My name is Iqbal Masih. I come from Muridke, a rural village near the city of Lahore, Pakistan.

In our village, my family is the poorest of the poor. Six hundred rupees is a fortune to them. It buys two goats and a pot filled to the brim with lentils. Six hundred rupees is how much my family received when they sold me.

I do not blame my family for bonding me to the cruel man. They could not afford to feed me or my sisters or pay for my brother’s wedding. The day I was four years old and the city man put money into my mother’s hand was the saddest of my life. The man, my owner, put me into the back of his car and we drove away. I had never been in a car before. It drove so fast. We travelled a very long way, far from the fields of my home to a place in the city. And that is where I learned my fate. I was to become a carpet weaver.

The factory is enormous compared to my family’s hut, and filled with many looms. All day and half the night the sounds of carpets being made throb in my ears. Combs beat against the woven thread.

Wood clanks. Men, women and children cough. It is so dusty in this factory, so dark. A place of much sadness. A place I hate with all my being.

I am always afraid. The supervisor and the owner scold and shout. They beat me on the back and head and curse me. If I make a tiny mistake, if I acciden tally cut the thread, the supervisor takes a belt to me. Like the others, I work fourteen hours a day with one hour off. I am never allowed to go outside. My fingers bleed from where the threads cut me. When I cry with pain, the supervisor puts coffee powder on it and tells me to keep working. There is no medicine when I am sick.

This is the path that God has put me on so I have to work. It is written on my head and nobody can change my life. I don’t want to weave, but there is no other way. Perhaps one day I will repay the six hundred rupees and return to my family.

I sleep in the factory with Nadeem and his cousin

Amin. We prepare our food here and sleep in a space between the machines. Every morning at four we get up. Today I am yawning and stretching from sleep when Nadeem whispers in my ear, ‘Amin and I are leaving today.’

I look at him, much puzzled. In the six years I have been in the factory nobody has ever left the looms.

‘We are running away,’ says Nadeem. ‘Do you wish to come with us?’

To run away! Such a thought!

‘There is a freedom celebration in the city,’ says Nadeem. ‘Yesterday I overheard the owner speaking with the supervisor. And this morning the door is not locked. So, Iqbal, are you with us?’

I nod, and my heart leaps with joy. But also I am filled with much fear.

Crouching low, we make our way through the darkness out of our prison.

The colours of outside almost blind me. I had forgotten that the sky could be so blue. And here, too, are people who smile, who do not reach out to slap my head. Or call me names that not even an animal should be called. And such smells! My belly rumbles with hunger. But there is no time to stop. We must get as far from the factory as we can. Along the crowded streets we run, until we are out of breath.

‘I wonder what this says,’ says Nadeem when at last we pant to a halt. He points to a large sign strung between two buildings. I cannot read the words but later, when I have been taught, I know they read BONDED LABOUR LIBERATION FRONT (BLLF).

Nadeem asks a stranger what the sign says.

‘It is a meeting today,’ the man says, ‘against chil dren working in factories.’

I want to tell the man that this is Nadeem, Amin and me. But I hold my tongue. The stranger might know our factory owner and tell him we are here.

‘When will the meeting be held?’ I ask.

‘In one hour,’ says the man. ‘They are giving free food.’

Free food! I can scarcely believe it.

While we wait, we walk around the nearby markets looking at fruit and vegetables, grains and spices, things that we have only dreamed about for years. At one stall a vendor holds out slices of mango. ‘Try some,’ he offers.

Never in all of my life have I known such sweetness!

The juice dribbles from my mouth, my tongue flicks out to catch every last drop. I smile at the vendor. When did I last smile? And the vendor- bless him in Heaven - hands me a mango. A whole mango, can you imagine?

‘Thank you, thank you, sir!’ I say. Nadeem and

Amin and I wish him bountiful blessings. We are so happy!

We head back to the meeting place. Near a raised platform there some women are cooking chicken over a fire, a smell made in Heaven. My friends and I are filled with mango, but there is room for chicken. We linger around the women and are soon rewarded with chicken pieces on sticks. It is so delicious I can not describe the taste.

The square fills with people. Men in white shirts and western trousers are standing on the platform. There is a microphone. One of the men calls for attention.

‘The BLLF is here today,’ he says, ‘to call a halt to child labour.’

‘I am told,’ says the man, ‘that children are some times chained to looms.’

‘This is true - I know!’ Suddenly I hear my own

VOICe.

People turn and look at me.

‘If it’s true,’ someone says, ‘go up and tell of it.’ Why I push through the crowd and climb onto the platform I do not know. But suddenly I am no longer afraid. I am filled with anger. Anger that so much of my life I have been chained like a dog. To a loom that I hate. Working for an owner whom I hate even more.

‘My name is Iqbal Masih,’ I say into the micro phone. ‘I am from the village of Muridke. My family sold me to a carpet-factory owner for six hundred rupees.’

That day on the platform, the day of our escape, was over one year ago now. So much has happened since then. More than I could ever have dreamed. I have been home again, felt my mother’s arms around me, shaken hands with my older brother and seen the tears running down his cheeks. I have held my sisters in my arms and been astonished at how tall they have grown.

Mr Ehsan Ullah Khan, from the BLLF - a group working for the rights of children - helped me gain a letter of freedom from my former master. It gave my family money and paid for me to be schooled. It paid, too, for doctors to treat my bad lungs and to help me grow. (I am small for my age. The doctors say this is because of crouching so many years at the loom.)

Khan Sahib has told me much of how other children are treated poorly. They are slaves, as was I. ‘Twelve million bonded child labourers in our country!’ he says.

I have tried to help the BLLF and Khan Sahib for their great charity. I have excelled at my studies, and I have spoken in public - many times - of my years at the loom. One day I marched with the BLLF and with the help of the courts we freed hundreds of children from their enforced labours.

Today Khan Sahib is beside me on a stage. We are in a great hall in Sweden - the largest you can imagine. Here, thousands of good men and women are gathered. I am to talk to them. For weeks I have been practising my speech. But now I am shaking with fear. It is not the fear of my owner beating me. But the fear that I will forget what I am to say. My mouth is dry.

I hear my name spoken and Khan Sahib smiles.

‘Your turn,’ he whispers to me.

The microphone is brought down to my height and I begin. My words are loud, so loud they must surely carry all the way to Lahore. I tell the people about what it was like in the factory.

‘In Pakistan,’ I say, ‘between eight and ten million children - a quarter of all those aged from five to fif teen - work in carpet-weaving, brick kilns, domestic service, small industries and agriculture.’

In the audience, people are leaning forward, listening. Mine is the only voice in this great hall. I tell how I know now that children have rights under laws. That bonded labour is illegal. I tell them how the BLLF has freed thousands of child slaves. The words I had been so scared I would forget charge out of my mouth.

‘We are calling,’ I say, ‘for people in the West to not buy carpets made by children.’

When I have finished, the hall is still and silent. Then, like a herd of elephants stampeding, comes the thunder of many hands clapping. Khan Sahib is grinning at me. ‘Good boy,’ his mouth says, though I cannot hear the words.

When the speeches are finished, cameras flash lights in my face, people mill around me. Journalists ask me many questions. Then I am seated for a tele vision interview. Khan Sahib says my picture will be seen all over the world!

‘I have a surprise for you, Iqbal,’ Khan Sahib says to me later. ‘We have been asked to take you to America. A company named Reebok wishes to present you with an award. And you have been nominated “Person of the Week” by the American Broadcasting Commission. It is a big honour.’

To tell the truth, I do not care about awards. I am too excited. I am helping to save children from working like slaves. I am talking to people who wish to hear what I have to say. And I am going to watch cartoons on television in a hotel room with a bed as soft as silk! Such a reward one could not get even in Heaven.

‘I appeal to you to stop people from using children as bonded labourers. Children need to use pens rather than be used for labour.’ Those are the words I spoke when I accepted the Reebok Youth in Action Award.

America was more than I could ever have im agined. Such sights I saw! I captured so much with the camera presented to me by Khan Sahib on my twelfth birthday. And I brought the photos home with me. To show my family and friends in case they did not believe what I told them of that amazing land. Today I knock on the door of Khan Sahib’s office.

‘Enter!’ he calls.

The sahib is alone, sitting in front of piles of papers. He puts down his pen and smiles at me.

‘Yes, young sir,’ he says. ‘What is it you are wanting?’

I tell him that today is the eve of Easter and I ask permission to leave school to go to my family in our village.

Kahn Sahib is slow to reply. This surprises me because it is rare he denies me. ‘There is a problem, Sahib?’ I ask.

‘In fact,’ he says, ‘there may be.’

I wait in silence while he gathers his thoughts.

‘We are hearing words that worry us, Iqbal,’ he says. ‘There are men in the city they are calling “the carpet mafia”.’

I have not heard the word ‘mafia’ before and ask what means it.

‘Rich men who own factories where children work are angry that their profits are down,’ says the sahib.

‘Since your talks, people are not buying so many carpets. They do not want to support factories that use children.’

I shrug. ‘What does this matter?’

Khan Sahib, whose face is most often smiling, looks serious. ‘I worry that the men might want to kidnap you, Iqbal. Or do you damage.’

‘I am just a child,’ I tell my kind and wise friend.

‘You know I have many threats. It is all talk.’

We speak some more. I think my sahib knows I am homesick, so he agrees to call a wagon to carry me the twenty-five miles to my home.

I shake his hand and say goodbye.

On the trip home, I am excited about seeing my family. I have not seen them in a long while. And this week, Khan Singh has told me some news I need to discuss with them. He says that the BLLF wishes me to be schooled in America. This means I can be near doctors who can help me better heal my body than the local doctors can.

‘The Americans heard how smart you are,’ said Khan Singh, ‘passing four grades in two years. They have awarded you a scholarship to attend an educa tional program at Brandeis University.’

I want so much to study at university. To become a lawyer so I can fight the bad businessmen who ex ploit children. But then I have a problem. Going to America means I will see even less of my family. And I love my family. Very much. There are two parts of me at war as the wagon draws closer to home. Should I go to America to study and to improve my health? Or should I stay here in Pakistan with those

I love?

At home, after I have eaten my mother’s chicken masala and shaha korma, I talk about my problem.

‘It is up to you, my son,’ says Mother. merica offers many opportunities. It is a rich land. Pakistan

I.S poor. ‘

We talk and talk. But then Mother asks me to go to the market for some curry paste.

My sister Sobia is in the compound shed, sitting in the dirt. She is not in a happy mood.

‘You are too spoiled, Iqbal,’ she says. She sulks because some money came from a stranger who heard my story. And now I have a bike, silver and red, with a basket at the front.

I feel like telling Sobia she ought not to be jealous. Her back is not curved from bending to a loom for fourteen hours a day. Her hands are not scarred or her fingers gnarled from tying thousands of knots every day for many years. Her breathing does not trouble her from carpet dust.

‘Ah, yes,’ I say. ‘I am well spoiled.’ And then I am cycling away, leaving Sobia alone on the track near my home.

Should I go to America? Should I stay at home? These questions worry me as I ride to the village.

Late that afternoon I am heading back to the city. Mother and two of her sisters ride the bus with me. We are supposed to get off at Baoli where I am to catch another bus for Lahore. Instead, I decide to spend the night at my mother’s family house. It will give me time with my cousins Liaquat and Faryad.

The boys are bigger than I remember, and Faryad, two years younger, is taller than me.

‘Cousin, you are a dwarf,’ he says.

‘But with a brain to be proud of,’ says Mother.

My aunt hands food to my older cousin. ‘Your father’s supper,’ she says. ‘He’s working late in the fields. You will take it to him, please.’

Of course I must go, too. Off we set. Liaquat rides his old bicycle, Faryad perched on the handlebars. I shuffie along the dirt track beside them. It is so good to be with my cousins; they are such fun.

We have gone half a mile when we see shadows by the wayside.

‘Who is that?’ Liaquat calls out.

‘Stop! Now!’ calls an angry voice.

Faryad jumps from the bike and crouches low. He looks suddenly smaller than me. Small and afraid.

‘What do you want?’ calls Liaquat.

The man does not answer. He lifts something. Too late I see it is a gun. I hear the sound of a shot. I see Faryad writhe and fall. Liaquat, too. And then I feel a pain in the side of my chest. It is a pain like hell, hot and beyond description.

17 April, 1995

DAILY TIMES PAKISTAN

Staff reporter

The death is reported of one of Pakistan’s finest, Iqbal Masih, the child-slave crusader. Aged 13, Iqbal was a bonded-debt-slave from the age of four to ten. He was one of 250 million working children in the world. At conferences he spoke many times about this terrible practice.

Iqbal was with his cousins bringing food at night for an uncle who was watering his field. When they were half way to their destination, shots were fired. Iqbal was hit by 120 shotgun pellets and died immediately. The other boys were hit by pellets but survived. Police have charged a field hand with murder.

NOTE: In 2000, Iqbal Masih was posthumously awarded The World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child.