Iqbal Masih and the Crusaders Against Child Slavery by Susan Kuklin

Author:Susan Kuklin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

BLLF schoolgirls

Courtesy of Mark Shapiro

Iqbal at a demonstration with other formerly bonded children

Courtesy of Britt-Marie Klang/Bergmar Productions

Journalists, labor leaders, and human rights activists from around the world visited the Freedom Campus. They met with Iqbal, who represented the school as the president of the children’s wing.

The young student, smartly dressed in a blue school uniform, spoke in front of many groups. He was strong. He was passionate. People, children especially, listened. He told the audience about his life as a carpet weaver. He talked about other boys who spent long hours in front of the looms. He talked about the abuses, the beatings, the starvation. Mostly he talked about the injustice of robbing poor children of their childhood. He was amazingly articulate, considering the fact that he was barely literate and had no life experiences other than bondage.

In Iqbal, Khan found an extraordinary speaker who could go on for hours without looking at notes, without missing an issue. Adults could talk until they were blue in the face about the exploitation of children. To hear it from the mouth of a child who experienced the horror was much more powerful. He was not one bit intimidated by the large crowds who came to hear him. In fact, he enjoyed them.

About this time, a new smear campaign appeared. It began with a few threatening letters addressed to Iqbal. Then, according to Khan, there were some death threats. Iqbal paid no attention to them. He could not imagine that an adult would actually harm him. Boldly he told his friends that the threats encouraged him to work harder.

RUGMARK

The South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude had been meeting with several major manufacturers and exporters to try to settle their differences. The group also sent representatives to Geneva to ask the United Nations Human Rights Commission to adopt a labeling system to inform the public about which products were not made by children. In 1991 the commission put out a report. It recommended

that products such as carpets whose manufacture is liable to involve child labor should bear a special mark guaranteeing that they have not been produced by children. In this context consumers should be alerted so that they will demand products bearing such a mark.

About fifty carpet manufacturers pledged never to use child labor in their units. The SACCS immediately set up an independent agency that included nongovernmental groups involved in the issue, carpet manufacturers, importers, exporters, and international organizations such as UNICEF. The agency was given the authority to label carpets that were made without child labor. A German export promotion group took the responsibility of setting up the system for inspections and labeling. On September 5, 1994, after years of meetings and debates, the Rugmark Foundation was formally established. Its label is a smiling carpet logo.

Each label has a computerized code number that identifies the exporter, manufacturer, loom owner, and weaver. All the carpet manufacturers and exporters can apply for this label so long as they agree to produce carpets free of child labor.

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