Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi is launching a global ‘youth for youth’ campaign to end child slavery and other forms of violence against children.
The campaign will start from India with some of the world’s highest moral authorities Nobel Laureates and other leaders– assembling to take part in the ‘Laureates and Leaders for Children Summit’ on December 10 and 11 in the national capital.
The summit will be inaugurated by President Pranab Mukherjee.
In a press statement Monday, Mr Satyarthi called upon the government and citizens to celebrate Children’s Day by pledging to protect the rights of all children in the country.
Stressing on the need for a national resolve towards children, he made an appeal to the leaders of all political parties to devote at least one full day to deliberate on children’s issues in the upcoming session. “The fight against child labour, child trafficking and child sexual abuse need higher political will,” he said.
Mr Satyarthi also said, “Although significant progress has been made for the protection of child rights, critical challenges continue due to gaps in policy and their implementation. More serious efforts are needed in this regard.”
He expressed his disappointment towards the budgetary allocation for the issues of children. Indian population comprises about 492 million children which is a massive 41 per cent of the overall figure. Whereas, the budgetary allocation made towards their issues is only 4 per cent, reported Web India.
“Regardless of the fact that our nation has the world’s highest number of malnourished children, child labour and children vulnerable to sexual offences; it is unfortunate that this section of the society receives the lowest budgetary allocation in terms of proportion.”
“All our efforts for the development of children fail with such disproportionate investment”, he added.
”Every eight minutes a child goes missing in India. Another 43 lakh toil in exploitative labour conditions every day and the number of children out-of-school is close to 99 lakh. This is official data. However, the ground situation could be more pathetic,” he noted.
Mr Satyarthi appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s initiative asking Parliament Members to make at least one model village in each constituency. The PM had announced this in his speech at the Red Fort on Independence Day after assuming office in 2014.
He added, “We should work towards making these model villages child-friendly. Child participation should be emphasised on children’s related matter. There should be zero tolerance to trafficking, child labour, child marriage, illiteracy and other forms of abuse against children at village level.”
Mr Satyarthi’s novel concept of was started in 2001 with the objective of keeping children as the focal point, and through them, approximately 500 villages in 11 Indian states have been made child-friendly.
A novel concept has been started of making Bal Mitra Gram (Child-friendly villages) to establish a child-friendly society through democratic processes and actions.
“There is a deficit of moral will and compassion for children. Even with so many institutions of governance and faith, laws and conventions, we are failing to protect millions of our children worldwide. There is an imperative need for a strong moral platform of global leaders to come together for the cause of children”, expressed the Nobel Laureate.
Besides 25 Nobel Laureates and world leaders, around 150 eminent personalities from the corporate sector, academia, sports, media and civil society will be present on the occasion