The Potrayal of Child Labour in Iqbal

35 So what hope did we have? Why then did we work from dawn till dusk? What right did Iqbal have to claim such awful things? After all, he was the newest arrival and luckier than everybody else. How could he crush us like that? Leonori 2003:28.

4.2 The Potrayal of Child Labour in Iqbal

Throughout history in all over the world, children have been a source of labour. They have always had their share of work. In homes or in fields, they have contributed to the survival of their families or to the good of the community. In development countries, child labour is considered essential to succeed the development, and children have been present in virtually every field, workshop and factory. Child labour is a condition where children are exploited to work in their early age. In Pakistan, industries such as brick-making and carpet weaver depend on child labour. The brick-making industry employs whole families, small children worked alongside their parents in hazardous areas. Carpet weaver depends on children and their manual dexerity: the small fingers can be taught to work quickly to tie the thousands of knots to make a carpet. Child labour in Pakistan is also known as Bonded Labour. Bonded labour is a system in which a person works for a preestablished period of time to pay off a debt. It is also considered an indispensable part of the economic system. When families are in debt, they rent or bond their children, who can be as young as four or five to work for a master, “We had all been bonded to Hussain Khan to pay off debts our families had contracted with local moneylenders.” Leonori 2003:1 Iqbal is described as thin, black and not very tall, “The boy was thin and dark and not very tall; he looked about two years older than me.” Leonori 2003:11 . Iqbal is different with other children in the carpet weaver. Iqbal is nice and smart boy. He has a serious thought. The line below portrays that Iqbal has a serious thought. He has a certain thought about the way to escape from the carpet weaver. 36 Then I can tell you, he said, lowering his voice even more. Well get away from here. You can bet on it. You said it was impossible to pay off the debt. It is, but thats not how well go. How, then? Im beginning to think that the master was right to call you a know-it-all. Well run away, thats what well do. Leonori 2003:14 In Iqbal, child labour is potrayed through the children’s condition. The children’s condition is very poor. There are fifteen children who work in the Hussain Khan’s carpet weaver, “The fourteen of us child-slaves plus Karim, all observing another slave.” Leonori 2003:11 They start to work in their early age as mentioned in the quotations below: Salman, a boy of ten who seemed older because he was so hard and tough, came too. The skin of his face and hands was pitted by three years work in a brick factory near Karachi. Maria also wanted to meet the new boy. She was a little girl, younger than me and tiny as a bird. She had arrived at the beginning of the winter Leonori. 2003:14 They often underfred, work from dawn to dusk, squatting for long hours on low benches in front of ther looms, breathed dust and lint. Many of them are chained to their looms. It is grievous because there is no time to play and take a rest. They are invisible to the outside world. children should not work. In the such young age, they should enjoy their childhood, go to school, and play with other children. Those of us who werent chained sometimes felt sorry for the numskulls, but sometimes we teased them. Usually they were the new workers, just arrived, who hadnt learned that the only way we could become free was to work very hard and very fast, to erase each and every line on our small slates, until there were none left and we could return home. Leonori 2003:3 Child labour phenomenon is not only found in Hussain Khan’s carpet weaver in Pakistan at that time. There are so many children who work in order to support their familes’s 37 income. After escaping from the carpet weaver, Iqbal work in other factories in order to buy some food. Children. Working. Theyre the ones who unload the trucks and carry the crates, some so heavy they feel like theyll break your arms. You go to a merchant and say, `Got any work for me?` And he says, `Move that load and Ill give you a rupee.` Finally I found a butcher who let me unload a truck full of mutton hinds. He gave me a burlap sack to put over my head and shoulders to keep the blood off, which was lucky, because Hussain would never recognize me covered with burlap, and I knew he was after me. Once I even thought I glimpsed him in the crowd. Leonori 2003:69 There are so many carpet weaver who employ children as the worker at the time, “There are hundreds of clandestine carpet factories just in Lahore, and in the countryside there are the brick-making kilns.” Leonori 2003:91. There are so many children who work like slaves in some factories, “And then there are the farm slaves ... tens of thousands of children, hundreds of thousands, maybe ... Leonori 2003:92. There are also so many children that should be helped. The quotations below explain that the phenomenon of child labour happen in some places in Pakistan at that time. Less than a month after we had been rescued, Iqbal managed to sneak into a carpet factory that was hidden in a damp cellar in the northern outskirts of Lahore. He found thirty-two children covered with scabies and wounds, so thin their ribs almost cut through their skin. Leonori 2003:92. Moreover, there is an illegal brick factory that exploits children along with their families, “One day in the fall, the Liberation Front heard about an illegal brick factory and went to investigate. Iqbal went with them, and told us about it the next day.” Leonori 2003:101. Children work with their families in the illegal brick factory. The brick factory employs whole families, children work alongside their parents in dangerous condition. They have to make twelve hundred bricks to earn a hundred rupees, “have to make twelve hundred bricks to earn a hundred rupees. A hundred rupees Thats a lot of money. Leonori 2003:103. They have to make hundreds bricks in order to pay their debt and rent to the hut 38 they live in. They are treated so bad like others. The quotations below clearly portray the illegal brick factory’s situation: That there were six of them in the family, and that on lucky days they even managed to make fifteen hundred bricks. If the clay wasnt too hard. If there was water in the well. If only a few bricks broke in the heat of the sun, because broken bricks dont count. That on some days they earned a hundred twenty rupees, but that wasnt enough. Why not? Because they had to pay rent for the hut they lived in Leonori 2003:104. Every children who work in Hussain Khan’s carpet weaver has his own slate where Hussain Khan as the master writes down their name and the sum of their debt in lines. Hussain Khan paid them a rupee for every day. Every line is a rupee. Every day at sunset, Hussain Khan erases one of the lines. This is the work system in Hussain Khan’s carpet weaver. The day I arrived, many years before, Hussain Khan had taken a clean slate and had made some signs on it. This is your name. Yes, sir. This is your slate. Nobody can touch it. Do you understand? Yes, sir. Then he drew many other lines, one next to the other, as straight as the hair on the back of a frightened dog, and every group of four had a line through it. Can you count? the master asked. Almost up to ten, I responded. Look, Hussain Khan said, this is your debt. Every line is a rupee. Ill give you a rupee for every day you work. Thats fair. Nobody would pay you more Leonori 2003:4. Child labour in Pakistan is very cruel. Children who work in Hussain Khan’s carpet weaver are fooled by the master. Hussain Khan erases the line which symbolize children’s 39 debt, but he adds the more line, “When all the lined are erased, “Hussain Khan added, ‘when you see this slate wiped completely.” Leonari 2003:4. Children are not only chained but also treated badly. The exploitation of children, physical treatment, mental treatment, isolation, and the presence of the Bonded Labor Liberation Front are also the potrayal of child labour in Pakistan which are found in Iqbal. All of those terms are explained below:

4.2.1 The Exploitation of Children in Iqbal

Children who are supposed to enjoy their childhood, must have a hard life as child workers. They lose their time to study. They are not able to go to school in order to get a qualified education. They can only cry over what they have to experience. In Iqbal, all of children are exploited to work. They work seven days a week and more than twelve hours a day as explained in lines below: Work began half an hour before dawn, when the masters wife, dressed in her bathrobe and slippers, crossed the courtyard in the uncertain light of the fading night and brought us a round loaf of chapati bread and some dal, lentil soup. We all ate together, greedily dipping our bread into the large bowl on the ground, while we chatted incessantly of the dreams we had had during the night. Leonori 2003:2. All of the children who work in Hussain Khan’s carpet weaver, start to work at sunrise. Children’s right is seized by the owner of the carpet weaver. While children are working , they are forbiden to talk to others. They are not allowed to stop working until the time is over. They have to focus on their work which they do everyday. It is seen in the quotation below: Work began at sunrise. The mistress clapped her hands three times and we all sat down at our looms. After a moment we began to work rhythmically, tying the knots, beating them down. While we were working we were forbidden to stop, to talk, or to let our minds wander. We could only stare at the countless colored threads, from which we had to choose the right one to insert into the carpet pattern Leonori 2003:7 In other places, children are exploited in the illegal brick factory. They have to make hundred bricks in order to pay their rent to hut they live in. They have to climb on top with 40 baskets of coal and pour it into the hole in the middle to get the fire going. The kiln is burned. It burns them also. It is potrayed in the quotation below: quickly, but the youngest, who was about five years old, noticed and started to laugh. `Look` he said. The soles of his feet had a two-inch, black callus, all cracked. When the kiln starts, they have to climb on top with baskets of coal and pour it into the hole in the middle to get the fire going. `The kiln is like a dragon,` the boy said. `It eats and eats but its never satisfied. You should hear how it grumbles and then spits flames.` `And doesnt it burn you?` I asked. `Of course it burns` he answered, and I couldnt think of anything else to say to him. Leonori 2003:105

4.2.2 The Physical Abuse Suffered by the Children in Iqbal

The way rich people treated children in Pakistan in 1980s is very cruel. Most of children are sent to some factories in order to be child worker. In Iqbal, children who are sent to the carpet weaver directly get physical abuse by the owner of carpet weaver, Hussain Khan. They are forced to work. Some of children in the carpet weaver are chained by the master, Hussain Khan. The author describes the children who get chained by their master in lines below: The first ones to go were those who had slept chained by their ankles to their looms. The master called them numskulls, because they worked slowly and poorly. They got the colored yarns mixed up or made mistakes in the pattern the worst possible error, or they cried too loudly over the blisters on their fingers Leonori. 2003:3 The children who are called as numskulls do their work under the situation where their ankles are chained to their own looms. The numskulls refers to the children who can not do their job fast and carrefully. It also refers to children who cry loudly over the blisters on their fingers. The numskulls are the new children who can not do their job properly. The quotations below explains more about numskulls: Those of us who werent chained sometimes felt sorry for the numskulls, but sometimes we teased them. Usually they were the new workers, just arrived, 41 who hadnt learned that the only way we could become free was to work very hard and very fast, to erase each and every line on our small slates, until there were none left and we could return home. Leonori. 2003:3 Iqbal, the main character of this novel often gets the physical abuse. The master, Hussain Khan gives a cruel punishment to him. It is because Iqbal cut the carpet that has already made by himself. This situation makes Hussain Khan become so angry. He punishes Iqbal cruelly. The master sends him to the tomb, grabs and drags him into the courtyard. It is as explained below: Into the Tomb, howled the mistress, throw him into the Tomb and never let him out again They grabbed him by the arms and dragged him into the courtyard. We followed, but stopped at the door like a group of frightened baby chicks. We saw Iqbals knees scrape on the stones on the ground, his arm bang against the edge of the well. The master stopped at the rusty iron door and pulled it slowly open on rasping hinges. Leonori. 2003:36

4.2.3 The Mental Abuse Suffered by the Children in Iqbal

Children are exploited, feel threatened and hopeless. Their rights is dispossessed. They are not able to do anything. In Iqbal, children are exploited in the carpet weaver by the master, Hussain Khan feels hopeless. They are powerless, mocked and unable to take the fight against themselves I would just find myself in the garden next door and Hussain Khans wife would come to get me, brandishing her stick and crying, You, little ragbag You ungrateful little viper I would end up in the Tomb for at least three days, perhaps for more. Thats what would probably happen Leonori 2003:5 The rugged actions that they get in the carpet wever make them feeling trauma. Maria is one of the characters in Iqbal who feels trauma. Maria is described as a smart children. However, when she works in the carpet weaver, she becomes shy and quiet child. She even does not say any word. Maria also wanted to meet the new boy. She was a little girl, younger than me and tiny as a bird. She had arrived at the beginning of the winter, but nobody had yet heard her say a word. We didnt know if she was a mute Leonori 2003:14 42 Her father didnt even lift his head from the cot where he was lying. From that moment Maria stopped talking and reading. Now she was teaching herself again, as she taught us the strange symbols of the alphabet Leonori 2003:77

4.2.4 Isolation in Iqbal

D’adamo opens the Iqbal novel by giving the description of Hussain Khan’s house. Hussain Khan house is a big house with half stone, half sheet of iron and far from the dusty. It is also a building where Iqbal and his friends work to weave fabrics. There is also a place that is called as Tomb. Tomb is a room for children who do fatal mistake and oppose the master, Hussain Khan. Tomb is an isolation place for Iqbal and his friends as described in line below: In the corner at the back of the courtyard, half-hidden by thorn bushes and weeds, you could just see a rusty iron door. Behind the door was a short,n steep stairway that led down to the Tomb. Leonori 2003:36. The Tomb was an old cistern, buried under the courtyard, closed by a grating at the foot of a damp, slippery stairway leading up to the iron door. There was no light down there, according to those who had been locked in, except around, mid-afternoon, when a few rays of sunshine managed to filter through the holes and cracks caused by age and rust in the door to the courtyard. And there was virtually no air: You nearly suffocated down there. Leonori 2003:38. You feel yourself suffocating and you think youre going to go mad. It feels like someones grabbing your throat and squeezing. And then theres the dark. After a while you begin to see strange shapes, and colors, too, but they dont help you; they only scare you. I heard of someone who went crazy in the Tomb and nobody recognized him. . Leonori, 2003:39. Working as child laborers have some dangerous risks. The children are forced to work. There are also children who are isolated by those who employ them. This is not a fair treatment to the children. Isolation is the process or fact of isolating or being isolated. Isolation brings the victim to the negative impacts. One of them is unable to have contact with other people. 43 The isolation process brings children to the negative impacts. They can not have a good contact to others. It is not easy for children who are isolated to socialize with other people. It is because they never comunicate with other people. Generally, in Iqbal, all of children who work in the Hussain Khan’s carpet weaver are isolated in the carpet weaver. All of child laborers in the carpet weaver never leave the building. They work seven days a week. They begin to work at sunrise until the evening every day, “Work began at sunrise.” Leonori 2003:7. In the evening, the master, Hussain Khan measures their work and erases one of their lines. It is as explained in the quotation below That evening Hussain Khan would measure my work. Hed judge whether it was up to standards, if it was made carefully, and then hed erase one of the lines on my slate--a rupee for a days work. Leonori 2003:7 Isolation that is also found in Iqbal, is the process of isolating children who do rebelation to their master, Hussain Khan. Isolation is also the most cruel punishment for children who work in Hussain Khan’s carpet weaver. This novel, Iqbal is isolated to the tomb for five days as described in the quotation below: Into the Tomb, howled the mistress, throw him into the Tomb and never let him out again The master stopped at the rusty iron door and pulled it slowly open on rasping hinges. We saw him disappear down the steps into the dark,jerking Iqbal after him. Then we heard the awful, terrifying sound that haunted our sleep: the grate of the Tomb as it was raised and then bang as it fellclosed. Leonori. 2003:36. Iqbal is not only one who is isolated in the Tomb. Salman, another child labourers who works together with Iqbal in carpet weaver is also isolated by the master, Hussain Khan. Salmam explains his experience in the Tomb in the quotations below: You cant breathe, said Salman, who had experienced the Tomb a few months before because he had accidentally broken the blue-and-gold 44 flowered glazed pitcher the mistress used when she brought us water in the morning. Leonori. 2003:38. In the chapter eight of the novel, all of children who work in the carpet weaver are tortured and isolated in the Tomb. The lines below prove that children were not only isolated but also tortured. Hussain and the mistress came into the workshop and told us to leave everything as it was. Then they pushed us across the courtyard, crying, Quickly Quickly They pulled open the rusty iron door to the Tomb and made us bunch up on the steps Leonori. 2003:58.

4.2.5 The Presence of Bonded Labor Liberation Front Pakistan in Iqbal

Bonded Labour Liberation Front BLLF is a non-governmental organization in India and Pakistan that work to end bonded labour. Bonded Labour Liberation Front is an organization that saves the children, who are exploited. Bonded Labour Liberation Front rescues the children who are exploited by do some investigation to the factory. Then, the Bonded Labour Liberation Front’s team go down to the factory in order to save the children. In Iqbal, Bonded Labour Liberation Front is lead by Eshan Khan. Eshan Khan is a tall man who fight for Pakistan’s children, “He was a tall, thin man who gave the impression of force and determination.” Leonari 2003:82. He dedicates his life to save children who are exploited, “He had dedicated his life to the liberation of the child-slaves.” Leonari 2003:82. Eshan Khan is loved by all the children who are rescued by him. He is like a father for Iqbal and other children in Bonded Labour Liberation Front. It is portrayed in statement below: Eshan Khan became a second father for many of us, while never trying to take the place of our natural families. He was especially a father for Iqbal. It was inevitable. They were both reckless, determined, and convinced that the world needed changing Leonari 2003:83. Bonded Labour Liberation Front works by giving speech in some places at that time. The team of Bonded Labour Liberation Front always explains in their speech that child labour is a crime and barborous, “But he said it was a crime, it was barbarous, to exploit 45 children and make them work like slaves in carpet workshops or brick factories.” Leonari 2003:72. They also works by spreading flyer about the danger of child labour. The quotations below are the example of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front’s flyer at that time Leonori 2003:7879: STOP THE EXPLOITATION OF CHILD LABOR In Pakistan more than 700,000 children live like slaves, forced to work in the fields, in the brick-making kilns, in the carpet factories, for greedy and unscrupulous masters. They are chained, beaten, tortured in every way. They work from sunrise to sunset For their work, they sometimes receive one rupee a day, more often not even that. Their masters get rich selling their prized carpets to foreign buyers. The police know whats going on and dont intervene because of corruption. But now theres a law in our country that makes these clandestine factories illegal. Their owners should be arrested. Lets make them comply with the law Lets end this shameful and terrible crime, which exploits our children and dishonors our country Our children have the right to be free children JOIN US FIGHT WITH US BONDED LABOR LIBERATION FRONT OF PAKISTAN. And at the bottom of the flyer there was the address we had looked for, too. Now the problem was how to get there. Bonded Labour Liberation Front in Pakistan rescues many children who are exploited in Pakistan. Bonded Labour Liberation is also an organization who rescues Iqbal and other children who work in Hussain Khan’s carpet weaver. Eshan Khan declares it in his speech that child labour was a crime. As portrayed in the statement below: I dont know. But he said it was a crime, it was barbarous, to exploit children and make them work like slaves in carpet workshops or brick 46 factories. He said that the masters are greedy and wicked. Leonari 2003:72. Bonded Labour Liberation Front does not only rescue the children but also enforces the law in Pakistan. They work based on the law toward children in Pakistan. Eshan Khan as the lead of Bonded Labour Liberation Front in Pakistan declares in his speech that Pakistan has a law to protect children’s right at the time. The people who exploits children, must go to the prison. Im positive. And then he said that theres a law now in Pakistan: People who exploit children have to go to prison. Yay Thats great Thats right Its only fair Leonari 2003:72 Bonded Labour Liberation Front and Eshan Khan have a mission to liberate all the Pakistan’s children who are treated like slave. Iqbal and some of children who have already rescued, join in the Bonded Labour Liberation Front. Iqbal was very enthusiastic to rescue children from slavery with the Bonded Labour Liberation Front. He wants to liberate all children who were exploited, I want to stay and help you free all the children who are slaves in Pakistan” Leonari 2003:91. Iqbal helps Eshan Khan to fight all the exploiters in Pakistan at the time. They rescue many children who were exploited. They investigate the places who exploited children and rescue the children, “One day in the fall, the Liberation Front heard about an illegal brick factory and went to investigate.”Leonari 2003:101 In Iqbal, Iqbal and Bonded Labour Liberation Front do their mission together. They also find so many exploiters and factory who treat children like slaves, “There are hundreds of clandestine carpet factories just in Lahore, and in the countryside there are the brick- making kilns Leonari 2003:91, And then there are the farm slaves ... tens of thousands of children, hundreds of thousands, maybe ... Leonari 2003:102. In one of their missions, 47 Iqbal find thirty-two children covered by scabies and wounds. The quotation below potrays the Iqbal’s situation at the time: Less than a month after we had been rescued, Iqbal managed to sneak into a carpet factory that was hidden in a damp cellar in the northern outskirts of Lahore. He found thirty-two children covered with scabies and wounds, so thin their ribs almost cut through their skin. He spoke to them. He showed them the scars on his hands to win their trust, and he took photos of the chains, the looms, the water seeping in. The place was raided three days later by some men from the Liberation Front, accompanied by a magistrate and policemen, who arrested the proprietor and freed the children Leonori 2003:94 Bonded Labour Liberation Front is a solution for child labour in Pakistan at the time. Iqbal and Bonded Labour Liberation Front succeed to protect some of Pakistan’s children at the time. Iqbal win a Reebok awards for all of his struggle against child labour at the time. It is a prize given to a young person who had done something of merit in any country in the world, “This year the prize has been awarded to Iqbal. Leonari 2003:108. Iqbal’s dream comes true. Iqbal is known all over the world, “It means that now youre known all over the world and so is our fight against child labor” Leonari 2003:108.

4.3 The Connection between Poverty and Child Labour