Thousands of children who worked as bonded labourers owe their freedom to a modest kurta-clad activist, Kailash Satyarthi. He shot into the limelight after being named as a joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize along with 17-year-old Malala Yousufzai of Pakistan.
Satyarthi was in his twenties when he gave up a promising career as an electrical engineer to dedicate his life to fighting against child labour. He founded Bachpan Bachao Andolan Pied Piper (BBA) in 1980. The organization started
with rescuing hapless children from brick kilns, stone quarries and the carpet industry. To rehabilitate such rescued children, BBA set up the Mukti Ashram in Delhi.
Satyarthi founded the Global March Against Child Labour in 1998, which started off with a 80,000 km-long physical march from Manila to Geneva, covering 103 countries, to highlight the plight of exploited children. One of BBA’s ongoing campaigns is the Mukti Caravan, which travels across villages in U.P., Bihar, Delhi and Rajasthan to spread awareness of the evils of child labour and trafficking through folk art and street theatre. The organisation has rendered yeoman service in strengthening the legal rights of victims of child labour and trafficking.