Kailash Satyarthi braved bullets to save kids

LUCKNOW: As an engineering student in Vidhisha, Kailash Satyarthi once came across a cobbler, whose son, who was less than 10 years' old, was helping him instead of going to school. Satyarthi asked why. The response was unassuming: "We're poor.

Extra hands mean extra money." Satyarthi, then 26, walked away unable to help, but convinced there was need for an initiative to rescue poor children being exploited for financial gains.
Education, he thought, would be their road to emancipation. That led to the birth of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) in 1980. Satyarthi started BBA to rescue children from bondage. In 34 years, the organization has conducted thousands of raids, reintegrating rescued children into society, ensuring they get an education.

In states like Haryana, he led rescue missions for kids and families of bonded labourers in mining and manufacturing, braving murderous attacks.

He gave up a career in electrical engineering. For a while before launching BBA, he was a professor in Bhopal. Then he moved to Delhi and began his advocacy against child labour. Scaling up BBA's work wasn't easy. Though the yearning for freedom existed in every family or child he rescued, Satyarthi — popularly known as bhai saab — faced resistance.

Some of those he wanted to rescue were scared to break free of their shackles, others like the cobbler Satyarthi was too poor to afford sacrificing an extra hand. BBA continues to operate in Meerut and Lakhimpur districts, adopting nearly 130 villages, converting them into child-friendly zones.

IPS officer Amitabh Thakur recalls: "I met Satyarthi in June 2004 at Karnailganj, Gonda. He had been beaten up by owners of the Great Roman Circus while attempting to rescue Nepalese girls. He was bleeding profusely. Police pulled him out from a rather precarious situation and helped rescue a dozen girls." Thakur was Gonda police chief then. Satyarthi created the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude (SACCS), a group of more than 750 civil society organizations.

In 1994, he launched Goodweave, South Asia's first voluntary labelling and certification system for child labour-free rugs. In 1998, he organised the global march against child labour with more than 50 lakh people in attendance from across the globe. He is member of several other organizations.

For his endeavours in BBA and SACCS, Satyarthi has received global recognition and has been in the Peace Nobel reckoning for nearly five years. He won the US state department's Heroes Acting to End Modern Slavery Award, 2007, for creating child-friendly villages. The BBA network runs in nearly 350 villages across 11 states.

Last year, through Satyarthi's initiative in Meerut, 15-year-old Raziya Sultana, a child labourer BBA rescued and rehabilitated, won the UN Special Envoy for Global Education Award.