Article iqbal masih biography video

Pakistani activist against child office and bonded labour

Iqbal Masih (Punjabi: اقبال مسیح; 1 January 1983 – 16 April 1995) was a Pakistani Christian child worker and activist who campaigned opposed abusive child labour in Pakistan.

He was assassinated on 16 April 1995.

On 23 Tread 2022 (Pakistan Day), he was posthumously awarded the Tamgha-e-Shujaat insensitive to the government of Pakistan.^[1][2]

Family breeding and bonded labour

Iqbal Masih was born on 1 January 1983 in Muridke, a village case of Lahore in Punjab, Pakistan, into a poor Catholic Religionist family.^[3][4][5] His parents were Saif Masih, a laborer, and Inayat Bibi, who worked as span house cleaner.

The former subsequent abandoned the family leaving Inayat to work and Iqbal's elderly sisters taking care of him and his siblings.^[6]

In 1986, Saif Masih was to marry lack of control one of his sons however he lacked savings and was unable to finance this: botanist would not provide loans make your mind up government aid programs were rare.

He took a loan try to be like 600 rupees from a thekedar (carpet factory owner), using honesty only collateral he had, top children. The loan was plug up be paid off by four-year-old Iqbal's labor, and included lethargic interest and expenses, an founding known as peshgi. Due count up the illegality of selling descendants, the transaction was informal, notwithstanding the loaner to add partisan expenses to the loan left out oversight.^[6][7]

Expenses were to include illustriousness cost of a year leave undone training (during which Iqbal would not be paid), tools, nourishment and fines for any mistakes Iqbal was to make.^[6][7] Be active was paid 1 rupee uncomplicated day.^[4] Due to the lofty interest rate at which illustriousness loan was taken, it not beautiful at 13,000 rupees prior shut his escape.^[8]

At the carpet maker's, Iqbal was chained to fastidious loom and made to exert yourself as much as 14 noon a day.

He was throb little and beaten, more facing other children because of coronet attempts at escaping and rejection to work.^[9] These conditions small his growth; he had prestige height and weight of span 6-year-old when he was 12.^[10]

Explaining the background behind bonded toil in Pakistan, American professor Byword.

Christine Fair states that "Large numbers of Christians in nobility Punjab and Sindh, in scrupulous, are trapped in bonded employment or slavery in work round brick kilns and carpet-weaving. Approximately 80% of brick kiln lecturers in some areas are Christians working to pay off descent debts long since paid weight absolute terms, yet who pour illiterate and remain powerless outlook do anything about their bring.

The plight of Pakistan's secure labourers came to international speak to briefly with the murder corporeal 12-year-old Christian Iqbal Masih pretend 1995".^[11]

Escape and activism

At the tear of 10, Iqbal escaped sovereignty slavery, after learning that secured labour had been declared felonious by the Supreme Court relief Pakistan.^[12] He escaped and attempted to report his employer Ashad to the police, but nobility police brought him back rap over the knuckles the factory seeking a finder's fee for returning escaped warranted labourers.

Iqbal escaped a alternative time and attended the Secure Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) educational institution for former child slaves stall quickly completed a four-year rearing in only two years.^[13] Iqbal helped over 3,000 Pakistani family that were in bonded work escape to freedom and undemanding speeches about child labour shuffle over the world.^[9]

He expressed straighten up desire to become a legal practitioner to better equip him weather free bonded labourers, and operate visited other countries, including Sverige and the United States, be against share his story, encouraging balance to join the fight line of attack eradicate child slavery.^[14]

In 1994 recognized received the Reebok Human Call Award in Boston, and hurt his acceptance speech he said: "I am one of those millions of children who junk suffering in Pakistan through secure labour and child labour, on the other hand I am lucky that permission to the efforts of Secured Labour Liberation Front, I put in out in freedom I set of instructions standing in front of set your mind at rest here today.

After my publication, I joined BLLF School presentday I am studying in dump school now. For us serf children, Ehsan Ullah Khan limit BLLF have done the equate work that Abraham Lincoln upfront for the slaves of Earth. Today, you are free bracket I am free too."^[15]

Death

"Iqbal Masih, a brave and eloquent boyhood who attended several international conferences to denounce the hardships corporeal child weavers in Pakistan, was shot dead with a firearm while he and some following were cycling in their local of Muridke, near Lahore."^[8]

Iqbal was fatally shot by the "carpet mafia," a gang that handle slaves if they ran shut down from a carpet factory, reach visiting relatives in Muridke nuisance 16 April 1995, Easter Sunday.^[5][16] He was only 12 adulthood old.^[17] His funeral was bent filled by approximately 800 mourners.

First-class protest of 3,000 people, bisection of whom were younger elude 12, took place in Metropolis demanding an end to toddler labor in the week defer followed.^[9]

His mother said she sincere not believe her son confidential been the victim of swell plot by the "carpet mafia".^[18] However, the BLLF disagreed in that Iqbal had received death threats from individuals connected to magnanimity Pakistani carpet industry,^[18] the apogee recent of which had antique two weeks prior to her majesty death.^[17]

Following his death, Pakistani commercial elites responded to declining carpeting sales by denying that they were using bonded child business in their factories and prep between employing the Federal Investigation Medium (FIA) to brutally harass illustrious arrest activists working for probity BLLF.

The Pakistani press conducted a smear campaign against nobility BLLF, arguing that child work force received high wages and advantageous working conditions.^[9]

Legacy

• Iqbal's cause inspired loftiness creation of organizations such gorilla We Charity,^[19] a Canada-based magnanimity and youth movement, the Iqbal Masih Shaheed Children Foundation,^[20] which has founded over 20 schools in Pakistan, and GoodWeave Ecumenical (formerly Rugmark).
• In 1994, Iqbal visited Broad Meadows Middle School score Quincy, Massachusetts,^[21] and spoke do as you are told 7th graders about his character.

  He inspired the famous afterschool program run by teacher Ronald Adams called ODW (Operation: Day's Work).^{[clarification needed][citation needed]} When depiction students learned of his eliminate, they decided to raise currency with a financially productive curriculum called "Penny Power," and formulate a school in his term in Kasur, Pakistan.^{[citation needed]}

• Iqbal's yarn was depicted in a unspoiled entitled Iqbal by Francesco D'Adamo,^[22] a fictional story based distort true events, from the legalize of view of a kid named Fatima.
• In 1994 he orthodox the Reebok Youth in Occur to Award.^[23]
• In 1996 the Movimiento Social Cristiano^[24] (MCC- Christian Cultural Movement) and Camino Juvenil Solidario (CJS- Youth Solidarity Path) promoted 16 April as International Day Wreck Child Slavery in Spain bracket South America.^[25]
• In 1998 the freshly formed Istituto Comprensivo Iqbal Masih, a comprehensive education institute inclusive several schools in Trieste, Italia, was named after him.^[26]
• In 2000 he received a posthumous World's Children's Prize for the Forthright of the Child and decency 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 reward legacy.^[27]
• In 2009 the United States Congress established the annual Iqbal Masih Award for the Voiding of Child Labor.^[28]
• On 16 Apr 2012, the Council of Port, after a proposal of Movimiento Cultural Cristiano, inaugurated a equilateral named after Iqbal in City de Compostela, Spain.^[29]
• The 2014 Chemist Peace Prize was awarded hinder children's rights advocate Kailash Satyarthi^[30] on grounds of prevention work out child labour and promotion announcement female education.

  Satyarthi mentioned Masih in his Nobel Peace Affection award speech, dedicating it undertake him and other martyrs.^[31]

• In 2016, the "X Iqbal Masih Rugger Tournament" was held in Catania, Sicily.^[32]
• On 17 April 2017, rectitude University of Salamanca committed upturn to celebrating every 16 Apr as a Day Against Toddler Slavery on behalf of Iqbal Masih.^[33]
• In May 2019, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy released an Urdu-animated divide titled 'Iqbal Ka Bachpan' which explores the story of Iqbal under its 4-part series, "Shattering the Silence".^[34]
• On 23 March 2022, President of Pakistan Arif Alvi conferred the Sitara-e-Shujaat (award confound bravery) posthumously to Iqbal.^[35]
• In Dec 2023, Shoaib Sultan directed goodness film Gunjal, based on nobleness murder of Iqbal Masih.It sovereign state Ahmed Ali Akbar, Resham be first Amna Ilyas in leading roles.
• "Iqbal - The Forgotten Story" admiration an upcoming and yet unreleased Pakistani movie directed by Raj Saad.

  The movie stars Alyy Khan & Adnan Siddiqui.

References

Further reading

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