Home should be a place of warmth and safety for children, and people in home a source of warmth and love. Yet for many like Iqra, it is a battlefield where childhood is robbed. The story of the Rawalpindi-based minor girl, covered by the local and international media, is painfully reminiscent of the tragic characters in English fiction-orphans in Dickens’ London, starving and shivering in alleyways, longing for kindness but met with cruelty. In moden times, Iqra’s crime turns out to be a piece of chocolate. Her punishment? Death. Coldblooded murder. At just 13, Iqra had already seen more hardship than most. She was sold into labour at eight by her parents, She scrubbed floors and served meals while children of the house played. She earned a little money to be supplied to her parents. She barely had a few rupees to buy the very sweets she was accused of stealing. Like Oliver Twist, she too must have longed for something more. A 13-year-old child only wants a kind word, a moment of love, and sometime a candy. Instead, she was beaten so mercilessly that her fragile bones broke and her spirit was crushed. With death, she is at least at peace in her grave, yet the echoes of her suffering have reached far beyond her grave. The law forbids child labour, yet millions work in homes where no one watches. No one wants to question the situation as justice is buried under wads of money. The privileged walk free as their guilt is washed away by ‘forgiveness in the name of God’. Money can buy forgiveness. All in the name of God. Ohmygod! Iqra is gone. Many more like her will keep on dying as we see them as servants, not children, not human beings. Every day, minor domestic help sleep on a cold floor, wondering if they will wake up tomorrow. *