Who is Kailash Satyarthi?

Who is Kailash Satyarthi? Many people may be  wondering after the announcement of Nobel Peace prize in 2014.

India's Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai were awarded the Nobel peace prize 2014 jointly for "showing great personal courage and in their struggle against the suppression of children and for the right of all children to education".


The two will split the £690,000 ($1.11m) prize announced by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The committee said 60-year-old Satyarthi maintained Mahatma Gandhi's tradition and headed various forms of protests and demonstrations, all peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain. According to the committee "he has also contributed to the development of important international conventions on children's rights".

"Children must go to school and not be financially exploited. In the poor countries of the world, 60% of the present population is under 25 years of age. It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected. In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation," the committee said.

The Norwegian Nobel Institute has revealed that India's Kailash Satyarthi had been in the running for the coveted peace prize for over half a decade now

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 exploitative child labor since 1980 when he gave up a lucrative career as an Electrical Engineer for initiating crusade against Child Servitude. As a grassroots activist, he has led the rescue of over 78,500 child slaves and developed a successful model for their education and rehabilitation. 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 Labor,which is a worldwide coalition of NGOs, Teachers' Union and Trade Unions.

He founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolan — or Save the Childhood Movement — describes itself as a grassroots movement against child labor, trafficking and slavery— has acted to protect the rights of 80,000 children.or Save The Children

Satyarthi lives in New Delhi, India. His family includes children, his wife, a son, daughter-in-law, a daughter, colleagues and friends.

On receiving the Nobel Prize,Satyarthi said

 “an honor to all those children who are still suffering in slavery, bonded labor and trafficking".

He has set up three rehabilitation-cum-educational centres for freed bonded children that resulted in the transformation of victims of child servitude into leaders and liberators.


He has survived numerous attacks on his life during his crusade to end child labour, the most recent being the attack on him and his colleagues while rescuing child slaves from garment sweatshops in Delhi on 17 March 2011. Earlier in 2004 while rescuing children from the clutches of a local circus mafia and the owner of Great Roman Circus, Mr. Satyarthi and his colleagues were brutally attacked. Despite of these attacks and his office being ransacked by anti social elements a number of times in the past his commitment to stand tall for the cause of child slaves has been unwavering.

 His life and work has been explicitly covered in hundreds of programmes on all the prominent television and radio channels and profoundly featured in several national and international magazines


 Watch the video on New heroes with Kailash Satyarthi-
A rescue operation in Stone Quarries in Haryana. Bonded families from generations to generations were rescued by Kailash Satyarthi and BBA activist.