Today we were going to write about Martyr Hero Iqbal Masih Children’s Rights Activist compete Biography – A Pakistani young hero who became famous across the globe due to his high struggles with child labour.
Who Is Iqbal Masih
Iqbal Masih was four years of age when his dad sold him into servitude. He had to work over 12 hours every day. He was continually beaten, obnoxiously mishandled, and affixed to his loom by the carpet factory owners.
He looked a lot more youthful than his twelve years: his development had been hindered by a serious lack of healthy sustenance and long periods of squeezed fixed status before a loom.
Iqbal Masih Early Life
Iqbal was born in a very poor “Catholic” family in 1983 in a commercial city named “Muridke” situated outside Lahore city. Iqbal’s poor family take a loan from a person who runs a carpet factory, the amount of the loan is 600 Pakistani Rupees which is around 3.39 $.
Against that amount of loan, the Iqbal family pledged Iqbal to the owner. It is decided that Iqbal Masih have to work under the roof of their factory until the amount of loan would be paid. Iqbal was just four years old, he worked against the loan in that carpet factory 12 hours a day, seven days in a weak and for the whole of the month.
At this young age, Iqbal has to wake up early in the morning and have to walk on foot on several dark roads of the city to the factory. In the boundaries of the factory, Iqbal and other little children were tightly fastened with heavy chains, for removing the risk of running away.
He has to spend a very hard and difficult time here for survival, one day Iqbal tear one piece of carpet, due to that he faced a lot of trouble and problems from the house owner “Hussain Khan”.
How Iqbal Escape?
Iqbal have a clear idea that his loan would not be going to be paid soon and he also learned that the supreme court of Pakistan declared that bonded labour is illegal. So one day he decided to escape from this hell, Iqbal run away and tried to report against his employer to this Police station. But due to being highly bribed by the employer to the police, the staff of Police send him back to the factory.
But as Iqbal understand everything and just keep his eyes on the chance to escape, again one day Iqbal Masih again tried to run and he got succeeded in it. After escaping from the carpet factory, Iqbal joins the school for previous kids slaves (BLLF) Bonded Labour Liberation Front for learning and he completed four years of education there just in two years.
Iqbal Masih also helped other three thousand kids labourer to motivate to escape and he also delivered a lot of speeches.
He also goes United States, Sweden and other countries of the world to motivate the children who were living in slavery by his stories of life.
Read: Arfa Abdul Karim Randhawa Biography
Legacy Of Iqbal
In Boston in the year 1994 in a speech he said:
- Iqbal also received the “Reebok Human Rights Award” there.
- Iqbal’s goal propelled the making of associations, for example, We Charity, a Canada-based cause and youth development, and the Iqbal Masih Shaheed Children Foundation, which has begun more than 20 schools in Pakistan.
- Iqbal pay a visit to Broad Meadows Middle School in Quincy, Massachusetts, In 1994, & addressed 7 stages of his life. He propelled the popular afterschool program run by educator Ronald Adams called ODW (Operation: Day’s Work). At the point when the understudies understood of his demise, they chose to fund-raise with a monetarily useful program called “Penny Power”, and fabricate a school in his distinction in Kasur, Pakistan.
- Iqbal’s story was portrayed in a book entitled Iqbal by Francesco D’Adamo, an imaginary story in light of genuine occasions, according to the perspective of a young lady named Fatima.
- In 1996 the Movimiento Cultural Cristiano (MCC-Christian Cultural Movement) and Camino Juvenil Solidario (CJS-Youth Solidarity Path) advanced the 16 of April as International Day against Child Slavery in Spain and South America.
- In 1998 the recently framed Istituto Comprensivo Iqbal Masih, an exhaustive training organization containing a few schools in Trieste, Italy, was named after him.
- In 2000 he got an after death World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child and the Piazzale dei Traghetti Iqbal Masih was initiated in Genoa, Italy.
- A book named The Little Hero explained his story of legacy in the title “One Boy’s Fight for Freedom”
- For the elimination of child labour, an annual award ceremony was established and given the name “Iqbal Masih Award” in United States Congress.
- In Santiago de Compostela, Spain opens a square in the name of Iqbal on 16 April 2012.
- The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was granted to kids’ privileges advocate Kailash Satyarthi, on grounds of avoidance of youngster work and advancement of female instruction. Satyarthi referenced Masih in his Nobel Peace Prize honour discourse, devoting it to him and other martyrs.
- In Catania, Sicily in the year 2016 “X Iqbal Masih Rugby Tournament” was held.
- On the behalf of the Iqbal Masih University of Salamanca started a day against kids slavery on 16 April every year.
Death Of Iqbal
Carpet Mafia shot Iqbal Masih on 16 April 1995 when Iqbal was just doing cycling in his city Muridke while he was on a visit to his relatives home. This true leader for child slavery was just 12 years old at that time, at the news of her shot Iqbal mother did not even believe it.
Iqbal Masih funeral ceremony was attended by at least 800 people at that time. Iqbal was a true young hero, type your comments about this legend below in the comments box.