Kailash Satyarthi

“Today, in every wave of every ocean, I see our children playing and dancing. Today, in every plant, tree, and mountain, I see our children growing in freedom.”

“Learning from the experiences of our ancestors, let us together create knowledge for all that benefits all.”

“Poverty must not be used as an excuse to continue child labor and exploitation of children …\xa0It’s a triangular relationship between child labor, poverty and illiteracy, and I have been trying to fight all of these things together.”

“Caste, religion, the political system, the economic system — all are helping the bonded labor owners … I believe in Gandhi’s philosophy of the last man, that is, the bonded laborer is the last man in Indian society, that we are here to liberate the last man.”

“We are going to organise End Child Slavery Week from 19th November to 25th November, and that would be an annual event which we would be organising every year on different aspects of child slavery, and this year we are demanding to the international community that the abolition of child slavery must be incorporated into the post-millennium development goal or the sustainable development goal. So that would be the emphasis of this year's End Child Slavery Week.”

“I hope that youngsters and civil society organizations and every Indian will feel proud. It is a noble cause to work for the rights of children. It is a movement against child labour and everyone must join it.”

“We work with broken families and broken people who've lost hope and are helpless. If people oppose my work, launch personal attacks, we know that we are on the right path. One colleague was shot, another was beaten to death. I've injuries all over my body. We work against a social evil. If this evil isn't reacting it means we aren't a threat.”

“It was a passion from my childhood to work for children, I carried it forward. I have been very strongly advocating that poverty must not be used as an excuse to continue child labour. It perpetuates poverty. If children are deprived of education, they remain poor.”

“If they cry for their parents, they are beaten severely, sometimes hanged upside down from trees and even branded or burned with cigarettes.”

“I think of it all as a test. This is a moral examination that one has to pass... to stand up against such social evils.”

“The power of youth is the common wealth for the entire world. The faces of young people are the faces of our past, our present and our future. No segment in the society can match with the power, idealism, enthusiasm and courage of the young people.”

“Every child matters. If we fail our children, we are bound to fail our present, our future, faith, cultures, and civilisations as well.”

“Learning from the experiences of our ancestors, let us together create knowledge for all that benefits all.”

“Every child matters. If we fail our children, we are bound to fail our present, our future, faith, cultures, and civilisations as well.”

“I am positive that I would see the end of child labour around the world in my lifetime, as the poorest of the poor have realised that education is a tool that can empower them.”

“I refuse to accept that the shackles of slavery can ever be stronger than the quest for freedom.”