18th Anniversary of IQBAL MASIH’s murder, Christian non-violent militant for Justice in the fight against Child Slavery in the world. Murdered on 16th April 1995, in Pakistan, when he was 12. [1983-1995] Testimony of true activist and solidarity trade- unionism.
Every day we can find products made by enslaved children in our homes, in our streets, in shopping malls, in our consumption. At present, millions of children breath the smoke of rubbish landfills, they risk their lives as pearl divers, they work in the mines to get the minerals for our cosmetics, for new technologies, they are kidnapped to become child soldiers, they live amidst bullets and rapes in the streets, they are used for the trade in human organs, in brothels, in sweatshop,… Children who have been deprived of their childhood and education. Children who are subjugated, enslaved, humiliated.
There are more slaves at present than at any other time in history. Children are forced to participate in the international planning of work, resulting from a perverse economic system. This world crime, far from disappearing, is on the rise in number and cruelty. Let us not be carried away by a manipulated language: they are child slaves, they are not child workers!
When we talk about an economic crisis in international forums and in the media, no one says that this crisis will be paid by the poor, and especially by the children who will be aborted or subjected to more bondage.
Child slavery is the first problem facing the world of work, and as well as unemployment, it is the result of a savage economic system. Unemployment and Child Slavery have the same causes and therefore common solutions. Child slavery is a moral and political problem, and its solution can only come from these two fields: the Moral and the Political ones. We therefore demand that unions and political parties denounce the causes of child slavery. We must defend children’s right to have a school, an education, a family, to be able to play and become Persons.
Source: Text & image: solidaridad.net
La date du 16 avril a été retenue en l’honneur du pakistanais Iqbal Masih, qui après avoir lui-même échappé à l’esclavage, est devenu, pendant les années 1980-90, un fervent défenseur des droits des enfants, et le visage de la lutte contre l’esclavage moderne.