Child Rights’ Activists: Ensuring Welfare of the Future

Indians have been advocates for the rights of children and social upliftment since time immemorial. Trailblazers like Mother Teresa, Baba Amte, Jyotiba Phule, B.R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi have dedicated their lives to promote the representation of children from the poorest and most marginalized communities and in the process have become synonymous to empathy and welfare. Many others have followed in their footsteps to help and to hope for a better future for coming generations of the underprivileged.

A young boy from the small town of Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh would go on to receive a Nobel Prize for ‘the struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.’ This young boy, namely, Kailash Satyarthi was brought up in a community where Hindus and Muslims co-existed in harmony and was affected deeply by the inaccessibility of education to children due to poverty. 

“There is no greater violence than to deny the dreams of our children,” says Satyarthi. Amongst his other achievements, he led the Global March against Child Labour traversing 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 that went on to transform how child rights were viewed in the world. He devoted his life to providing education for all because he felt that this is the only road that can truly lead children out of factories and mines and to their dreams.