Kailash Satyarthi Biography

Death threats, broken bones and ransacking won’t stop internationally acclaimed child’s rights activist and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Kailash Satyarthi from his life’s mission: ending child slavery, poverty and illiteracy. In 1980, he left a lucrative career to bring these issues to the forefront of the global social and political stage—and subsequently rescued over 80,000 children from trafficking and bondage with his Save the Childhood Movement. Child friendly villages—approximately 350 across India—now exist because of Kailash Satyarthi. In these villages, children receive education, recreation and govern their own youth groups, giving them a way to take control over their own lives.

There are many more accomplishments speaker Kailash Satyarthi can be proud of: he organized the Global March Against Child Labor, across a jaw-dropping geographical span—103 countries. An estimated 7.2 million people—as well as 20,000 civil society organizations—joined the movement to create the largest-ever grassroots campaign on child labor. Recently, The Guardian profiled him as he rescued a girl and reunited her with her father after three years in bondage. Saving children from trafficking is par for the course for him, but so is educating the public. Kailash Satyarthi lectures on topics such as the right to free and mandatory education and the complicity of corporations in child labor—and how this injustice can be solved.

Articulate and soft spoken, Kailash Satyarthi draws on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi for strength as he continues his life’s work. His mission is not without danger: he has withstood brutal beatings and the deaths of colleagues by the hands of child traffickers. As a former electrical engineer and professor, he combines his philosophies and intelligence to bring justice to those who use children for nefarious means.

Kailash Satyarthi speaks for those who cannot. He created the first certification and labeling protocols for child labor-free carpets in South Asia—GoodWeave (formerly Rugmark). His work with the Global March Against Child Labor has led to the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Convention 182 to call for the elimination of the worst forms of child labor. Today, Kailash Satyarthi’s Global March is the largest alliance of civil society organizations and teacher and trade unions—all united in determination to end child labor and promote education. Kailash Satyarthi’s truly inspiring, unique stories and his incredible will provides hope to others that they, too, can enact social change around the world.

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