Biography of Kailash Satyarthi

Kailash Satyarthi

"If not now, then when? If not you, then who? If we are able to answer these fundamental questions, then perhaps we can wipe away the blot of human slavery."

This is what Kailash Satyarthi, a crusader against child labor, an Indian children's rights activist and a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. He founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolan in 1980 and has acted to protect the rights of more than 83,000 children from 144 countries.He was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Malala Yousafzai, "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".

Early Life

Kailash Satyarthi was born in a Brahmin family on 11 January 1954 in the Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh.When Kailash was 6 years old and went to school he noticed a boy younger than him, with his father, on the steps of the school repairing and polishing shoes. Instead of going on to class the boy polished shoes all day with his father. After seeing this everyday, Kailash felt ashamed. His activism started when he was 11 years old. He would push for boys and girls to donate textbooks and money to families who could not pay for their children to go to school.  He completed his degree in electrical engineering and then pursued post-graduate studies in high-voltage engineering. He then joined as a lecturer at a college in Bhopal for a few years. At the age of 26, Kailash gave up a promising job as an electrical engineer and devoted his life to try and fight child slavery in India.

His Work                                 

In 1980, he became secretary general for the Bonded Labor Liberation Front; he also founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Mission) that year. He has also been involved with the Global March Against Child Labor and its international advocacy body, the International Center on Child Labor and Education (ICCLE), which are worldwide coalitions of NGOs, teachers and trades unionists. He has also served as the President of the Global Campaign for Education, from its inception in 1999 to 2011, having been one of its four founders alongside ActionAid, Oxfam and Education International.

In addition, he established Rugmark Foundation(now known as Goodweave) as the first voluntary labelling, monitoring and certification system of rugs manufactured without the use of child-labour in South Asia. This latter organisation operated a campaign in Europe and the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the intent of raising consumer awareness of the issues relating to the accountability of global corporations with regard to socially responsible consumerism and trade. Satyarthi has highlighted child labor as a human rights issue as well as a welfare matter and charitable cause. He has argued that it perpetuates poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, population growth, and other social problems and his claims have been supported by several studies. He has also had a role in linking the movement against child labour with efforts for achieving "Education for All".

Mr. Satyarthi is a member of a High Level Group formed by UNESCO on Education for All comprising of select 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, etc and has been invited to several Parliamentary Hearings and Committees in USA, Germany and UK in the recent past.

He has survived numerous attacks on his life during his crusade to end child labour, the most recent being the attack on him and his colleagues while rescuing child slaves from garment sweatshops in Delhi on 17 March 2011.

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.

 He has been a member of a UNESCO body established to examine this and has been on the board of the Fast Track Initiative (now known as the Global Partnership for Education). Satyarthi serves on the board and committee of several international organisations including the Center for Victims of Torture (USA), the International Labor Rights Fund (USA), and the International Cocoa Foundation. He is now reportedly working on bringing child labour and slavery into the post-2015 development agenda for the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals.

Satyarthi, along with Pakistani activist Malala Yousufzai, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education". Satyarthi is the fifth Nobel Prize winner for India and only the second Indian winner of the Nobel Peace Prize after Mother Teresa in 1979.

As a Changemaker  in 

1. Redifining the bonded labor system in India in 1983

2. Domestic child labor in 1999

3. ILO convention on worst form of child labor 1999

Kailash Satyarthi is a strong believer of the ancient Indian Vedic teaching 'Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam' (One World One Family).