Permanently injured from working on the looms as a child, today Manju is a young activist who was inspired by RugMark’s founder to help other children escape child labor.

Manju Karki was rescued from Nepal’s carpet mills by RugMark inspectors and was one of 200 children who traveled to Florence, Italy in 2005 to attend the Children’s World Congress on Child Labor. Manju, who had been hospitalized because of severe damage to her leg during her long years working on the looms, testified and marched with children and other activists, calling for the end to child labor. Manju, who hopes to be a social worker when she finishes her education, follows in the footsteps of Kailash Satyarthi, chair of the South Asian Coalition Against Child Servitude and the founder of RugMark.

During the past quarter-century, Kailash has rescued thousands of children from slave labor. In setting up RugMark, he helped ensure that South Asian children would stay off the looms. “When you are living in a globalized economy and a globalized world, you cannot live in isolation,” he told television anchor Peter Jennings when ABC News named him Person of the Week in May 2004. “The problem of child labor in any part of the world is your problem.” By joining the march in Florence, Manju helped focus global attention on the problem of child labor.

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