THE MAN WHO GAVE MILLIONS OF CHILDREN A FUTURE

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KAILASH SATYARTHI

Satyarthi and his organization, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), has liberated more than 130,000 children in India from child labour, slavery, and trafficking. Their approach was radically confrontational, members of his organisation would descend on guarded brick and carpet factories, often accompanied by police, and free children who had been forced into servitude.

His advocacy culminated in the 1998 Global March Against Child Labour, a 100-country campaign that succeeded in prompting the International Labour Organisation's 1999 Convention No. 182 themed "the Worst Form of Child Labour Convention, 1999." More than seven million people participated in those marches across 100 countries.

Satyarthi created GoodWeave, the world's first label certifying child-labour-free rugs, reducing the number of children working in the carpet industry from one million to 250,000. India did not have a law against child labour until 1986, and it was only in 2001 that a mass campaign led to the 86th Amendment to the Constitution, making education a human right. Civil society pressures under his leadership also contributed to the Right to Education Act in India in 2009.

Despite receiving numerous death threats, and even being attacked, where two of his colleagues were killed, Satyarthi continued his humanitarian work at great risk, the threats were not enough to stop him.

In 2014, he was co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Malala Yousafzai, awarded "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

Satyarthi, a man who gave up a career as an electrical Engineer, renamed himself "Satyarthi" meaning seeker of truth, and spent four decades doing dangerous, unglamorous work, until the world finally caught up with his conscience. Today millions of children have a better life because he rose and fought for them.

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