JOIN USThe total number of children saved by Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi’s Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) in the past several years is 82,625.
The number, however, does not tell the whole story. Rescuing the children was not a cakewalk for Satyarthi. He was targeted — sometimes with near-fatal consequences.
In 2004, he was beaten up when he tried to save girls employed by a circus company in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda in 2004. Three years ago, Satyarthi and his colleagues were attacked while rescuing child labourers from garment manufacturing units.
An electrical engineer from Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha, Satyarthi was baptised into activism at the age of 25 in Delhi when he launched a magazine “Sangarsh Jari Rahega”. By then he had taught in a college in Bhopal but left it as he found his calling in activism.
He formed Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) and later also tied up with Swami Agnivesh, with whom he later fell out. He also heads the Global March Against Child Labour.
Satyarthi is also credited with playing an important role in the constitutional amendment paving the way for the Right to Education Act, ensuring compulsory education for all children in India.
Usually dressed in a simple khadi kurta-pyjama, he is not overwhelmed by the award and believes that it puts more focus on the problem of child labour in India.
A rescued child had fondly remembered Satyarthi as a person who had cooked meals for a group of children who were saved from the clutches of employers.
Though Nobel Prize had eluded him despite being nominated several times earlier, he has been bestowed with other recognitions including Defenders of Democracy Award (2009-US), Alfonso Comin International Award (2008-Spain), Medal of the Italian Senate (2007-Italy), and Robert F Kennedy International Human Rights Award (US).
Satyarthi has been involved with the Global March Against Child Labour and its international advocacy body, the International Center on Child Labor and Education (ICCLE) - a global coalition of NGOs, teachers and trades unionists - and also the Global Campaign for Education.