The Headline that changed my life: The Story of Iqbal Masih

Be a voice for the silenced.

A key concept in The KOL’s Mission Statement

On an April morning in 1995, on a school day like any other, I met Iqbal Masih. At my kitchen table with coffee and the daily newspaper.  Predictable.  Except for the headline on the front page of the StarTribune.

                                    Child labor crusader slain at 12 

                                    Boy exposed sweatshops in Pakistan

            With horror and disbelief, I read, “When Iqbal Masih was 4 years old, his parents sold him into slavery.  For the next six years, he remained shackled to a carpet-weaving loom most of the time, tying tiny knots.“ Finally freed at age ten, Iqbal spoke about these abuses and brought international attention to the plight of children like him.  Because he was “bad for business,” he was “shot dead.” Riding his bike near his home.

            Sweatshops?  I thought those could be found in an historical footnote from the turn of the century.  Indentured servitude?  I thought that practice had been outlawed.  The labor behind the label?  Like most Americans I had no idea who made my clothes or the toys I purchased.  I was unaware that children like Iqbal, given as human collateral by their desperate and destitute parents for a loan, labored as bonded slaves for a rupee (a few cents) a day. What madness!

I could have just folded up that newspaper, recycled it, been upset for a few days, and then just gone on with my life.  But, sometimes, a moment comes from which you just cannot turn away.

Instead, I looked across the breakfast table at my sons, ages ten and 13.  I pictured my seventh graders, many also only twelve years old.  I studied the face of Iqbal, a boy whose voice for change was now silenced.  That Pakistani boy ignited my passion to draw back the curtain and expose the cruel world of child labor.

So began my education. I learned about the maquiladoras and the clothing industry.  A DATELINE investigative report opened my eyes to the abuses in the toy industry, mark-ups, and greedonomics.  Visits to the website for the National Labor Committee and a READ magazine story painted a picture for me about NIKE and soccer balls. I entered the world of the carpet industry where children shackled to looms made rugs for the wealthy. (Several years later I discovered The Dark Side of Chocolate.)

Once I knew about child labor my personal radar picked up information everywhere.  After reading the story of Iqbal’s murder, Craig Kielburger, a twelve-year-old from Canada, founded FREE THE CHILDREN; renamed WE today.  David Parker, a doctor from Minneapolis, wrote a book called Stolen Dreams, a book that would become a centerpiece of the unit I was to write.  My files grew rapidly.

            As a young adult in the late Sixties, I was inspired by Robert Kennedy’s speech in South Africa, by the image he used of the ripple effect, each ripple that leads to a tidal wave of change.  I wanted to create that “effect” in my classroom with my seventh graders on behalf of other children who labor rather than learn.  After a year of research, I wrote and then taught this unit, The Issue of Child Labor: The Labor Behind the Label, continually updating and revising until I retired in 2013.

And, always, Iqbal.

To be shocked, to be outraged, and to be horrified by the abuses suffered by child laborers is not enough.

TAKE ACTION.  Use your power on behalf of the powerless, on behalf of children who live without hope.

INSPIRE your students. Show them how to shed the cloak of complacency.  Show them that choices they make can improve the lives of the less fortunate.

Show them the power of simply reading a label. Be part of the ripple effect that leads to a wave of change for children.

            Always, for me, as a voice for Iqbal, silenced by an assassin’s bullet.