Kailash Satyarthi
Kailash Satyarthi
Kailash Satyarthi is an Indian children's rights and education advocate and an activist against child labour. He founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolanin 1980 and has acted to protect the rights of more than 83,000 children from 144 countries. It is largely because of Satyarthi's work and activism that the International Labour Organization adopted Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labour, which is now a principal guideline for governments around the world...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth11 January 1954
CountryIndia
We adults, our policies, our ways of governance, are responsible for poverty, not the children.
India may be a land of over a 100 problems, but it is also a place for a billion solutions.
Economic growth and human development need to go hand in hand. Human values need to be advocated vigorously.
Every single minute matters, every single child matters, every single childhood matters.
There is a triangular relationship between poverty, child labour and illiteracy who have a cause and consequence relationship. We will have to break this vicious circle.
Each time I free a child, I feel it is something closer to God.
I call for a march from exploitation to education, from poverty to shared prosperity, a march from slavery to liberty, and a march from violence to peace.
I am really honoured, but if the prize had gone to Mahatma Gandhi before me, I would have been more honoured.
Denial of childhood and denial of freedom are the biggest sins which humankind has been committing and perpetuating for ages.
I have been very strongly advocating that poverty must not be used as an excuse to continue child labour. It perpetuates poverty. If children are deprived of education, they remain poor.
I never go to temples, but when I see a child, I see God in them.
For me, peace is a fundamental human right of every child; it is inevitable and divine.
As the anti-slavery community, we must together ensure that this attention is transferred into concrete action and results.
The fight against child slavery is the fight against traditional mindset, policy deficit, and lack of accountability and urgency for children across the globe.