Early Life

Iqbal Masih was born in a small village on the outskirts of Lahore, Pakistan, in 1983. His father was a poor labourer and abandoned the family after he became father to another boy, which meant another mouth to feed. Iqbal’s mother Inayat, who worked as a housecleaner, bore the responsibility of taking care of all her children, doing odd jobs in houses in Lahore.

Baby Iqbal, unaware of what dire conditions his family suffered with, was taken care of by his sisters and played in a vast field outside his small house. However, his childhood bid its farewell to Iqbal at the age of 4, when he tasted ‘real life’ for the first time. In 1986, the family needed money for his older brother’s marriage celebration and borrowed Rs. 600 from a local carpet weaving business owner. In return, he took Iqbal as a bonded labour until the debt was recovered.

With no other option left, Iqbal started working and found out that several other children were working alongside him. He started working from early morning and worked till late evening. He worked 14 hours a day for 6 days a week and the pay was so low that he could not pay the money back to his ‘owner’. But somehow, without any ray of hope, he kept working and even when the Pakistani Supreme Court made child labour illegal, the corruption which prevailed at every corner in Pakistani politics and economy, kept the evil well fed.

At the age of 10, Iqbal managed to plan his first escape after getting tired of the atrocious way he was getting treated with. The children were beaten, starved, made to work in extreme heat, forced to work overtime with very low pay, barely enough to get them two square meals, even lesser than that sometimes. Iqbal’s bravery encouraged him to take the risk which he knew would cost him his life if he failed, but Iqbal took the bold step and planned an escape.

Iqbal took some other children with him and they all ran away, landing straight into a police station, only to land in the crib of poisonous corruption which was obvious through the way the police reacted. The uniformed corrupts handed Iqbal and other children over to his employer to get some money as a reward.

Iqbal’s punishment for escaping was extreme starvation and horrific beating sessions and time halted for the brave young boy as the suffering seemed unending.

At the age of 12, Iqbal made another escape attempt, this time to a convention of Brick Layer Union. There, Iqbal came in touch with an activist named Ehsaan Ullah Khan, who helped free Iqbal along with some other children from Arshad, the carpet business owner.

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