We want to honor Iqbal Masih. A child hero. Iqbal has inspired us in a very deep way.
Iqbal was sold as a child slave at the age of four for the equivalent of 12 USD. He was forced to work on a carpet loom in a small town called Muridke near Lahore, and was made to work twelve hours per day. Due to long hours of hard work and insufficient food and care, Iqbal was undersized. At twelve years of age, Iqbal was the size of a six-year old boy.
At the age of 10, he escaped the brutal slavery and later joined the BLLF (Bonded Labor Liberation Front of Pakistan) to help stop child labor around the world. Iqbal helped over 3,000 Pakistani children that were in bonded labour escape to freedom, and made speeches about child labour all around the world.
He was murdered on Easter Sunday 1995 in Muridke in the middle of a busy road. Some locals were accused of the crime but it is assumed by many that he was assassinated by members of the “Carpet Mafia” because of his famous fight against the child labour industry.
