influencing people's attitude towards child laborers in general or towards groups of child laborers, such as domestic child laborers, in particular.

In the Philippines, a law entitled "Magna Carta for Household Helpers" was passed to "institutionalize and uplift the minimum working parameters and standards of the household helper industry. " The law limits the minimum age of employment to 15 years of age, increases minimum wage, provides for social security coverage, days off from work, and other protective measures for both children and adult domestic workers. The campaign to enact this law was coupled with active national education campaigns to gain respect for household help. While there is still a lot to do to attain significant attitudinal change, several initiatives from people influenced by the campaign are already felt. For example, some schools begun to allow members of the organized domestic child labor groups (such as SUMAPI) to orient students on child and workers' rights, and set-up exhibits to conscientize parents and students.

In India, the government issued an order restraining government officers from employing children as domestic workers. NGOs and civil society members are now actively monitoring the implementation of this order.

As a result of NGO and social welfare sector advocacy in Thailand, the government recognized its responsibility to provide protection not only for Thai children but also for trafficked child laborers from other countries. A Memorandum of Understanding among various government ministries requires coordination of their actions. Thus, trafficked migrant children are no longer brought by the police to the immigration detention center. They are instead housed in a social welfare center where they learn various skills while the Thai government, their own government, and international NGOs work on their return to their families.

These successes however do not mitigate the fact that many countries in our region do not put children as a priority concern. A number of these countries do not recognize child labor as a problem. For those who do, what could critically make the difference for the children are not the ratification of international agreements and the subsequent enactment of legislative measures alone but the development and implementation of effective national action programs that address the real needs of the children. There must be corresponding budgetary allocations, social reforms including changes in educational systems and practices in schools, poverty alleviation programs, and trade and employment policies. There is also a need for serious changes in our attitudes and cultural practices if we truly aim for the eradication of child labor especially the worst forms.

Child labor and regional development policies

National legislations and regional policies must be reviewed in order to protect children from adverse effects of globalization. The contractualization of labor that many companies now use as a policy makes it difficult for working class parents to ensure continuing education for their children, nor regularly afford basic needs in the family. Children out of school, belonging to families hardly able to make ends meet, are more prone to enter the job market especially the informal sector. Children of displaced small farmers and fisherfolk are in the same situation. Moreover, small industries that need to remain afloat with very small capital and almost no support from governments tend to utilize child labor in order to reduce labor costs.

The best interest of the child as the basis of actions against child labor

Increased awareness among the corporate and industrial sectors on child labor standards along with vigilant campaigns against child labor in workplaces have their downside. They may push children into worse conditions after losing their jobs. A few months back, a Hongkong newspaper reported about child labor in a toy factory in mainland China supplying promotional toys to a well-known multinational fast food corporation. Over three thousand families and children lost their jobs when the corporation immediately severed the contracts with the factory on the premise that the factory violated the code of ethics of the corporation. Where did the children go? No one knows at present but surely they are now among the easy prey for traffickers and other unscrupulous employers. Whose interest was served by the action of the media and by the response of the corporation?

Participation of the children and their families in defining the problem and their solutions

After quitting school, I started to help my parents financially. I collect garbage that can be sold from early morning till afternoon. I give the money I earn to my parents to buy food so we can survive and send my brother to school.
When I see my friends go to school, I feel I want to cry. Sometimes, I daydream, imagining myself in school. I used to go to school, now, no more. I work among the garbage.
One day, I collected trash till the sun went down. When I finally came home, my parents told me that my younger brother does not want to go to school anymore. I was confused. I could't do anything but pray that hopefully my little brother would again go back to school like he used to.
-- a scavenger girl from Pancur Batu, Medan, Indonesia

Child labor interventions are not often designed with clear child rights and people's development perspectives. Children participation as a key element in development programs is not clearly defined and practiced. Many programs being implemented in the region at the moment seldom consider listening to the child laborers themselves. Thus, the children are often not participating in defining what actions will serve their interest best. The report on the toy factory above is one illustration.

A second case is about the large donor-driven programs existing in our region. They are designed by technocrats with hardly any input from the families and the children who live with the problem of child labor. Participation of children and communities demands process, resources, and time. Consequently, adopting such idea can mean that program target outputs are not always immediately met. Thus, donor programs that seek impact in two to three years could hardly afford participatory processes.

A participatory approach demands that we look at child laborers from a perspective of strength. Child laborers are not unthinking, passive victims of fate. They are individuals, young as they are, responding to what life offers them, according to their understanding of life. The scavenger child from Indonesia represents typical child laborers. They are persons with a strong sense of responsibility and fine human qualities. Given the opportunity, they could teach us a lot on how to better plan, implement, and monitor our programs that aim to help them.

A number of children's organizations have become effective change agents in their communities and countries across the region. In India, the Bhima Sangha (an organization of young workers) has been actively promoting child rights, defining types of work that are appropriate for children according to their level of development, and identifying key issues and proposed solutions in the communities (through participatory research). It has child leaders now sitting in village councils making policies and programs for their communities together with the adults. In Donkoi Village in Laos, a small group of former child laborers, including former migrant child laborers in Bangkok, is implementing simple child rights campaigns in their village and has succeeded in generating support for their small multi-purpose center from their families and village leaders. In North Sumatra, Indonesia, a group of streetchildren are actively promoting information about themselves through a publication. They have had dialogues with the police, bus drivers, NGO staff, government officials, and other people significantly affecting their lives in the streets.

In May 2000, former sexually exploited children and their peer advocates from twenty-nine countries all over the world gathered in Manila to express the youth's voice in the fight against commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). They said:

We do not believe that this problem can be eradicated without our full involvement.

We implore that all measures be taken to guarantee the rights of children and youth everywhere to participate on local, national, and international levels to end CSEC.

We demand that young people be empowered to take an active role in decision-making, development, and implementation of strategies against CSEC.

If we begin our understanding of the situation of child labor in our region from what these young people are saying and doing, we would be in a better position to define what we adults have to do to completely address the situation. The solution lies in a genuine partnership between the young and the adults.
Edelweiss F. Silan is the Coordinator of the Child Workers in Asia (CWA). For more information contact: Child Workers in Asia (CWA), PO Box 29, Chandrakasem Post Office, Bangkok 10904 Thailand, ph (662) 9300855, fax (662) 9300856 e-mail: "Edelweiss F. Silan" coord@cwa. tnet. co. th, website: http://www. cwa. tnet. co. th

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一般財団法人アジア・太平洋人権情報センター

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Child Labor in Asia: A Review | ヒューライツ大阪

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アジア・太平洋地域における人権の確立・伸長に貢献する団体

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Child labor in Asia and the Pacific (IPEC)

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Child labor in Asia and the Pacific (IPEC)

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Why and where do children work? How did child labor change over time?

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Almost all of the world’s nations have laws specifying at which age a couple can marry, and in most of these countries, those under the age of 18 are allowed to wed.

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Child labor still with us after all these years.

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Child labor is a major threat to the health of children in the United States. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that more than four million children are legally employed and that another one to two million are employed under illegal, often exploitative ...

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Table of Contents

1. Child Labor in the United States

2. Industrial Revolution

3. Immigration and Child Labor

4. National Child Labor Committee

5. Depression-Era Child Labor

6. Automatization and Education

7. Does Child Labor Exist Today?

Child labor, or the use of children as workers, servants and apprentices, has been practiced throughout most of human history, but reached its zenith during the Industrial Revolution. Miserable working conditions including crowded and unclean factories, a lack of safety codes and long hours were the norm. Children could be paid less and were less likely to organize into unions. Working children were typically unable to attend school, creating a cycle of poverty that was difficult to break. Nineteenth century reformers and labor organizers sought to restrict child labor and improve working conditions to uplift the masses, but it took the Great Depression-a time when Americans were desperate for employment-to shake long-held practices of child labor in the United States.

Child Labor in the United States

The Puritan work ethic of the 13 colonies and their founders valued hard work over idleness, and this ethos applied to children as well. Through the first half of the 1800s, child labor was an essential part of the agricultural and handicraft economy of the United States. Children worked on family farms and as indentured servants for others. To learn a trade, boys often began their apprenticeships between the ages of ten and fourteen.

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution saw the rise of factories and mines in need of workers. Children were ideal employees because they could be paid less, were often of smaller size so could attend to tasks in tight spaces and were less likely to organize and strike against their pitiable working conditions.

Before the Civil War, women and children played a critical role in American manufacturing, though it was still a relatively small part of the economy. Advances in manufacturing techniques after the war increased the number of jobs-and therefore increased the number of child laborers.

Did you know? In 1900, 18 percent of all American workers were under the age of 16.

Immigration and Child Labor

Immigration to the United States coincidentally peaked during the Industrial Revolution and led to a new source of labor-and child labor. When the Irish Potato Famine struck in the 1840s, Irish immigrants moved to fill lower-level factory jobs.

In the 1880s, groups from southern and eastern Europe arrived, provided a new pool of child workers. The trend continues today, as many immigrant children work in agriculture, which is exempt from certain labor laws.

National Child Labor Committee

Educational reformers of the mid-nineteenth century attempted to convince the public that a primary school education was a necessity if the nation were to advance as a whole. Several states established a minimum wage for labor and requirements for school attendance-though many of these laws were full of loopholes that were readily exploited by employers hungry for cheap labor.

Beginning in 1900, efforts to regulate or eliminate child labor became central to social reform in the United States. The National Child Labor Committee, organized in 1904, and state child labor committees led the charge.

These organizations employed flexible methods in the face of slow progress. They pioneered tactics like investigations by experts; the use of photographs of child laborers to spark outrage at the poor conditions of children at work, and persuasive lobbying efforts. They used written pamphlets, leaflets and mass mailings to reach the public.

From 1902 to 1915, child labor committees emphasized reform through state legislatures. Many laws restricting child labor were passed as part of the Progressive Era reform movement. But many Southern states resisted, leading to the decision to work for a federal child labor law. While Congress passed such laws in 1916 and 1918, the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional.

The supporters of child labor laws sought a constitutional amendment authorizing federal child labor legislation and it passed in 1924, though states were not keen to ratify it; the conservative political climate of the 1920s, together with opposition from farm and church organizations fearing increased federal power over children, acted as roadblocks.

Depression-Era Child Labor

The Great Depression left thousands of Americans without jobs and led to sweeping reforms under the New Deal programs of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. These focused on increasing federal oversight of the workplace and giving out-of-work adults jobs-thereby creating a powerful motive to remove children from the workforce.

Almost all of the codes developed under the National Industrial Recovery Act served to reduce child labor. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a national minimum wage for the first time, a maximum number of hour for workers in interstate commerce-and placed limitations on child labor. In effect, the employment of children under sixteen years of age was prohibited in manufacturing and mining.

Automatization and Education

Changing attitudes toward work and social reform weren't the only factors reducing child labor; the invention of improved machinery that mechanized many of the repetitive tasks previously given to children led to a decrease of children in the workforce. Semiskilled adults took their place for more complex tasks.

Education underwent reforms, too. Many states increasing the number of years of schooling required to hold certain jobs, lengthened the school year and began to more strictly enforce truancy laws. In 1949, Congress amended the child labor law to include businesses not covered in 1938 like transportation, communications and public utilities.

Does Child Labor Exist Today?

Although child labor has been significantly stalled in the United States, it lingers in certain areas of the economy like agriculture, where migrant workers are more difficult to regulate. Since 1938, federal laws have excluded child farm workers from labor protections provided to other working children. For example, children 12 and younger can legally work in farm fields, despite the risks posed by exposure to pesticides and farm machinery.

Employers in the garment industry have turned to the children of illegal immigrants in an effort to compete with imports from low-wage nations. Despite laws limiting the number of hours of work for children and teens still attending school, the increasing cost of education means many are working longer hours to make ends meet. State-by-state enforcement of child labor laws varies to this day.

Sources

Child Labor in U.S. History. The University of Iowa.
History of Child Labor in the United States. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Children in the Fields. National Farm Worker Ministry.

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Child Labor: Laws & Definition - HISTORY

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Child labor, the use of children and teens in often-unsafe working conditions, peaked during the Industrial Revolution but is now regulated by child labor laws.

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Iqbal is about five years old when he has his first working day in the carpet factory. Later, when his mother Anayat needs money for an operation, she takes out a loan from a carpet factory owner called Ghullah. The loan, or 'peshgi', is 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 is a debt slave and Ghullah is in charge of his life. When Iqbal gets home from the carpet factory in the evenings, he collapses into bed and falls asleep. Sometimes Ghullah wakes him around midnight. "We have a carpet delivery that has to be finished. Come on, get up."

Iqbal worked in a carpet factory similar to this one, where young boys and girls work from morning to noon. ©WCPF

The peshgi debt means that Iqbal has to go with Ghullah, who drags a sleepy Iqbal through the narrow streets to the carpet factory. If Iqbal falls asleep at work, he is woken up by a blow from the carpet fork.

One day, a little boy in the carpet factory has a high fever. Ghullah, the owner, ties the boy's feet together and hangs him upside down from the ceiling fan. "I'm the one who decides when you work," roars Ghullah.

In that instant, Iqbal decides he's had enough. He starts to run away from work as often as he can. Iqbal and his friends take the chance to run away when Ghullah isn't there. They play all day without worrying about what awaits them.

The next morning, Ghullah comes to their homes to get them. He's furious, and he beats the boys with a carpet fork or whatever is within reach. Then he chains them up. Sometimes two days pass before he releases them again.

Iqbal after liberation. © Magnus Bergmar/Bergmar Produktion

Early one morning in October 1992, Iqbal runs away from work. He jumps onto the back of a tractor, where many adults and children are already sitting. One hour later, they arrive at a meeting of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front, BLLF.

Iqbal listens with interest when Ehsan talks about the law against debt slavery. The problem in Pakistan is that people don't obey the law, and the police and courts often help factory owners rather than poor people. Ehsan asks Iqbal to tell the other children about his experiences. At first Iqbal doesn't dare, but then he steps up to the microphone.

Ghullah refuses to let Iqbal leave the carpet factory. But Ehsan doesn't forget the little boy, and he asks some of his colleagues to find out more and help Iqbal to freedom.

Iqbal is finally free to go to school. © WCPF

Iqbal is very happy to be able to start attending 'Our own school', as the BLLF school for former debt slaves is called. He tells his friends and children in other carpet factories that they don't have to stay with their owners any longer. In the Muridke area, children start leaving carpet factories in their hundreds and thousands. Iqbal speaks at meetings. He always ends his speeches by saying: "We are...". And all the children respond: "FREE!"

In marches and meetings, Iqbal and other children protest against the use of bonded labour and demand change. © Bergmar produktion

Iqbal now lives in Lahore with BLLF. The first time he comes home to visit, Ghullah the owner of the carpet factory says: "You have to come back to work. Then the other children will come back too." But Iqbal refuses. Another carpet maker threatens Iqbal's mother. He says he'll kidnap her and Iqbal if Iqbal doesn't return to work or pay off the debt that made him a debt slave. A third carpet maker says to Iqbal's little sister Sobia: "Your brother walks about like a judge in the streets when he comes home. But one day we'll get him."

"Shut up mister," says Sobia, who has never dared to be rude to an adult before. "Watch out or we'll kill you too," replies the carpet factory owner.

Iqbal' story becomes known around the world and in October 1994, he visits Sweden. Iqbal tells school children about how life is for debt slave children in Pakistan. Many newspapers write about him, and he is featured on lots of TV programmes. In December 1994, Iqbal flies to the USA, where he is given an award by the Reebok company for fighting for the rights of debt slave children. Iqbal is also 'Person of the week' at one of the USA's largest TV companies. At home in Pakistan, some people get angry when they see that Iqbal tells his story on TV and in newspapers. It may become more difficult to sell Pakistani rugs abroad if child labor and debt slavery are talked about around the world. And paying decent wages to adult workers instead would mean less profit for carpet manufacturers.

Iqbal returns to Pakistan. On the morning of Easter Sunday, 16 April 1995, he takes the bus home to Muridke. That evening he joins his relatives Lyaqat and Faryad Masih, who are taking food to Lyaqat's father who is watering his fields. All three of them sit on the same bike.

It is eight o'clock and it's dark. When the boys are halfway there, they hear two gunshot. Iqbal has been shot and killed. Faryad can't write, so later that night, he has to put his thumbprint at the bottom of a blank piece of paper. Afterwards, the police can write whatever they like above hs thumb print, and claim that Faryad has signed the paper to say that it is true.

Iqbal is shot to death. He is only twelve years old. (Click on the image to read the graphic novel). © WCPF

The next morning, a poor farmer called Ashraf Hero is arrested and accused of murdering Iqbal. The police torture him. They hang him upside down from the ceiling and beat him with sticks and leather belts.

"You're going to say that you killed that boy Iqbal and say whatever we tell you to. Or else we'll kill you and your whole family. You're poor and worthless. No one cares what we do with you," say the police.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan confirms that the police report is correct and that Hero, an innocent man, is the murderer. As a result, the lie is spread all over the world by ambassadors and journalists, without being questioned. The Human Rights Commission also claims, without proof, that the murder is nothing to do with the fact that Iqbal challenged the carpet makers.

The farmer, Hero, is kept out of the way. No one is allowed to meet him. But in court he is found not guilty. The police write that Hero, who has never before held a rifle, just happened to hit Iqbal when he fired in the general direction of the boys. In actual fact, Iqbal was hit by 120 pellets on his back, while the other boys were only hit by a total of two pellets. Iqbal was the murderer's target, and he was shot in the back when he tried to escape.

Iqbal's sister Sobia came to Sweden to accept the award given to her brother after his death. Here she is with HM Queen Silvia of Sweden and WCP Child juror Laura Hannant at Gripholm Castle in Marifred, Sweden. © WCPF

"Iqbal told me that he wanted to be a big lawyer," recalls Sobia, who was ten when her big brother was murdered. "He wanted to free the children in the carpet factories and give them an education so that poor children could have a better future."

Text: Magnus Bergmar

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Story of Iqbal - World's Children's Prize

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Iqbal was freed after years of slave labor in a Pakistan carpet factory but was then murdered at 12 for fighting child slavery. Learn about his life and murder here.

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By Timothy Ryan
[Tim Ryan of the Solidarity Center is a CLC member, who wrote this piece on May 3, 1995 for The Christian Science Monitor. Iqbal Masih was murdered on April 16, 1995]
Anyone who knew Iqbal Masih, the 12-year-old boy recently assassinated in Lahore, Pakistan, by someone believed to be a feudal landlord and carpet manufacturer, was struck by his brilliance.

I don't simply mean his intellectual abilities, though once rescued from slavery at a carpet loom this young activist demonstrated a tremendous aptitude for learning. He went through five years of school curriculum in three. Although malnutrition and abuse left him, at the age of 12, physically smaller and more frail than my nine-year-old daughter, it was clear that his mind, his ambition, and his spirit burned brightly.

When I saw him last December in Karachi on his return from the United States, where he received a Reebok Human Rights Award, he was filled with the excitement of his first airplane ride, a new Instamatic camera, his visit with other schoolchildren in Boston, and the unimaginable promise that one day he might attend a university. Brandeis University had pledged to give a four-year scholarship to Iqbal when he finished his studies in Pakistan.

Then someone motivated by greed, by fear, by hatred, pulled the trigger of a shotgun and obliterated this promise.

I first met Iqbal last year through my work with the Bonded Labor Liberation Front as a representative of the AFL-CIO in South Asia.

The BLLF has worked dauntlessly for years to free thousands of bonded and child laborers, Iqbal among them. After working six years at a carpet loom, starting at the age of four, Iqbal was rescued by the BLLF when he was 10.

Iqbal's rescue was due in no small part to his own guts. Last December he told me that one day two years ago in the village where he was enslaved as a carpet weaver, he saw BLLF posters declaring that bonded and child labor was illegal under Pakistan law and secretly contacted BLLF activists. At the risk of his own life, Iqbal led the BLLF to the carpet looms where they rescued hundreds of children, who might still be in slavery if not for his courage.

It seems medieval, and perhaps it is, but for years carpet manufacturers, brick kiln owners, landowners, and manufacturers of sporting goods and other products in Pakistan have maintained an unrelenting grip on bonded laborers and children. Some estimates run as high as 20 million bonded and child laborers. At least half a million children are employed in the carpet trade alone.

Because of the current tension between Islamic and Christian communities in Pakistan, some apologists want to paint the killing of Iqbal as a purely religious matter. On one level this is a mere smoke screen. But on a more complex and sinister level, there is some connection between the fact that Iqbal was Christian and the fact that he was pressed into slavery in the first place.

Iqbal's story has an economic and political subtext: Politicians and businessmen in Pakistan form a tight web of relationships based on kin, clan, and caste. They count on family members who occupy positions of authority in local, provincial, national, and police bodies to look the other way when laws are violated, or, in many cases, to actively participate in crimes against workers and minorities.

Poverty is often the surface excuse for a problem that has deeper roots. It's a fallacy to see Iqbal's death solely as the result of brutal economics, rather than the outcome of broader, more pervasive violations of fundamental human rights.

On one level Iqbal's story is surely economic - poor people have less education, less income, less power than the rich. Even though it was outlawed in 1992 under Pakistan's Bonded Labor Abolition Act, the "advance" system that bonds people to their employers continues unabated. This system ensnared Iqbal at the age of four. The BLLF has taken some cases to court, but police and employer intimidation, along with judges' unwillingness to enforce the law, has prevented any prosecutions under the 1992 law.

It's at a deeper, generally hidden level that Iqbal's tragedy intersects with millions of Pakistani citizens and helps to explain the oppressive social and cultural patterns that are partly responsible for his death.

The fact is, most people who are bonded and enslaved are converted Muslims, indigenous tribal people, Hindus, and Christians - in short, anyone outside the mainstream of Sunni Islamic society. This insight reveals the intrinsic link between "economic" or "labor" issues and pervasive problems of intolerance and discrimination based on race, language, and ethnicity.

So we're not just talking here about poverty and economic hardship, or one brave little boy's death. We're talking about enslavement based on race and language and religion, about the treatment of human beings as commodities, as slave labor, and the slow grinding to death of people who not only are denied economic advancement, but also a chance at education, decent housing, clean water - the things that make life livable.

Iqbal's death must have a greater meaning beyond the tragedy of a bright meteor snuffed out by greed and corruption. His experience implores us to look beyond "poverty" or "economic hardship" as an explanation of why so many men, women, and children in traditional societies are exploited - to see the rights of child workers and bonded workers as part of a continuum of overall human rights that must be defended at all costs.
Published here with permission of the author who is member of the Child Labor Coalition. Please note that statistics in this article are from 1995, the year it was written. For more information about Iqbal's life, click here.
Please follow the CLC on Twitter by clicking here.
Please follow the CLC on Facebook by clicking here.

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By Timothy Ryan [Tim Ryan of the Solidarity Center is a CLC member, who wrote this piece on May 3, 1995 for The Christian Science Monitor. Iqbal Masih was murdered on April 16, 1995] Anyone who knew Iqbal Masih, the 12-year-old boy recently assassinated in Lahore, Pakistan, by someone believed to be a feudal landlord and carpet manufacturer, was struck by his brilliance.

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Free the Children: the Story of Craig Kielburger - YES! Magazine Solutions Journalism

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Explore a diverse range of articles in the YES! Media archive. From justice to sustainability, discover insightful perspectives on shaping a better world. #YESMedia

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Craig Kielburger is a social entrepreneur and the co-founder of a family of organizations dedicated to the power of WE, a movement of people coming together to change the world. Along with his brother Marc Kielburger, Craig co-founded WE Charity, which provides a holistic development model called WE Villages, helping to lift more than one million people out of poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Back at home in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, WE Schools and WE Day provide comprehensive service learning programs to 18,000 schools, engaging 3.5 million young change-makers. Lastly, he is the co-founder of ME to WE, a pioneering social enterprise, the profits from which help sustain the work of his charitable organization. His work has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, 60 Minutes and the BBC.Craig is the youngest ever graduate from the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA program. He has also received 15 honorary doctorates and degrees for his work in the fields of education and human rights. Craig is a New York Times bestselling author, who has published 12 books, as well as a nationally syndicated columnist. Craig has received The Order of Canada, the Nelson Mandela Freedom Medal and the World Children's Prize. He was recently voted by Canadians as one of Canada's top most trusted influencers in a Readers Digest poll, and along with his brother Marc, he was named Canada's Most Admired CEO in the public sector.

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Craig Kielburger, Humanitarian & Co-Founder | WE.org

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Craig Kielburger is a social entrepreneur and the co-founder of a family of organizations dedicated to the power of WE, a movement of people coming together to change the world. Along with his brother Marc Kielburger, Craig co-founded WE Charity, which provides a holistic development model called WE Villages, helping to lift more than one million people out of poverty in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

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Kailash Satyarthi
The Nobel Peace Prize 2014

Born: 11 January 1954, Vidisha, India

Residence at the time of the award: India

Prize motivation: "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

Prize share: 1/2

Life

Kailash Satyarthi was born in the Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh in India. After completing an electrical engineering degree, he worked as a teacher in the area. In 1980, he left teaching and founded the organization Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which has freed thousands of children from slave-like conditions. He has also been active in a wide range of other organizations working against child labor and for children's rights to education. Kailash Satyarthi is married and has a son and a daughter.

Work

Much of the world's population, especially in poor countries, is made up of children and young people. To achieve a peaceful world, it is crucial that the rights of children and young people be respected. Following the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi has waged a peaceful struggle to stop children being exploited as labor instead of attending school. He has also contributed to the development of international conventions on the rights of children.

To cite this section
MLA style: Kailash Satyarthi - Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2020. Tue. 19 May 2020. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2014/satyarthi/facts/>

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Fifteen laureates were awarded in 2019, for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.

Their work and discoveries range from how cells adapt to changes in levels of oxygen to our ability to fight global poverty.

See them all presented here.

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Kailash Satyarthi The Nobel Peace Prize 2014 Born: 11 January 1954, Vidisha, India Residence at the time of the award: India Prize motivation: "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

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Kailash Satyarthi, the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize for his fight against child labor and exploitation, said his mission as a children's rights activist began when he himself was a child.

On his first day of school, Satyarthi saw another kid about his age working as a shoeshine boy instead of attending class. It disturbed him so much that one day he gathered the courage to ask the boy's father, a cobbler, why he didn't send him to school. The answer left an indelible mark on Satyarthi.

"He told me, 'You're born to go to school, and we're born to work,'" he recalled during a phone call from New York.

"It was a shock for me," said Satyarthi, who was born into a high-caste Indian family. "I started crying because I didn't know anything about the caste system and the hierarchies and discrimination associated with it. But I started looking at the world with different eyes, and I began questioning it because it wasn't right."

Satyarthi put his feelings into action. At just 11, he collected used books and created a book bank for poor children. The first rescue operation he undertook, with friends and colleagues, was to free a 14-year girl who had been abducted and was about to be sold to a brothel. As an adult he considered creating a charity or an orphanage, but instead founded an organization to defend children's rights, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement), which campaigns to end bonded labor, child labor, and human trafficking, and advocates for education for all children.

In 2014 he was awarded the Nobel along with Malala Yousafzai, the then-teenage Pakistani activist who survived being shot in the head by Taliban assassins, "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

On Friday, Satyarthi, now 65, will be on campus for a screening of " The Price of Free," a documentary about his life and mission that won the 2018 U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. An excerpt will be shown at 4 p.m. at Sanders Theatre at an event hosted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. Chan School Dean Michelle Williams, the Angelopoulos Professor in Public Health and International Development, will give introductory remarks. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Satyarthi.

An admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, Satyarthi gave up his career as an electrical engineer and his high-caste name, Sharma, in the 1980s, swapping it for Satyarthi, which means "seeker of truth." He also started working full time for his cause.

Through his organization, Satyarthi has freed more than 80,000 children from forced labor in dangerous rescue operations. Two members of his group have been killed, one shot and the other beaten to death by criminal gangs connected to companies that use enslaved children as labor. Satyarthi himself has also suffered attacks.

"They want to eliminate me and crush my organization because they feel threatened by our work," he said. "But they are the ones in danger. They're getting weaker, and our movement is getting stronger."

Due to the Save Childhood Movement's advocacy, in 1986 the Indian government passed the Child Labour Act, which prohibits hiring children younger than 14 years old for hazardous jobs. In 1998, Satyarthi led a global march against child labor across 103 countries, and a year later the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted Convention No. 182, concerning the prohibition of and immediate action on eliminating the worst forms of child labor.

The work is far from over, said Satyarthi. According to the ILO, 152 million children remain in forced labor around the world.

"We'd like to see universities become strong champions for the cause," said Satyarthi. "My mission in life is that every child on the earth is free; free to walk to school, free to laugh, free to play. When every child is free to be a child, only then my dream will come true."
Admission is free but tickets are required. Tickets can be picked up at the Harvard Box Office.

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Nobel laureate, children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi comes to Harvard

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Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi will visit the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to take part in panel discussion and a screening of "The Price of Free," a documentary about his life and his mission to fight against child labor and trafficking.