ase in the export market, Iqbal was not popular with some Pakistani. This was apparent when he was gunned down while riding his bicycle to his uncles house on Easter Sunday of 1995 at the age of twelve. Although Iqbals story is a tragic one, it is not uncommon. The International Labour Organization or ILO, which is in charge of the monitoring of workers rights by the United Nations, estimates that at least 250 million children under the age of 15 hold jobs which undermine their education and threaten their health. Of this figure, 153 million are said to work in Asia, 80 million in Africa, and 17.5 million in Latin America. On average In developing countries, more than 18 percent of the children between the ages of 10 and 14 work. In the current expanding global economy, multinational corporations take advantage of child labour to keep their prices down. A 1996 ILO study concluded that another reason for the high amount of children workers is because children are less aware of their rights, less troublesome and more willing to take orders without complaining. Situations like Iqbals are also extremely common with children being sold into slavery because of the extreme poverty that exists in developing nations. It is estimated that in these developing countries, 30 percent of the population does not have enough food to sustain the minimal standards of nourishment. Children are also used in certain industries, like the carpet making industry, because their size and small hands are more suited to tie the millions of small knots that go into each rug. The town of Sialkot, Pakistan, is the site of some of the worse child labour practices in the world. In Sialkot, 7,500 children under the age of 14 make surgical instruments like scalpels and forceps out of metal. Comprising 15 percent of the total workforce, the children produce roughly 20 percent of the worlds supply of these surgical instruments. They are exposed to harmful metal vapour and e...
