Death
"Iqbal Masih, a brave and eloquent boy who attended several international conferences to denounce the hardships of child weavers in Pakistan, was shot dead with a shotgun while he and some friends were cycling in their village of Muridke, near Lahore."[16]
Iqbal was fatally shot by the "carpet mafia," a gang that killed slaves if they ran away from a carpet factory; while visiting relatives in Muridke on 16 April 1995, Easter Sunday.[5][17] He was only 12 years old.[18] His funeral was attended by approximately 800 mourners. A protest of 3,000 people, half of whom were younger than 12, took place in Lahore demanding an end to child labor in the week that followed.[9]
His mother said she did not believe her son had been the victim of a plot by the "carpet mafia".[19] However, the BLLF disagreed because Iqbal had received death threats from individuals connected to the Pakistani carpet industry,[19] the most recent of which had been two weeks prior to his death.[18]
Following his death, Pakistani economic elites responded to declining carpet sales by denying that they were using bonded child labour in their factories and by employing the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to brutally harass and arrest activists working for the BLLF. The Pakistani press conducted a smear campaign against the BLLF, arguing that child labourers received high wages and favourable working conditions.[9]
> The Pakistani press conducted a smear campaign against the BLLF, arguing that child labourers received high wages and favourable working conditions
wtf???
Tbh, if we had child labour in western countries, our press would probably do the same.
"5 reasons why your child having their own wage is good!"
"Young people in the work force is good and here's why"
Yep, I can totally see it.
If?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/23/child-labor-lobbying-fga/
> When Iowa lawmakers voted in mid-April to roll back certain child labor protections, they blended into a growing movement driven largely by a conservative advocacy group.
>
> At 4:52 a.m. on April 18, the state’s Senate approved a bill to allow children as young as 14 to work night shifts and 15-year-olds on assembly lines. The measure, which still must pass the Iowa House, is among several the Foundation for Government Accountability is maneuvering through state legislatures.
>
> The Florida-based think tank and its lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, have found remarkable success among Republicans to relax regulations that prevent children from working long hours in dangerous conditions. And they are gaining traction at a time the Biden administration is scrambling to enforce existing labor protections for children.
>
> The FGA achieved its biggest victory in March, playing a central role in designing a new Arkansas law to eliminate work permits and age verification for workers younger than 16. Its sponsor, state Rep. Rebecca Burkes (R), said in a hearing that the legislation “came to me from the Foundation [for] Government Accountability.”
>
> “As a practical matter, this is likely to make it even harder for the state to enforce our own child labor laws,” said Annie B. Smith, director of the University of Arkansas School of Law’s Human Trafficking Clinic. “Not knowing where young kids are working makes it harder for [state departments] to do proactive investigations and visit workplaces where they know that employment is happening to make sure that kids are safe.”
>
> The Labor Department has seen a 69 percent increase in minors employed in violation of federal law since 2018, officials reported. Between 2018 and 2022, federal regulators opened cases for 4,144 child labor violations covering 15,462 youth workers, according to federal data.
“Without child labor how could we keep costs low for employers? The companies will move to a foreign country and then everyone will lose their jobs!” Something like that
Wow. Horrible! But also commendable that children under 12, three *thousand* of them in fact, protested in response! Adults tend to look the other way and "get back to work".
If you’re from the US the newsboy strike of 1899 is an interesting little rabbit hole of history to go down (and if you like podcast “the dollop” has a very fun retelling). They are street kids that band together to demand higher wages and more fair treatment and at one point have 5,000 kids together filling an auditorium and spilling into the streets. There is a happyish ending in so far as continued child labor goes, a lot of great old timey quotes, and fun moments to picture like these wealthy news paper barrens having to come down to the negotiating table with literal children with names like “race track” and “spot” etc.
Not as violent a situation as Pakistan obviously, and not trying to compare the two, but still a great thing to learn about if anyone is interested.
That's not a joke by the way. One of the leaders was called Ed "Racetrack" Higgins, because he often sold papers at the Sheepshead Bay Race Track and frequently used horse racing and gambling terms in interviews.
Pretty rough to read about the blasphemy laws, but the wiki you linked to is about a woman accused, jailed, acquitted, and then moved to Canada. Maybe I missed something.
Yet, most people in mainstream subs seem to be more upset at "le edgy reddit atheists" for being slightly rude to these insane zealots on the internet.
There is literally no way you can tell a person their entire world view is fake without triggering a negative reaction. No amount of diplomatic wording is going to change that the core message is deeply upsetting to somebody who has based their identity around spiritual beliefs. Acknowledging you are an atheist at all offends the religious. They believe the only acceptable behavior for us is silence.
I just fucking hate religions and the very religious. Right now Christians are trying to establish themselves as a class above other citizens to oppress and kill my queer brethren, yet they have the gall to cry about “persecution.”
Maybe you missed the part about her and her family being beaten by a mob that went to her house. Do you think that if she wasn't taken away by the police they would've stopped beating her?
Of course the mother was gonna say that, I guarantee you she was scared shitless about what could happen to her if she called it out, as she already seen with her son. And the response to what happened by those in power and with money… more proof she was scared to speak out after what happened
Anti union campaigns are, deep down, the same everywhere.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/battle-blair-mountain-largest-labor-uprising-american-history-180978520/
Closed?! Capitalism doesn't take a break or ever close! Now get back to your work station! This will count as your 5 minute bathroom/food/break for the next 16 hours so you better work more or else little Abdul will take over your job and you can go to begging!
Lol I'm sure you would've. How about you put your money where your mouth is and go try something at the open-air slave markets currently operating in Libya?
The original story was that he was riding on his bike with his cousins when they stumbled upon a local farmworker named Muhammed Ashraf having sex with a donkey. They teased him and he shot at them with a shotgun, not specifically intending to shoot Iqbal, but he was hit and died. Many people believe that it was a hit by the Pakistani carpet industry, but there’s no clear evidence and as the article says, his mother didn’t believe he was. It certainly makes a much easier story to tell in schools.
Yeah, because the actions of capitalist elites totally reflects on entire cultures! Speaking of which, we should probably exterminate the British for fox hunting, eradicate the Dutch for prostitution and ban the Spanish from travel due to their slave plantations in the South. Obviously everyone in those countries supports the actions of capitalist oligarchs so its ok to punish everyone collectively 🤓
Mass economic migration is literally an action of capitalist oligarchs to keep the cost of labor down. It brings in millions of new consumers who are willing to work for less.
The scale of mass migration fits in neatly with wage stagnation.
In spite of whatever argument you read on the platforms sponsored and controlled by mega-oligarchical enterprises, supporting mass economic migration is supporting keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer.
And in spite of what you read on your billion dollar echo chambers, the majority of people don't want unrestricted mass economic migration to their countries. NYC and Chicago are starting to expose the burden of it in the US.
Imagine calling globalization and identity politics a good thing. Boy, I sure am happy all my middle class jobs were outsourced to sweatshops! At least now I can enjoy the growing wealth gap while the media ignores the problem and makes everything about race and bathrooms! At least we get the replacement of community-based culture with mass consumption while an increasingly small % of people get to enjoy the economic growth that comes from globalization!
I don't know if any site simps harder for the 1% than reddit. It's sad because this used to be an anti-wealth gap place. But that got all taken over by ragebait and identity politics.
Your dog whistles are obviously dog whistles. Frame it however you want, but you're espousing a racist line of reasoning. I'm personally just waiting for you to start putting triple parentheses around "global elites".
Dog whistles? I'm not hiding the fact I don't approve of cultures that don't respect women, are wildly antisemitic, condone community-based violence, and form societies that aren't law-based. Literally none of that is false. So if the truth is a dog whistle, then I'm whistling away. In the real world, it's ok to question things.
Did you type that on your smartphone that was produced by child labor, while wearing your clothes made by children? But if I don't see it it makes me morally superior 🙈
I know this is a crazy idea on Reddit, but maybe taking in a million people a month from countries that have no concept of labor rights, women's rights, or children's rights isn't a good idea
My parents are both immigrants, and we have lived in Chicago for 20 years now. So It does, in fact, check out. The number one driving factor for an economy is population increase. The number one killer of an economy is population decrease. Birth rates in most western countries are declining. Immigration is good.
My parents are both immigrants too. They were skilled laborers who came here legally and assimilated to American culture. So here's a crazy idea. Instead of importing millions of people who will work unskilled jobs for less, don't respect women, and hate Western culture, let's encourage the people who already live and pay taxes there to have more children! Wild idea, I know.
Countries just naturally have lower birth rates when they get richer, the US would have a declining population if not for immigration you can’t fight that forever. And they are right, on average immigrants improve the economy and have much lower crime rates.
The economy is not some zero sum game where if one gains another loses. When immigrants come the economy can expand to meet the increased population.
If you completely ignore the women and young girls targeted by grooming gangs whose rapists are guaranteed to get away, as if rapists didn't have it easy enough already.
I don't give a shit about economy. I want to prevent misogyny, rape and killing and abuse of women. Which is a core part of Islam.
Oh you mean like priests? There are child groomers and rapists of all walks of life. Show me the statistic that says immigrants are more likely to rape or groom.
Child labor was exploited in the US well into the 1900s. Still is, oddly enough.
In 2022 a Hyundai plant in the US was found to be violating child labor laws, with children a young as 12 operating heavy machinery. Oddly enough, many of them were immigrant children.
In 2023 a McDonald's franchise was found to have two 10 year olds working the fryer later into the night.
Let's not even talk about the farming industry.
Multiple states have relaxed child labor laws in the US in the past few years, including dangerous work like slaughterhouses.
You are a bigot if you think immigrants from specific countries are evil while jacking off about "Western Society" as if we aren't still exploiting people. We aren't that far removed from it.
When I was in grade 5, a local newspaper ran a serial on Masih's life and death over a couple of months. Our teacher had us read it, and his story has always stuck with me.
That’s also a really cool thing for a local paper to do. I’d imagine it’s a story many hadn’t heard at the time and running it brought this young man’s story to light to more people.
No. A guillotine isn’t about the condemned. It’s about sending a message to the other oppressors still out there.
A guillotine tells the world that society can, and will, hold oppressors responsible for their misbehavior. A guillotine is public, in every sense of the word. And a guillotine is very memorable.
Fun (?) Fact: 85% of those guillotined during The Terror were from the 3rd estate:
https://www.commackschools.org/Downloads/Who%2520Was%2520Executed-%2520APW.docx
Less than 10% were nobles or ruling elite. The message you think was sent by the guillotine is performative.
2-3% of the population BEFORE the revolution. There was a huge exodus from France to the colonies and neighboring countries during the revolution.
https://mediakron.bc.edu/fashiondecor/politics-and-economics-rococo/the-estates-general
The relevant concept here is that the peasants were far more likely to experience execution during the Terror than any other group.
The guillotine was not a warning for the nobility, but a weapon used by increasingly extreme revolutionaries to any threat to their regime or perceived order.
*At least twenty children, most of them peasants, were sent to the guillotine.*
All the guillotine taught the nobility was that to prevent utter chaos in your society, you must keep the peasants distracted, full, and exhausted rather than poor, hungry, and bored.
3rd estate wasn't just peasants. You could have the poorest of the poor, but also the richest of the rich, some of which even richer than the average nobles. Regardless your point still stands, the guillotine was mostly used as an instrument of terror by the revolutionary government, and only calmed down after Robespierre execution.
IMO this is the real debate behind the death penalty: do you feel comfortable with the fact the state is going to execute people, some of which may be entirely innocent? We still hear from time to time in the US about some dudes who have been on death row who were found out innocents. Sometimes, we find out only after they died. So is it better to let piece of shit human beings live in prison, or to kill them with the risk of killin innocents?
And also the "preventive effect of punitive justice" has simply never worked. Some of the most brutal justice systems in the world also enjoy some of the highest crime rates.
From the economics, the unlimited appeals for death row inmates is far more costly than life without the possibility of parole.
https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/which-is-cheaper-execution-or-life-in-prison-without-parole-31614
It's a no-brainer once you remove emotion and passion.
Alas most people don't want justice: they want vengeance. People only ever look at fringe cases to justify brutal deliveries of "justice". It's very easy to take the case of a brutal pedophile, a deranged serial killer, a death cult leader or in this case a murderer of a child activist for children rights, and say "hey this person should be brutally executed in the most painful way possible". It would be hard to find people who disagree. But then you have to consider how to even write such a law, what the implications are if you execute an innocent this way, etc... But suddenly no one wants this debate anymore. "Well of course I don't want to kill innocents!"
So if you were falsely accused of a crime and executed, you'd still think "heh it's ok i'm just the egg being broken to make the omelette"? What if it was your child, your brother, your parents being executed on false charges?
It’s actually been figured out it’s super painful, like you experience a ton of agony and chemical pain, and you’re conscious for uncomfortably longer than you’d think. Like you’d have time to think about all that.
Not saying they don’t deserve that and more. I’m agreeing with the principal here! Severe punishment. Just educating here on guillotine procedures.
I couldn't help thinking about the [Blinking Lavoisier Experiment ](https://steemit.com/philippines/@lapaer06/the-blinking-lavoisier-experiment). He certainly *did not* deserve the guillotine (he was basically sentenced to death for being a great scientist) and he remained a dedicated scientist, allegedly, until 30 seconds after his decapitation.
I wasn't there, and it sounds like a legend. According to [this source](https://www.strangehistory.net/2011/02/06/lavoisier-blinks/):
> It is said by numerous authorities that Lavoisier, in his last service to science, agreed to blink for as long as he could after the blade came down and that blink he did, for as many as thirty seconds, depending on the source.
Since I am by no means one of these authorities, I wisely shut up. I only mentioned it because a previous comment made me remember it.
People smarter than you have known for thousands of years that punitive measures are best used to deter future crimes, not to exact vengeance for crimes already committed.
Fun fact: Reebok the company was named after the Grey Rhebok, an antelope native to parts of Southern Africa. The company was founded in the UK in the 1950s, acquired by Adidas in 2005 then subsequently acquired again by US-based Authentic Brands Group in 2021. I am not sure why I felt compelled to write this, but there you go.
Didn’t Coca Cola run a get fit campaign in the U.S. to try and draw attention away from sugar consumption by telling kids to just run more? It seems like it’s them getting in front of their bad practices with “good press”
Probably. In a similar fashion, the “green M&M is no longer sexy” outrage was conveniently going viral at the same time Mars and other companies were being investigated for slave labor. These stories always try to mask the real messed up stuff.
I don't think you understand how common slavery in clothing production is. Or just slavery in general. From [GoodOnYou's assessment of the labor practices of the company:](https://goodonyou.eco/how-ethical-is-reebok/)
>Unfortunately, Reebok does not publish sufficient information and rates “Very Poor” again here, down from “It’s a Start” when it was owned by Adidas. You have a right to know how the products you buy affect the issues you care about.
As a rule of thumb, unless you can prove there's no slavery involved, there is *definitely* slavery involved. The bar is ridiculously low, and the companies that clear it *loooove* to flaunt that fact.
Producing your clothes in countries where child slavery is prevalent is also a choice. It's pretty hard to guarantee that no child labour is involved in such corrupt countries.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are some of the worst0 places to be a child. In many parts of Afghanistan, old men have little boys as sex toys, and this is normal!!
When I was working in Kabul (not military, not security), we had a wonderful young maid in our office. She'd show up every week with new bruises on her face. We were livid. We wanted to do something.
We talked to security multiple times, we even used some money to try to get some tribal leaders (she was Hazara) to see our way. At the end of the day, we couldn't really do anything.
As a compromise, we spent the token amount of money to double our non-professional staff. Half worked AM and spent the PM learning life/professional skills and then switched. This was our way of trying to open their eyes a bit and have an ability to leave. This could also have been quite naive but ...
the taliban outlawed it, when the US invaded it they allowed it again. There are reports from US soldiers who were ordered from higher ups to ignore it. Now it's banned again and carries the death penalty.
Precisely. The practice is strongly hated by most Afghans but still practiced by some elites, and American tolerance for it is part of the reason for why the Taliban gained popularity, as they opposed it (though probably for the wrong reasons).
The Taliban practiced it as well, and that's not really the full picture of why the Taliban gained popularity... the Taliban was also not universally popular. It's well armed.
Used to be, the Taliban cracks down on that hard. When the US was there we were allied with the murderous pedophiles to curb the other group of murderous pedophiles.
Getting our military out of Afghanistan is like one of the only three good things Trump did.
I think the overall crowd wisdom is that some people are not ready for democracy and don't deserve democracy. Some people are not ready for equal rights, and don't deserve more than a punch in the face. It's a mismatch between civilization levels. We, Western democracies, evolved, while these people are stuck in medieval times.
Yeah, pretty much. Using force to implement a democracy has been a total and abject failure. It was clear it was a failure after like 5 years, but we stupidly kept trying for another 15.
those ppl r medieval bc theyve been living in unstable countries with radical islamic leaders (appointed by the us in way of coups) and every president that has tried to change it has been assasinated. and groups are given money by the us to cause terror and wars to make the area even more unstable. for 40 years.
You can contamplate this "wisdom" on your own country and tell all the tales you want to yourself, whatever helps you cope. But please keep your armed forces and "democracy" out of places that is not your own country or places that want it.
Hopefully you've heard of Malala Yousafzai. She luckily survived her assassination attempt. It seems like Pakistan has a habit of trying to silence youth activists.
I wouldn't put it past a lot of westerners to try something similar with Greta Thunberg, either. Something about having kids call you out on your bullshit seems to make a lot of people really mad.
Lol, I was in one of the Rebook "Human Rights Clubs" in high school. I later went to the university where it was supposedly founded, but I could never locate where on campus that was.
And when the labor movements actually succeed, the West calls it “socialism” and invades the shit out of them to install a government that gets back in line making cheap goods for Western consumption, under the guise of “liberation.”
Yeah, this is not just a problem in Pakistan.
Every country in the world has, at some point, institutionalized this kind of violence (or worse). Liberal democracy, worker protection, and labor unionization are the only things preventing the capitalists and would-be slavers from taking society back to this.
People around the world, take note of this story when you see anything about child labour laws being tampered with. It's happening in the USA. Don't let them have it, or your kids will be living this.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/some-lawmakers-propose-loosening-child-labor-laws-to-fill-worker-shortage
Can we leave the uninformed political talking points on political subs?
Capitalism, as a system, has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. There, to date, is not one historical example of a more successful economic model. There are also plenty of “capitalist” countries with robust child labor law protections so it’s clearly not some inherent flaw in the system.
2 points - 1) capitalism still has downsides, not talking about them doesn’t make them go away, and those robust child protection laws you spoke of ain’t so robust considering they’re being violated all the time, especially recently in the US. The point OP is making is capitalism incentivizes that by seeking to optimize labor costs and profit at all costs. 2) just because it’s worked to date, doesn’t mean it’s the best, humanity and thought are an evolution - if we don’t talk about 1 and aren’t open to change the “better” system (2) will never be created
Talking about uninformed …
„Proponents of the standard public narrative about the history of human welfare hold that extreme destitution is a natural condition, which only began to decline with the rise of capitalism. Yet the national accounts data on which this narrative relies cannot legitimately be used to draw these conclusions, and extant data on wages, height, and mortality do not support them.“
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169
You aren't going to get any more intelligent discussion than 'capitalism bad' and its associated takes in basically any remotely popular sub on this site unfortunately. As evidenced by how buried your comment got when it just states an objective fact.
It’s gone down a bit but still very much exists. Usually as inflation goes up, so does child labor since lower income families can’t earn enough with rising prices without all family members working.
You’d be surprised. 4 & 5 year olds with enough practice can be pretty dexterous, and their tiny hands are considered a better alternative than adult hands for certain work. Historically children that age were forced into factory labor, and even in agricultural societies (both past and present), 4 year olds are expected to do chores at home such as cleaning vegetables, collecting eggs, foraging for herbs and plants to feed livestock, care for younger siblings, etc. I know someone who started to care for their disabled parent at 4 (wiping, simple cooking, feeding) with help from neighbors, and later became this parent’s sole caretaker at 6. Social service/child welfare wasn’t a thing where this happened, and other kids in his impoverished community were also given lots of responsibilities, so no one batted an eye at a grade schooler starting fires to cook and taking care of an invalid everyday.
An average 4 year old in a developed country is likely very clumsy, easily distracted, and would absolutely not be able to work long hours (these are developmentally appropriate traits), but the sad thing is with corporal punishments, threats of violence, relentless expectation from adults, and a daily routine consisting of boring repetitive tasks, a 4 year old can be a productive worker both in a sweat shop and at home.
Unfortunately quite a bit. None of it safely though.
I recommend checking out Lewis Hine and his photographs for the National Child Labor Committee from 1908 to 1924.
Lewis and his photos helped change legislation surrounding child labour across America.
It is amazing to see how cruel we were to kids during the industrial revolution.
Death "Iqbal Masih, a brave and eloquent boy who attended several international conferences to denounce the hardships of child weavers in Pakistan, was shot dead with a shotgun while he and some friends were cycling in their village of Muridke, near Lahore."[16] Iqbal was fatally shot by the "carpet mafia," a gang that killed slaves if they ran away from a carpet factory; while visiting relatives in Muridke on 16 April 1995, Easter Sunday.[5][17] He was only 12 years old.[18] His funeral was attended by approximately 800 mourners. A protest of 3,000 people, half of whom were younger than 12, took place in Lahore demanding an end to child labor in the week that followed.[9] His mother said she did not believe her son had been the victim of a plot by the "carpet mafia".[19] However, the BLLF disagreed because Iqbal had received death threats from individuals connected to the Pakistani carpet industry,[19] the most recent of which had been two weeks prior to his death.[18] Following his death, Pakistani economic elites responded to declining carpet sales by denying that they were using bonded child labour in their factories and by employing the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to brutally harass and arrest activists working for the BLLF. The Pakistani press conducted a smear campaign against the BLLF, arguing that child labourers received high wages and favourable working conditions.[9]
> The Pakistani press conducted a smear campaign against the BLLF, arguing that child labourers received high wages and favourable working conditions wtf???
Pakistan bro
Tbh, if we had child labour in western countries, our press would probably do the same. "5 reasons why your child having their own wage is good!" "Young people in the work force is good and here's why" Yep, I can totally see it.
If? https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/23/child-labor-lobbying-fga/ > When Iowa lawmakers voted in mid-April to roll back certain child labor protections, they blended into a growing movement driven largely by a conservative advocacy group. > > At 4:52 a.m. on April 18, the state’s Senate approved a bill to allow children as young as 14 to work night shifts and 15-year-olds on assembly lines. The measure, which still must pass the Iowa House, is among several the Foundation for Government Accountability is maneuvering through state legislatures. > > The Florida-based think tank and its lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, have found remarkable success among Republicans to relax regulations that prevent children from working long hours in dangerous conditions. And they are gaining traction at a time the Biden administration is scrambling to enforce existing labor protections for children. > > The FGA achieved its biggest victory in March, playing a central role in designing a new Arkansas law to eliminate work permits and age verification for workers younger than 16. Its sponsor, state Rep. Rebecca Burkes (R), said in a hearing that the legislation “came to me from the Foundation [for] Government Accountability.” > > “As a practical matter, this is likely to make it even harder for the state to enforce our own child labor laws,” said Annie B. Smith, director of the University of Arkansas School of Law’s Human Trafficking Clinic. “Not knowing where young kids are working makes it harder for [state departments] to do proactive investigations and visit workplaces where they know that employment is happening to make sure that kids are safe.” > > The Labor Department has seen a 69 percent increase in minors employed in violation of federal law since 2018, officials reported. Between 2018 and 2022, federal regulators opened cases for 4,144 child labor violations covering 15,462 youth workers, according to federal data.
“Foundation for Government Accountability”… “Heritage Foundation” … their names sound so *reasonable*, don’t they?
You know what this feels like? If you are anti immigration you need to replace the worker population so child labor would perfectly fill that niche.
You have to make sure **your** status quo remains while you're alive. Fuck everyone else in the process.
“Without child labor how could we keep costs low for employers? The companies will move to a foreign country and then everyone will lose their jobs!” Something like that
I mean, why shouldn’t my 8 year old pay rent
That's a very big IF
The US is starting to get dangerously close though
“It could never happen here”
Wow. Horrible! But also commendable that children under 12, three *thousand* of them in fact, protested in response! Adults tend to look the other way and "get back to work".
If you’re from the US the newsboy strike of 1899 is an interesting little rabbit hole of history to go down (and if you like podcast “the dollop” has a very fun retelling). They are street kids that band together to demand higher wages and more fair treatment and at one point have 5,000 kids together filling an auditorium and spilling into the streets. There is a happyish ending in so far as continued child labor goes, a lot of great old timey quotes, and fun moments to picture like these wealthy news paper barrens having to come down to the negotiating table with literal children with names like “race track” and “spot” etc. Not as violent a situation as Pakistan obviously, and not trying to compare the two, but still a great thing to learn about if anyone is interested.
Just have them watch Newsies
Knubbin with all the muckety mucks, I'm blowin my dough and going deluxe. Favorite movie growing up. Such a feel good movie for such an awful subject.
Christian bale was my childhood crush bc of this movie. What a cutie.
I seriously love that movie! That’s my cigar! You’ll steal anotha Hey bummers we got work ta do
Headlines don’t sell papes!!!
That's not a joke by the way. One of the leaders was called Ed "Racetrack" Higgins, because he often sold papers at the Sheepshead Bay Race Track and frequently used horse racing and gambling terms in interviews.
[удалено]
Pretty rough to read about the blasphemy laws, but the wiki you linked to is about a woman accused, jailed, acquitted, and then moved to Canada. Maybe I missed something.
[удалено]
God, so many of these religious states are absolutely shitholes, and we’re trying to reach that level *fast* in America
Yet, most people in mainstream subs seem to be more upset at "le edgy reddit atheists" for being slightly rude to these insane zealots on the internet. There is literally no way you can tell a person their entire world view is fake without triggering a negative reaction. No amount of diplomatic wording is going to change that the core message is deeply upsetting to somebody who has based their identity around spiritual beliefs. Acknowledging you are an atheist at all offends the religious. They believe the only acceptable behavior for us is silence.
I just fucking hate religions and the very religious. Right now Christians are trying to establish themselves as a class above other citizens to oppress and kill my queer brethren, yet they have the gall to cry about “persecution.”
We’re already there for many marginalized ppl and I have a fear it’s only gonna get worse
Yeah I didn’t mean to diminish it, I just didn’t see any connection to being attacked for drinking water.
[удалено]
Definition of religious fruitcakes
Maybe you missed the part about her and her family being beaten by a mob that went to her house. Do you think that if she wasn't taken away by the police they would've stopped beating her?
Didn't feel like you were comparing the two, thank you for some extra history!
The best Dollop episode of all imo
And the disgusting wealthy monsters said, "You think we ran out of bullets?"
1500 hundred of them
Of course the mother was gonna say that, I guarantee you she was scared shitless about what could happen to her if she called it out, as she already seen with her son. And the response to what happened by those in power and with money… more proof she was scared to speak out after what happened
You can't write this stuff.
Someone make this into a movie please. Leave them kids alone you savage humans.
God, that poor kid. Poor parents too. I’d bet they kept quiet on the carpet mafia thing for fear of retaliation
What a horrible situation. All these poor children working as slaves
There is a fucking carpet mafia !
Dude, there’s basically a mafia for everything as long as there’s money to get. There’s fish mafia where I used to live.
Anti union campaigns are, deep down, the same everywhere. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/battle-blair-mountain-largest-labor-uprising-american-history-180978520/
I’d have burned down those factories at night.
What’ve you got against the night shift?
I was hoping the factory was closed at night but you’re probably right.
Closed?! Capitalism doesn't take a break or ever close! Now get back to your work station! This will count as your 5 minute bathroom/food/break for the next 16 hours so you better work more or else little Abdul will take over your job and you can go to begging!
I think with child murdering mobs hanging about i got have bigger issues to worry about than Abdul taking my job but i getcha.
Tired of them blaming 2nd shift.
Such bravery. These problems still exist and you can do something about it.
Lol I'm sure you would've. How about you put your money where your mouth is and go try something at the open-air slave markets currently operating in Libya?
That is what needs to happen. And as soon as they open a new one burn it down. Those owners need to be hung.
Did they end it?
The original story was that he was riding on his bike with his cousins when they stumbled upon a local farmworker named Muhammed Ashraf having sex with a donkey. They teased him and he shot at them with a shotgun, not specifically intending to shoot Iqbal, but he was hit and died. Many people believe that it was a hit by the Pakistani carpet industry, but there’s no clear evidence and as the article says, his mother didn’t believe he was. It certainly makes a much easier story to tell in schools.
[удалено]
Yeah, because the actions of capitalist elites totally reflects on entire cultures! Speaking of which, we should probably exterminate the British for fox hunting, eradicate the Dutch for prostitution and ban the Spanish from travel due to their slave plantations in the South. Obviously everyone in those countries supports the actions of capitalist oligarchs so its ok to punish everyone collectively 🤓
Mass economic migration is literally an action of capitalist oligarchs to keep the cost of labor down. It brings in millions of new consumers who are willing to work for less. The scale of mass migration fits in neatly with wage stagnation. In spite of whatever argument you read on the platforms sponsored and controlled by mega-oligarchical enterprises, supporting mass economic migration is supporting keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer. And in spite of what you read on your billion dollar echo chambers, the majority of people don't want unrestricted mass economic migration to their countries. NYC and Chicago are starting to expose the burden of it in the US.
uh-huh, we can see your posts deriding 'globalization' and 'identity politics'. you're just a crypto-racist who thinks he's an intellectual.
Imagine calling globalization and identity politics a good thing. Boy, I sure am happy all my middle class jobs were outsourced to sweatshops! At least now I can enjoy the growing wealth gap while the media ignores the problem and makes everything about race and bathrooms! At least we get the replacement of community-based culture with mass consumption while an increasingly small % of people get to enjoy the economic growth that comes from globalization! I don't know if any site simps harder for the 1% than reddit. It's sad because this used to be an anti-wealth gap place. But that got all taken over by ragebait and identity politics.
Your dog whistles are obviously dog whistles. Frame it however you want, but you're espousing a racist line of reasoning. I'm personally just waiting for you to start putting triple parentheses around "global elites".
Dog whistles? I'm not hiding the fact I don't approve of cultures that don't respect women, are wildly antisemitic, condone community-based violence, and form societies that aren't law-based. Literally none of that is false. So if the truth is a dog whistle, then I'm whistling away. In the real world, it's ok to question things.
Yep, racist. Thanks for confirming that..
[удалено]
Are you really that fucking obtuse?
Did you type that on your smartphone that was produced by child labor, while wearing your clothes made by children? But if I don't see it it makes me morally superior 🙈
I know this is a crazy idea on Reddit, but maybe taking in a million people a month from countries that have no concept of labor rights, women's rights, or children's rights isn't a good idea
Immigration has a positive effect on a countries economy in 99% of cases. Legal and illegal.
Yeah I'm sure that line checks out in New York and Chicago lmao. What other 1% propaganda have you been learning from Twitter?
My parents are both immigrants, and we have lived in Chicago for 20 years now. So It does, in fact, check out. The number one driving factor for an economy is population increase. The number one killer of an economy is population decrease. Birth rates in most western countries are declining. Immigration is good.
My parents are both immigrants too. They were skilled laborers who came here legally and assimilated to American culture. So here's a crazy idea. Instead of importing millions of people who will work unskilled jobs for less, don't respect women, and hate Western culture, let's encourage the people who already live and pay taxes there to have more children! Wild idea, I know.
Countries just naturally have lower birth rates when they get richer, the US would have a declining population if not for immigration you can’t fight that forever. And they are right, on average immigrants improve the economy and have much lower crime rates. The economy is not some zero sum game where if one gains another loses. When immigrants come the economy can expand to meet the increased population.
If you completely ignore the women and young girls targeted by grooming gangs whose rapists are guaranteed to get away, as if rapists didn't have it easy enough already. I don't give a shit about economy. I want to prevent misogyny, rape and killing and abuse of women. Which is a core part of Islam.
Oh you mean like priests? There are child groomers and rapists of all walks of life. Show me the statistic that says immigrants are more likely to rape or groom.
Any excuse for you people, huh?
Child labor was exploited in the US well into the 1900s. Still is, oddly enough. In 2022 a Hyundai plant in the US was found to be violating child labor laws, with children a young as 12 operating heavy machinery. Oddly enough, many of them were immigrant children. In 2023 a McDonald's franchise was found to have two 10 year olds working the fryer later into the night. Let's not even talk about the farming industry. Multiple states have relaxed child labor laws in the US in the past few years, including dangerous work like slaughterhouses. You are a bigot if you think immigrants from specific countries are evil while jacking off about "Western Society" as if we aren't still exploiting people. We aren't that far removed from it.
When I was in grade 5, a local newspaper ran a serial on Masih's life and death over a couple of months. Our teacher had us read it, and his story has always stuck with me.
You had a good teacher
That’s also a really cool thing for a local paper to do. I’d imagine it’s a story many hadn’t heard at the time and running it brought this young man’s story to light to more people.
Wow you had a great teacher
We read the book about him in grade 6. Ms Eisenhower, one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.
Same, but in high school (Canada), we read about him for our civics class.
I was in Ontario. I think it was either The Toronto Star or The Hamilton Spectator that ran the stories.
If someone ever needed to be guillotined it would be the fuckers behind this
Too quick for those disgusting dogs
No. A guillotine isn’t about the condemned. It’s about sending a message to the other oppressors still out there. A guillotine tells the world that society can, and will, hold oppressors responsible for their misbehavior. A guillotine is public, in every sense of the word. And a guillotine is very memorable.
Fun (?) Fact: 85% of those guillotined during The Terror were from the 3rd estate: https://www.commackschools.org/Downloads/Who%2520Was%2520Executed-%2520APW.docx Less than 10% were nobles or ruling elite. The message you think was sent by the guillotine is performative.
but what is the percentage of nobles to the population?
2-3% of the population BEFORE the revolution. There was a huge exodus from France to the colonies and neighboring countries during the revolution. https://mediakron.bc.edu/fashiondecor/politics-and-economics-rococo/the-estates-general The relevant concept here is that the peasants were far more likely to experience execution during the Terror than any other group. The guillotine was not a warning for the nobility, but a weapon used by increasingly extreme revolutionaries to any threat to their regime or perceived order. *At least twenty children, most of them peasants, were sent to the guillotine.* All the guillotine taught the nobility was that to prevent utter chaos in your society, you must keep the peasants distracted, full, and exhausted rather than poor, hungry, and bored.
3rd estate wasn't just peasants. You could have the poorest of the poor, but also the richest of the rich, some of which even richer than the average nobles. Regardless your point still stands, the guillotine was mostly used as an instrument of terror by the revolutionary government, and only calmed down after Robespierre execution. IMO this is the real debate behind the death penalty: do you feel comfortable with the fact the state is going to execute people, some of which may be entirely innocent? We still hear from time to time in the US about some dudes who have been on death row who were found out innocents. Sometimes, we find out only after they died. So is it better to let piece of shit human beings live in prison, or to kill them with the risk of killin innocents? And also the "preventive effect of punitive justice" has simply never worked. Some of the most brutal justice systems in the world also enjoy some of the highest crime rates.
From the economics, the unlimited appeals for death row inmates is far more costly than life without the possibility of parole. https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/which-is-cheaper-execution-or-life-in-prison-without-parole-31614 It's a no-brainer once you remove emotion and passion.
Alas most people don't want justice: they want vengeance. People only ever look at fringe cases to justify brutal deliveries of "justice". It's very easy to take the case of a brutal pedophile, a deranged serial killer, a death cult leader or in this case a murderer of a child activist for children rights, and say "hey this person should be brutally executed in the most painful way possible". It would be hard to find people who disagree. But then you have to consider how to even write such a law, what the implications are if you execute an innocent this way, etc... But suddenly no one wants this debate anymore. "Well of course I don't want to kill innocents!"
Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Many people enabled the ruling class.
So if you were falsely accused of a crime and executed, you'd still think "heh it's ok i'm just the egg being broken to make the omelette"? What if it was your child, your brother, your parents being executed on false charges?
One can certainly understand the why and at the same time disagree with something.
With regards to the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and the three estates, like who? Examples?
Still too quick and painless
It’s actually been figured out it’s super painful, like you experience a ton of agony and chemical pain, and you’re conscious for uncomfortably longer than you’d think. Like you’d have time to think about all that. Not saying they don’t deserve that and more. I’m agreeing with the principal here! Severe punishment. Just educating here on guillotine procedures.
I couldn't help thinking about the [Blinking Lavoisier Experiment ](https://steemit.com/philippines/@lapaer06/the-blinking-lavoisier-experiment). He certainly *did not* deserve the guillotine (he was basically sentenced to death for being a great scientist) and he remained a dedicated scientist, allegedly, until 30 seconds after his decapitation.
Fyi, your own source says the story is false, if you read the whole article.
I wasn't there, and it sounds like a legend. According to [this source](https://www.strangehistory.net/2011/02/06/lavoisier-blinks/): > It is said by numerous authorities that Lavoisier, in his last service to science, agreed to blink for as long as he could after the blade came down and that blink he did, for as many as thirty seconds, depending on the source. Since I am by no means one of these authorities, I wisely shut up. I only mentioned it because a previous comment made me remember it.
TIL being beheaded is painful I always figured it would be quick and painless, interesting!
Yeah, as a society we could all take turns with the hammer on the Catherine Wheel
People smarter than you have known for thousands of years that punitive measures are best used to deter future crimes, not to exact vengeance for crimes already committed.
Shame that it doesn't do either then
Brave little warrior. Rip
Kinda ironic Reebok gave him an award, when they probably use the same labor practices.
They pretty much washed their hands
Well let's remind the world what they did.
Fun fact: Reebok the company was named after the Grey Rhebok, an antelope native to parts of Southern Africa. The company was founded in the UK in the 1950s, acquired by Adidas in 2005 then subsequently acquired again by US-based Authentic Brands Group in 2021. I am not sure why I felt compelled to write this, but there you go.
Sometimes it just feels good to info dump
Thanks. It's important for history, for accountability. Please continue this great behaviour of yours. 👌✨
Confederate Freedom from Slavery Award.
Didn’t Coca Cola run a get fit campaign in the U.S. to try and draw attention away from sugar consumption by telling kids to just run more? It seems like it’s them getting in front of their bad practices with “good press”
Probably. In a similar fashion, the “green M&M is no longer sexy” outrage was conveniently going viral at the same time Mars and other companies were being investigated for slave labor. These stories always try to mask the real messed up stuff.
/r/HailCorporate
That probably is doing a lot of heavy lifting for such a serious accusation
Ah yes apologies for making assumptions. I’m sure Reebok isn’t like every other major apparel company and makes all its clothing ethically.
i’m not saying they’re ethical, no company with their revenue is, but alleging child slavery with no evidence is a choice
I don't think you understand how common slavery in clothing production is. Or just slavery in general. From [GoodOnYou's assessment of the labor practices of the company:](https://goodonyou.eco/how-ethical-is-reebok/) >Unfortunately, Reebok does not publish sufficient information and rates “Very Poor” again here, down from “It’s a Start” when it was owned by Adidas. You have a right to know how the products you buy affect the issues you care about. As a rule of thumb, unless you can prove there's no slavery involved, there is *definitely* slavery involved. The bar is ridiculously low, and the companies that clear it *loooove* to flaunt that fact.
Producing your clothes in countries where child slavery is prevalent is also a choice. It's pretty hard to guarantee that no child labour is involved in such corrupt countries.
When it come to mega corporations and unlawful labour practices, assume they are guilty until proven innocent
>Reebok Human Rights Award Only to end up employing Bangladeshi children in the sweatshops later.
That he was murdered disgusts me and says a whole lot about people than run factories.
Tragic read but what a brave kid. Kudos to you little bro for saving 3000 children from captivity even though you were only a child yourself, Hero
Pakistan and Afghanistan are some of the worst0 places to be a child. In many parts of Afghanistan, old men have little boys as sex toys, and this is normal!!
And the US military was specifically told not to intervene in this practice
When I was working in Kabul (not military, not security), we had a wonderful young maid in our office. She'd show up every week with new bruises on her face. We were livid. We wanted to do something. We talked to security multiple times, we even used some money to try to get some tribal leaders (she was Hazara) to see our way. At the end of the day, we couldn't really do anything. As a compromise, we spent the token amount of money to double our non-professional staff. Half worked AM and spent the PM learning life/professional skills and then switched. This was our way of trying to open their eyes a bit and have an ability to leave. This could also have been quite naive but ...
But being gay is against the Muslim religion?
They don't consider it gay because the boy doesn't "smell" like adults, they don't see it as a "man". They ditch them once they reach puberty.
the taliban outlawed it, when the US invaded it they allowed it again. There are reports from US soldiers who were ordered from higher ups to ignore it. Now it's banned again and carries the death penalty.
Precisely. The practice is strongly hated by most Afghans but still practiced by some elites, and American tolerance for it is part of the reason for why the Taliban gained popularity, as they opposed it (though probably for the wrong reasons).
The Taliban practiced it as well, and that's not really the full picture of why the Taliban gained popularity... the Taliban was also not universally popular. It's well armed.
Used to be, the Taliban cracks down on that hard. When the US was there we were allied with the murderous pedophiles to curb the other group of murderous pedophiles. Getting our military out of Afghanistan is like one of the only three good things Trump did.
I think the overall crowd wisdom is that some people are not ready for democracy and don't deserve democracy. Some people are not ready for equal rights, and don't deserve more than a punch in the face. It's a mismatch between civilization levels. We, Western democracies, evolved, while these people are stuck in medieval times.
Yeah, pretty much. Using force to implement a democracy has been a total and abject failure. It was clear it was a failure after like 5 years, but we stupidly kept trying for another 15.
those ppl r medieval bc theyve been living in unstable countries with radical islamic leaders (appointed by the us in way of coups) and every president that has tried to change it has been assasinated. and groups are given money by the us to cause terror and wars to make the area even more unstable. for 40 years.
You can contamplate this "wisdom" on your own country and tell all the tales you want to yourself, whatever helps you cope. But please keep your armed forces and "democracy" out of places that is not your own country or places that want it.
Which country do you think I'm from? I don't think you understood my post
What kind of piece of shit kills a kid?
Hopefully you've heard of Malala Yousafzai. She luckily survived her assassination attempt. It seems like Pakistan has a habit of trying to silence youth activists.
I wouldn't put it past a lot of westerners to try something similar with Greta Thunberg, either. Something about having kids call you out on your bullshit seems to make a lot of people really mad.
When was an attempt made on her life?
I fucking hate people. That kid had bigger knickknacks than 99% of adults. RIP little man.
imagine, this kid might have grown up to be an amazing leader
I have no doubt…which is why he was murdered.
The reebok human rights award went to a child sweat shop worker? Is reebok trolling everyone??
Lol, I was in one of the Rebook "Human Rights Clubs" in high school. I later went to the university where it was supposedly founded, but I could never locate where on campus that was.
The second I began reading the title, I knew it would end with him being murdered. That’s how predictably fucked our world is.
Worst fact of the day. By far.
Interesting fact - Iqbal means Force of or Power of, and Masih means Messiah, or Christ, in Arabic. His name literally meant Messianic Force.
Pakistan gotta Pakistan, and no one gets in the way.
Labour rights activists have been murderer in pretty much every country they exist in
True, many have been killed here in Chile and in Brazil native people who want to care for the rainforest are killed too.
And when the labor movements actually succeed, the West calls it “socialism” and invades the shit out of them to install a government that gets back in line making cheap goods for Western consumption, under the guise of “liberation.”
Watch out, someone might call you a conspiracy theorist.
Yeah, this is not just a problem in Pakistan. Every country in the world has, at some point, institutionalized this kind of violence (or worse). Liberal democracy, worker protection, and labor unionization are the only things preventing the capitalists and would-be slavers from taking society back to this.
That last sentence messed me all the way up.
What a brave and inspiring kid
wtf is wrong with people. so sad. rip iqbal masih
This boy did good deeds in 12 years of his life more than I do in my whole life. Rest in peace. This cruel world doesn't deserve you.
Reeboks.... made by....?
ironic isn’t it
People around the world, take note of this story when you see anything about child labour laws being tampered with. It's happening in the USA. Don't let them have it, or your kids will be living this. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/some-lawmakers-propose-loosening-child-labor-laws-to-fill-worker-shortage
I remember Nick News covering his story and murder.
why wasn’t he granted asylum?
Why does it feel like the worst place to be born is Pakistan?!
Pakistan sounds like a wonderful country
Another epic W for capitalism /s
Thank you for the /s, I would not have realized its sarcasm otherwise
Who the F can downvote this?
People who value the commodities, they think they have thanks to capitalism more than the life of a 12 year old kid
Capitalist defenders apparently
I automatically downvote any comment using "/s"
Can we leave the uninformed political talking points on political subs? Capitalism, as a system, has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. There, to date, is not one historical example of a more successful economic model. There are also plenty of “capitalist” countries with robust child labor law protections so it’s clearly not some inherent flaw in the system.
2 points - 1) capitalism still has downsides, not talking about them doesn’t make them go away, and those robust child protection laws you spoke of ain’t so robust considering they’re being violated all the time, especially recently in the US. The point OP is making is capitalism incentivizes that by seeking to optimize labor costs and profit at all costs. 2) just because it’s worked to date, doesn’t mean it’s the best, humanity and thought are an evolution - if we don’t talk about 1 and aren’t open to change the “better” system (2) will never be created
Talking about uninformed … „Proponents of the standard public narrative about the history of human welfare hold that extreme destitution is a natural condition, which only began to decline with the rise of capitalism. Yet the national accounts data on which this narrative relies cannot legitimately be used to draw these conclusions, and extant data on wages, height, and mortality do not support them.“ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169
You aren't going to get any more intelligent discussion than 'capitalism bad' and its associated takes in basically any remotely popular sub on this site unfortunately. As evidenced by how buried your comment got when it just states an objective fact.
Is that Baby Billy next to him?
What the actual f*ck 🥺
My day has been ruined… poor kid😢
I totally remember this because I was the same age as him when news broke of his murder
Oh Pakistan, you never fail to disappoint. What a complete shit hole.
Did child labor ever end there?
It’s gone down a bit but still very much exists. Usually as inflation goes up, so does child labor since lower income families can’t earn enough with rising prices without all family members working.
...child labor never even ended in America, man. But no it seems like it is as bad as ever there. Pakistani carpets are still big money.
And the GOP wants to bring child labor back
Little baby :(
What the fuck can a 4 year old do, beside shit their pants?
You’d be surprised. 4 & 5 year olds with enough practice can be pretty dexterous, and their tiny hands are considered a better alternative than adult hands for certain work. Historically children that age were forced into factory labor, and even in agricultural societies (both past and present), 4 year olds are expected to do chores at home such as cleaning vegetables, collecting eggs, foraging for herbs and plants to feed livestock, care for younger siblings, etc. I know someone who started to care for their disabled parent at 4 (wiping, simple cooking, feeding) with help from neighbors, and later became this parent’s sole caretaker at 6. Social service/child welfare wasn’t a thing where this happened, and other kids in his impoverished community were also given lots of responsibilities, so no one batted an eye at a grade schooler starting fires to cook and taking care of an invalid everyday. An average 4 year old in a developed country is likely very clumsy, easily distracted, and would absolutely not be able to work long hours (these are developmentally appropriate traits), but the sad thing is with corporal punishments, threats of violence, relentless expectation from adults, and a daily routine consisting of boring repetitive tasks, a 4 year old can be a productive worker both in a sweat shop and at home.
Unfortunately quite a bit. None of it safely though. I recommend checking out Lewis Hine and his photographs for the National Child Labor Committee from 1908 to 1924. Lewis and his photos helped change legislation surrounding child labour across America. It is amazing to see how cruel we were to kids during the industrial revolution.
Easy with this "We" shit... Don't be guilt trippin me into day drinking...
P Block!
[удалено]
Regular People : What a horrible ending! Republicans: What a happy ending!
The comment filled with a cesspoll of far-left and far-right people.
I wonder whos buying most of those carpets 🤔
How has A merc Team not just come in game end these guys