Iqbal Masih Carpet Industry Murder

Iqbal Masih was sold into bonded labor in Pakistan’s carpet industry as a small child but escaped his loom around the age of 10 and began speaking out against child labor. He helped free more than 3,000 other children from slavery and traveled to Sweden and the United States to denounce the carpet trade, a campaign that coincided with Pakistani carpet exports dropping from 183 million dollars to 149 million dollars, a 34 million dollar fall.

In 1995, however, a gunman shot the 12-year-old dead near Lahore, a killing that some activists blamed on the “carpet mafia,” while local villagers and Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission said he died in a quarrel with a farm worker who was later arrested.

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