In 1982, in a small village in Punjab, Pakistan, a four-year-old boy named Iqbal Masih was sold into bonded labor by his family to pay off a debt of roughly 600 rupees, the equivalent of twelve US dollars. For the next six years, Iqbal worked in a carpet factory, chained to a loom for up to fourteen hours a day. The conditions were brutal, the pay nonexistent, and the debt, through a system designed to trap families in perpetual servitude, only grew. Iqbal's story might have ended there, anonymous and unremarkable in a country where millions of children shared his fate. But Iqbal Masih was anything but ordinary.
At the age of ten, Iqbal escaped his bondage with the help of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF). Rather than retreating into the safety of anonymity, he became a vocal advocate against child labor, speaking at schools, rallies, and international conferences. His testimony was electrifying. Here was a child, barely tall enough to reach a podium, describing in plain language the horrors of an industry that powered Pakistan's carpet exports. His activism helped free over three thousand children from bonded labor. In 1994, he received the Reebok Human Rights Award, and his story was covered by media outlets around the world.
On April 16, 1995, Iqbal Masih was shot and killed while riding his bicycle in his village. He was twelve years old. The circumstances of his murder remain disputed to this day. Authorities attributed the killing to a local farmhand, but many, including Iqbal's family and advocacy groups, believe he was targeted by the carpet mafia, the powerful network of factory owners whose profits he had threatened. No one has ever been brought to justice for his death. In 2009, the United States Congress named an annual award after him, given to activists fighting to end child labor. In 2022, the Pakistani government posthumously awarded him the Sitara-e-Shujaat, one of the country's highest honors for bravery.
It is this story, the story of a child who defied an empire and paid with his life, that "Gunjal" brings to the screen. For producer Nighat Akbar Shah, the film was a moral imperative. "Sadly, child labor remains an international problem today, even in developed countries," Shah has said. "Iqbal's story is not just history. It is a call to action." The film approaches Iqbal's legacy through the lens of a journalist investigating his murder decades later, uncovering layers of corruption, complicity, and courage that resonate far beyond Pakistan's borders.
Nearly thirty years after Iqbal Masih's death, an estimated 160 million children worldwide are trapped in child labor, according to the International Labour Organization. The carpet industry in South Asia continues to employ children in conditions that differ little from those Iqbal endured. "Gunjal" exists to ensure that his sacrifice is not forgotten, and to remind the world that the fight he began is far from over.