Iqbal

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of child abuse and the murder of a child.

In the introduction of Iqbal, the author addresses real-world child labor, which “is considered essential to successful development” in nations that are becoming industrialized (7). Worldwide, hundreds of millions of children work, and several million are trapped in the bonded labor system, meaning they are working in order to pay off debts.

In the decade of Iqbal’s publication, researchers Art Hansen and Pablo Diego Rosell found that approximately one third of workers in Pakistan’s carpetmaking industry were children. They believed that a significant number of those children were in a bonded or forced labor situation, based on a study of families’ debt burdens. The study also stated that over half of the children in the industry were below 14 years of age, although 14 was the minimum age for children working in hazardous conditions and factories. Despite legislative reforms, the Bureau of International Labor Affairs reported in 2021 that child labor persists in Pakistan in numerous industries, including carpetmaking, due to limited efforts to enforce changes.

D’Adamo notes that children were depended upon in the carpetmaking industry because of their “manual dexterity” and their “small fingers,” which help them “to tie the thousands of knots necessary to make a carpet” (7). Adults and older children have larger hands and are not as efficient at carpetmaking, which is why factory owners used children younger than 14, although it was illegal.

Similar to the depictions in the novel, the children working in Pakistani carpet factories are subjected to cruel treatment and poor, neglectful, and dangerous working conditions. According to Hansen and Rosell, 100% of the children in factories at the time of their study worked in hazardous conditions, including poor air quality, extreme temperatures, inappropriate punishments, and a lack of safety measures. The real-world conditions that bonded children are forced to work in are reflected in the conditions the fictitious children experience in Iqbal.