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Child Labor
Child Labor
By 2013, 85 million kids are doing hazardous child labor. For example, kids that work on tobacco crops can get harsh rashes. But yet we still go along living our life, not thinking about others. In about 14 years a carpet industry recruited 500,000 children to work for them. It is time to take a stand on child labor. Child labor is a huge issue in India, also Iqbal Masih was a teen actives who help stop it, and this is how he changed things.
Child labor in India
Child labor in India
Sadly India has the greatest number of kids doing child labor in the world, in 2016 152 million kids were working. Most children do harsh work because their families are too poor to last on their own income, child labor in a sense helps put food in kids stomachs. But only one in every five kids are paid. Kids still do the work even if they are not paid because they are required. Even if they are paid they most likely will only get one rupee (which is equivalent to three American cents.) Most children go from age four to the age of ten working. During that time no school is involved, Iqbal( a teen actives) had to make up six years of school that he missed in only two years because he wanted to show how much he wanted to get an education.
The carpet industry is a better job for a kid than an adult because when kids have tiny hands they can tie tinier knots. Not only is child labor in India but it also involves in Iran, China, Afghanistan, Morocco, Turkey, and Peru. In towns that did not have schools close by, kids that did not reach their tenth birthday would have to work. In India, it does not matter how old you are as long as you can do work. Most kids start at the age of 4. In other words, child labor can be considered slavery because young kids have a job, and are strictly ordered for what they have to do.
This is Iqbal Masih.
Glossary
Glossary
Iqbal Masih
Iqbal Masih
Iqbal Masih was a teen activist fighting help stop child labor in India. But on Easter Sunday of 1995, he was murdered. Many said it was the carpet worker was who killed him, because sales were dropping so much when Iqbal spoke out, also a few months after when he was killed the sales had dropped about 100 million dollars. That was very bad because the industry was one of the biggest money wise factories to the country.
This kid has felt and been in what is called child labor. When he was the young age of 4 his family sold him to go work. Because his family was in a lot of debt. Iqbal worked for a carpet industry. While working for the carpet industry Iqbal and many other kids were chained to their looms.“As Iqbal got older, the debt grew. It looked like he would be like many children who never escape, who remain in debt for life” (Websapp.edu).
The kids were also not fed food, because the owners thought that it would keep their hands tiny to tie better knots. “Although malnutrition and abuse left him, at the age of 12, physically smaller and frailer than my nine-year-old daughter” (Stopchildlabor.org). But when Iqbal hit the age of 10 he escaped. Iqbal did not escape alone, he and some other good friends ran to their local police station. But the officer returned him and the others back to the industry. But a few years later a law passed about freeing dept workers go. But very few industries let their slaves go, Iqbal was lucky and was freed.
While Iqbal was freed he got to visit the USA and spoke to kids in their schools to ask for any help, he told them what life was like working as a kid. “I need to finish what I started”(Iqbal Masih).
How Iqbal impacted his area
How Iqbal impacted his area
Iqbal Masih has changed many people by how strongly he spoke out and told the truth about what happened in the industry. One of the classes Iqbal accorded to,(in the USA)had inspired them to start a fund from Broadmeadows middle school in Massachusetts. Where they raise money to build schools to try to get fewer kids working but more kids learning. Many kids get physically abused while working. In 2015 3.7 million girls were out of schools. But because of actives like Iqbal Masih, we can help save more kids, and to end child labor.
By ending child labor we are helping kids physically. For example, if kids made a mistake working for the carpet industry they were put into torture chambers. “Iqbal was constantly beaten, verbally abused, and chained to his loom by the carpet factory owner” (mirror images).
This is when Iqbal went to Broadmeadows school and talk to the class. This is one of the students that want to help by making a fund and building school.
This is Iqbal Masih making the news paper, after his death.
This is when Iqbal Masih was speaking out.
Child labor has a strong force were children don’t have a choice to work or not. But by supporting to end child labor, many kids can get an education. “Children should have pens in their hands, not tools” (Iqbal Masih). That was how child labor is a tremendous issue in India, also how Iqbal was a teen activist helping to end child labor, and that was how he improved things. How can you help end and limit child labor?
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