Republic Day 2018 | Kailash Satyarthi: Defender of the children

Gobel Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi’s story is that of a 26-year-old who gave up a promising career of an electrical engineer in the early eighties to work for trafficked children. His international organisation ‘Global March Against Child Labour’ globally, and ‘Bachpan Bachao Andolan’  in India have together, freed and saved more than 83,000 children from over 144 countries from the clutches of slavery. In his own words, “Every child matters. If we fail our children then we are bound to fail our present, our future, faith, cultures and civilisations as well.”

Kailash Sharma was born in Madhya Pradesh. When he was 15, there was a dinner his family had organised for the local politicians. When the guests belonging to the upper castes in the village got to know that the food was prepared by cooks of the lower castes, they boycotted Kailash’s family as well as the dinner party. This left a deep impact on him and he gave up his Brahmin surname and took the name ‘Satyarthi’ or seeker of truth. 

He realised that the root of the child labour problem lay in the industry ecosystem, which employs children on a large scale  for profit. His first target was the carpet industry and so in 1994, Kailash started an initiative called ‘Rugmark’ (now known as GoodWeave International). The objective of this initiative is to create a carpet industry that does not employ children. Carpets and rugs sold under the GoodWeave label are certified as child-labour-free.

It is a win-win situation for the companies as well those who endorsed ‘Goodweave’ as the buyers saw them as socially responsible.

His journey has hardly been a cakewalk. He and his volunteers had to face the wrath of the traffickers who reacted violently against Kailash’s crusade against child labour. He has survived many bids on his life. There was an attack on him and his colleagues while rescuing child slaves from a garment sweatshops in Delhi on 17 March 2011. Earlier in 2004 while rescuing children from the clutches of a local circus mafia and the owner of Great Roman Circus, he and his colleagues were brutally attacked. Despite many of these attacks and his office being ransacked by anti-social elements on several occasions, his commitment to the cause has remained unwavered.

The ‘Global March Against Child Labour’ is a movement that has grown from strength to strength and sends a powerful international message against child labour. Started in 1998, it began with an 80,000 km long physical march across 103 countries. Members from over 140 different countries participated in the march. The impact of the movement has been so profound that today, 177 of its  185 member countries of the International Labour Organisation have ratified a convention against child labour.

He is currently a member of a High Level Group formed by UNESCO on Education for All, comprising Presidents, Prime Ministers and UN Agency Heads. As one of the rare civil society leaders he has addressed the United Nations General Assembly, International Labour Conference, UN Human Rights Commission, UNESCO and has been invited to several parliamentary hearings and committees in USA, Germany and UK in the recent past.

As an advocate for quality and meaningful education, Satyarthi has addressed some of the biggest worldwide congregations of Workers and Teachers Congresses, Christian Assembly, Students Conferences, etc. as a keynote speaker on the issue of child labour and education. He is on the board and committee of several International Organisations. Among all the prominent ones, being the Center for Victims of Torture (USA), International Labor Rights Fund (USA), he is also an executive board member of International Cocoa Foundation with the headquarters in Geneva, representing the global civil society.

He has been honoured by the Former US President Bill Clinton in Washington for featuring in Kerry Kennedy’s Book ‘Speak Truth to Power’, where his life and work featured among the top 50 human rights defenders in the world including Nobel Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Elie Wessel, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, etc. Little wonder then, that in 2014 he won the Nobel Peace Prize shared with Pakistani Human Rights defender Malala Yousufzai. He was also honoured with the Defenders of Democracy Award in 2009 as well the Medal of the Italian Senate award in 2007.

Satyarthi’s legacy stands independent of his accolades and it has helped to further the cause of child -labour-free society. To summarise in his own words, “Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here. A lot of work remains, but I will see the end of child labour in my lifetime.”