Rights
Child Rights Satyarthi urges world to globalise compassion for children
11 Dec 2014, 09:15 am Print
Oslo, Dec 10 (JEN): India's 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi on Wednesday called upon the people of the world to "globalise the compassion for children" and said he represents "the sound of silence of millions of children" while receiving the honours along with Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai at a grand ceremony on Wednesday on the death anniversary of its founder Alfred Nobel.
He said the world has to work forward together to bring around development.
"The credit to this honour goes to people who worked and sacrificed for freeing children. Am representing here the sound of silence of millions of children who are left behind. I come here to share the voices and dreams of our children," he said.
He said, "I have kept an empty chair to remind people of those children."
Satyarthi, who dedicated his life to campaign against child labour, said there is no greater violence than denying the dreams of the children.
"I refuse to accept that all the laws of the world are unable to protect the children," the social activist said.
"My only aim in life is that every child is free to develop, free to eat, free to go to school and above all free to dream," said he.
Satyarthi, whose organization Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) has been credited with freeing more than 80,000 child labourers in India over 30 years, said, "We have reduced the number of child labour by a third."
"All religion teach us to take care of children," said he calling upon world governments to accelerate action to end child abuse.
"Children are questioning our inaction and watching our action," Satyarthi said.
He also asked the audience at the ceremony to feel the child inside them.
"I call upon to emerge from violence to peace. Let us march from ignorance to awekening, darkness to light," said he.
Satyarthi, 60, and his organization, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, have worked to eradicate modern slavery in India.
Their work has freed thousands of children from abusive labour practices, assisted in bringing human traffickers to justice, and improved awareness of the crime of human trafficking.
He has been a longtime partner of the US State Department, which named him a Trafficking in Persons Report Hero in 2007.
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