Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi urges global action to stop child exploitation

Indian activist tells The National each person needs to acts against injustice, child labour and trafficking

Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi believes education can rehabilitate children rescued from bonded labour. Photo: Pradeep Tewari

Indian Nobel peace laureate Kailash Satyarthi has issued a powerful rallying cry to people around the world to join the fight against child labour and trafficking.

The children's rights activist, who is in Abu Dhabi this week for the Indiaspora Forum for Good, has launched a movement encouraging compassion. He believes people would take action if they understand the impact of exploitation if their family or friends were affected.

“What if this were your daughter or son? You would not sit quiet. You would act, we must all work and lead efforts to stop child slavery,” he said as he addressed the forum.

Mr Satyarthi, 71, and his team of volunteers in India have rescued more than 130,000 children from trafficking and illegal work in factories over four decades.

What if this were your daughter or son? You would not sit quiet. You would act, we must all work to stop child slavery

Indian Nobel peace laureate Kailash Satyarthi

In his autobiography Diyasalai (matchstick), published last month, he talks of the power of education to rehabilitate children.

“The diyasalai looks very small but it has enormous power, light because it can ignite one candle and that candle can ignite so many more, it's the source of light,” he told The National in an interview.

“I have launched a worldwide movement for compassion because I’m an optimist. I believe we must find new ideas, strategies to make a difference. Compassion is innate, I cannot teach compassion. We have to just dig it out of people.”

Joy of freedom

He was recognised for the Nobel Peace Prize along with Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai in 2014 for his decades of work defending children’s rights.

Mr Satyarthi and his team have been beaten up by armed guards at factories and workshops during their work to expose units that forced children to work as bonded labour.

“There is nothing more inspiring than seeing the joy of freedom on the faces of children and the look on the faces of mothers and fathers who had lost all hope that they would ever hug their children,” he said. “My colleagues and I have been beaten, attacked but when we return the children to their families and see them cry out of joy, that is all we like to remember.”

Kailash Satyarthi holds his Nobel medal with children at the children's home he founded in Rajasthan, India. Photo: Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation

In the balashram, or children’s home, he founded in Rajasthan, western India, about 100 rescued teenagers receive vocational training ranging from electrical to computer education. Many go on to work overseas, including in the Gulf region.

Mr Satyarthi told the story of Kenshu Kumar, 28, once a child car cleaner, and head teacher Ram Kripal, who he rescued in the 1980s from stone quarries in northern India.

Mr Kumar was eight years old when he was rescued, went on to graduate in engineering and has returned to teach children in the balashram.

“Kenshu Kumar, now he goes to other villages to motivate girls to study, create awareness against child labour, child marriage, child trafficking,” Mr Satyarthi said. “Ram Kripal is like a father figure and has taught several hundred children. The teenagers get training so they can get a job and become independent.

“Many of them work in the Gulf but they still call us, sometimes in the middle of the night, just to talk.”

‘Must not continue to fail our children’

It all started when Mr Satyarthi, an electrical engineer, left his job to start a magazine to give voice to the oppressed. In 1981 a father in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, contacted him for help to stop his teenage daughter being trafficked.

Although Mr Satyarthi and his team were unable to rescue her, he filed a legal case that helped free 36 children, men and women. Children are often kidnapped and trafficked to work in factories or brothels.

He began the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement) and lobbied for laws in India to protect children. His campaigning resulted in 2006 legislation that made it illegal to employ children under 14 in restaurants and hazardous industries ranging from cigarette to jewellery factories.

Mr Satyarthi’s activism also extended overseas when he headed a global march against child labour in 1988, and children rescued from bonded labour in Asia, Latin America and Africa were among 1,000 demonstrators in Geneva. The International Labour Organisation approved an accord a year later to protect children from jobs that exposed them to danger and exploitation.

He says the problem remains deep-rooted and companies around the world continue to use children to make carpets and footballs, for example, and to work in mines

“We must not continue to fail our children,” he said. “The government [in India has] launched several agencies and rescue programmes but more work is needed, and also around the world.”

About 160 million children continue to be exploited as child labour and 250 million children do not attend school, according to United Nations figures.

Act to stop child labour

Mr Satyarthi repeated his call for action in the UAE before an audience of hundreds of Indians from technology, startup, education and non-profit organisations.

“In compassion, there is an inherent power to solve problems and suffering of other people,” he said. “We have to use this transformation power. We all have the moral responsibility to bridge this gap which is growing to help those who are suffering.”

Kailash Satyarthi and his wife Sumedha Kailash with children in an Indian village. Photo: Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation

He said that while the world was divided by war and conflict, there were people across the police, the judiciary, education, government, media and private companies who could help children.

“What could be a bigger crime that children so exploited and overworked that they have no time to dream?” he said. “The world has never been so wealthy, so well informed. We have all the technological know-how but in spite of this, millions of children are suffering.

“We must build compassionate leaders in all walks of life. I have hope for the world to join this movement and work to shape a world of good where every child can be safe.”