Kailash Satyarthi
The Nobel Peace Prize 2014
Born: 11 January 1954, Vidisha, India
Residence at the time of the award: India
Prize motivation: "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education." Life
Kailash Satyarthi was born in the Vidisha district of Madhya Pradesh in India. After completing an electrical engineering degree, he worked as a teacher in the area. In 1980, he left teaching and founded the organization Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which has freed thousands of children from slave-like conditions. He has also been active in a wide range of other organizations working against child labor and for children's rights to education. Kailash Satyarthi is married and has a son and a daughter. Work
Much of the world's population, especially in poor countries, is made up of children and young people. To achieve a peaceful world, it is crucial that the rights of children and young people be respected. Following the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi has waged a peaceful struggle to stop children being exploited as labor instead of attending school. He has also contributed to the development of international conventions on the rights of children. Nobel Prizes 2020
Twelve laureates were awarded a Nobel Prize in 2020, for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.
Kailash Satyarthi (born on January 11, 1954) is a human rights activist from India who has been at the forefront of the global movement to end child slavery and exploitation since 1980, when he gave up a lucrative career as an electrical engineer to initiate a crusade against child servitude. As a grass-roots activist, Kailash and the grassroot movement founded by him, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (English: Save Childhood Movement), have liberated more than 83,000 children from exploitation and developed a successful model for their education, rehabilitation and reintegration into the mainstream society. As a worldwide campaigner, he has been the architect of the single largest civil society network for the most exploited children, the Global March Against Child Labour, which is a worldwide coalition of children’s rights organisations, teachers’ unions and trade unions. His efforts led to the adoption of ILO Convention 182 on worst forms of child labour in 1999. He is also the founding president of the Global Campaign for Education, an exemplar civil society movement working to end the global education crisis and GoodWeave International for raising consumer awareness and positive action in the carpet industry.
Since his childhood, Kailash had always questioned the wrong and unjust. As a young child of five years, he was disturbed deeply when he saw a small boy working with his cobbler father shining shoes at the school gate on the first day of school. He could not understand why some children were different from him. It did not take Kailash much time to understand the stark contrast between his life and that of the cobbler’s son. On one hand there was Kailash, who had a “Tilak” (Hindu mark) on his forehead and was dressed in his new school uniform and shoes. His family had performed a religious ceremony to mark the first day of his school life. On the other hand there was the son of the cobbler, with a sullen face and no dreams in his eyes. Kailash was very sad about what he had seen. He went to his classroom and asked his teacher about the small boy outside the school gate. His teacher discouraged his question. He asked him yet again, only to be scolded and instructed to be attentive in class rather than thinking about what was happening outside. Kailash’s inquisitive nature was unsettled and several questions kept echoing in his mind.
In the afternoon, he met the headmaster, who was known to his family, and asked him the same question that he had asked his class teacher earlier in the day. The headmaster explained to him that it was absolutely normal for the children of the poor to work in order to survive. He further said that the cobbler was poor and unable to send his son to school. Kailash was still not convinced by the answer that he got. For the next week or ten days, he kept staring at the boy every time he entered or left his school building. One day he mustered courage and asked the cobbler “Why don’t you send your son to school like me”? The cobbler was withdrawn and hesitant in responding, but when Kailash insisted he replied in a frail voice “Babuji (Sir), no one has ever asked me a question like this. My father worked as a cobbler, I am a cobbler and my son is also a cobbler. There is nothing new in it. We are born to work.” His answer left Kailash more confused than before.