Kailash Satyarthi

Kailash Satyarthi (born 11 January 1954) is an Indian social reformer who campaigned against child labor in India and advocated the universal right to education.

In 1980, Satyarthi gave up his career as an electrical engineer and then founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement).

He conceived and led 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.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s he focused its campaigns on raising consumer awareness on issues relating to the accountability of global corporations regarding socially responsible consumerism, trade and supply chains.

Satyarthi has highlighted child labour 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, his claims have been supported by several studies.

He has had a role in linking the movement against child labour with efforts for achieving "Education for All".

Satyarthi has been a member of a UNESCO body and has been on the board of the Fast Track Initiative (now known as the Global Partnership for Education).

Satyarthi had served 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.

In 1998, Satyarthi conceived and led the Global March against Child Labour, an 80,000 km (ca. 49,710 mi)-long march across 103 countries to put forth a global demand against worst forms of child labour.

This became one of the largest social movements ever on behalf of exploited children.

The demands of the marchers, which included children and youth (particularly the survivors of trafficking for forced labor, exploitation, sexual abuse, illegal organ transplants, armed conflict, etc.) were reflected in the draft of the ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour.

The following year, the Convention was unanimously adopted at the ILO Conference in Geneva.

He has served on the board and committee of several international organizations including the Center for Victims of Torture (USA), the International Labor Rights Fund (USA), and the Cocoa Initiative.

In 1998, Satyarthi conceived and led the Global March against Child Labour traveling across 103 countries covering 80,000 km to demand an International Law on Worst Forms of Child Labour.

The march eventually led to the adoption of ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labor.

He established GoodWeave International (formerly known as Rugmark) as the first voluntary labelling, monitoring and certification system of rugs manufactured without the use of child-labour in South Asia.

He has served as the President of the Global Campaign for Education from its inception in 1999 to 2011.

Sathyarthi is one of its four founders alongside ActionAid, Oxfam and Education International.

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

He is the founder of multiple social activist organizations, including Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Global March Against Child Labour, Global Campaign for Education, Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation, and Bal Ashram Trust.

Kailash Satyarthi and his team at Bachpan Bachao Andolan have liberated more than 86,000 children in India from child labour, slavery and trafficking.

Satyarthi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 "for the struggle against the suppression of children and young people and the right of all children to education".

Satyarthi is the first natural-born Indian Nobel Peace Laureate.

Satyarthi was among Fortune magazine's "World's Greatest Leaders" in 2015 and featured in LinkedIn's Power Profiles List in 2017 and 2018.

Satyarthi led a nationwide march, Bharat Yatra, in India covering 19,000 km in 35 days, to demand for legislation against child rape and child sexual abuse.

Satyarthi was born as Kailash Sharma in Vidisha, a small town in the Madhya Pradesh State Of India.

He dropped his last name Sharma (implying that he is a Brahmin) and took Satyarti (meaning one who longs for truth) after his marriage, due to the influence of the reformist Arya Samaj movement.

Kailash Satyarthi belongs to a middle-class family.

He is the youngest among four brothers and a sister in his family.

His father Ramprasad Sharma was a retired police head constable and his mother Chironjibai was an uneducated housewife with high morals.

As per Satyarthi, the exceptionally idealistic and helpful nature of his mother had a big impact on him.

He was raised in a locality (mohalla) where Hindus and Muslims lived with each other.

As a four-year-old toddler, he learnt to read Urdu from the Maulvi at the neighboring mosque and learnt Hindi and English in his school.

Satyarthi was significantly affected by the lack of school access for all children and his experiences with poverty in his youth.

He made efforts when young to try to change these inequalities due to the circumstances of their birth.

Satyarthi completed his education in Vidisha.

He attended Government Boys Higher Secondary School in Vidisha, and completed an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at Samrat Ashok Technological Institute in Vidisha then affiliated to the University of Bhopal, (now Barkatullah University) and a post-graduate degree in high-voltage engineering.

Satyarthi joined his college as a lecturer for a few years.

He brought child labour and slavery into the post-2015 development agenda for the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.