Have you remember The little Hero Iqbal?
The little Hero Ikbal
After Iqbal’s mother died, his father remarried and sold Iqbal to a carpet weaving factory for just $8 or 800 rupees. Iqbal, who was sold for $8, was only 8 years old. Iqbal’s inhuman labor began in the factory. Each week had to work 120 hours or more than 17 hours a day. Iqbal, along with other children of his age, were kept with long chains on their legs so that they could not run away.
When Iqbal was ten years old, he managed to escape from this prison called Carpet Weaving. But three days after his ill-fated escape he was recaptured and resold. This time its price is a little higher than before by ten dollars. The work also increases in the week, 140 hours! After a few days, Iqbal escapes again, like in the movie ‘Slum Dog Millionaire’ – through human men.
Iqbal was now sheltered in an orphanage and the head of the orphanage, Hafez Ibrahim, admitted him to a local school. A brilliant genius, Iqbal completed five years of primary school education in just two years.
While in school, Iqbal joined the Bonded Labor Liberation Front (BLLF). Whose job is to free children from various factories. Through this organization, Iqbal helped about 3000 children to escape or escape from various factories. In 1994, Iqbal was awarded the Reebok Human Rights Award in Boston.
Where Iqbal says- Like Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery from America, my job is to ensure the equal rights of all children by liberating millions of children from all over the world. No child will be in school and no child will be in factory. That will not happen. 140 hour work week agony. He who does, only he understands. No one else can understand this pain.
16-year-old Swedish child Greta Thunberg has shaken the world through the School strike for climate movement. Iqbal also started the movement for the liberation of child slaves. But Iqbal’s dream did not come true. Just as the child slave emancipation movement was at its peak, Iqbal was shot dead by the carpet mafia shortly after he returned to Lahore from Boston. He was only twelve years old then.
The United States Labor Department started ‘The Iqbal Masih Award’ in 2009 to commemorate this legacy of Shishu Iqbal. No one knows these heroes who freed almost 3000 child slaves in their short life of only twelve years and gave their lives by shooting. One minute dance-song, one goal, one six goes viral. Because entertainment is international cuisine. This food is a million, billion dollar market. So people know only game heroes and movie heroes.
Iqbal, who was shot dead in 1995, would have been around forty four years old if he had lived. And at the age of 40, perhaps 4 million children would have been released from the prison of forced child labor.
Hats off to you,The Little Hero…
