Sabo’s Liberation and the Birth of a Movement

Today is a day etched not just in the annals of justice, but in the very core of my being.

Exactly forty-four years ago, on the 22nd of March, 1981, the shackles of abuse and slavery were broken for a young girl named Sabo and thirty-five others.

Just weeks before, there was a knock on my door, frail yet filled with a father’s desperate hope. It was Wasal Khan, a man worn down by seventeen years of bonded labour in a brick kiln in Sirhind, Punjab. His eyes, mirroring the dust and despair of his existence, held a plea that no one could ignore. His fifteen-year-old daughter, Sabo, born into this very servitude, was on the brink of being sold to a brothel.

At that time, my weapon was a pen, my platform a humble bi-monthly magazine, ‘Sangharsh Jaari Rahega’ – ‘The Fight Will Go On.’ Through its pages, I sought to amplify the silent cries of vulnerable children and marginalised communities.

Wasal Khan, in his desperation, had reached out to me, hoping against hope that his daughter’s plight might find resonance and perhaps, a solution.

The question that pierced my soul then continues to resonate within me even now: what if Sabo were my own daughter? Would I have remained confined to the role of a writer, merely documenting the injustice?

Or would I have been compelled to act, to move heaven and earth to secure her freedom? The answer, then as it is now, was unequivocally clear.

With a few determined friends, I embarked on a journey of over 300 kilometres from Delhi to that very brick kiln. Our initial attempt was met with brutal resistance. Wasal Khan was recaptured, and we were brutally beaten, returning empty-handed but not defeated.

The injustice we witnessed fuelled our resolve, leading us to the doors of the Delhi High Court.

And then, on that momentous day, the 22nd of March, 1981, freedom prevailed. Sabo, along with thirty-five others – children, women, and men – was finally liberated from the clutches of slavery.

This court order was not just a legal victory; it was the first documented instance where the collective efforts of ordinary citizens brought freedom to a group held in bondage.

Sabo’s freedom ignited a spark, a new kind of freedom movement in India and beyond – a movement demanding the liberation of every child from the indignity of slavery and forced labour.

That single incident became the very purpose of my life. This spark of compassion gave birth to numerous initiatives and organisations, including Bachpan Bachao Andolan, the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude, the Global March Against Child Labour, the Global Campaign for Education, GoodWeave, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, and Satyarthi Movement for Global Compassion, among others.

Countless independent organisations and millions of dedicated activists, researchers, scholars, and government employees have joined this ongoing mission to eradicate child exploitation.

Over the decades, Constitutional provisions have been established, laws enacted, and policies and schemes launched worldwide to prevent and eradicate the employment of children.

The most significant among these is perhaps the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, the only universally ratified convention in the history of the ILO.

The global community has also made a solemn promise to end all forms of child labour by 2025 through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Undoubtedly, significant strides have been made. Awareness has grown, and social, corporate, and legal actions have led to a decline in child labour in many parts of the world.

Yet, our journey is far from over. Today, an estimated 160 million children, nearly one in ten, are still engaged in child labour, with almost half trapped in hazardous work. It is a moral outrage that in Africa alone, 80,000 children are forced into the workforce every single week, while simultaneously, a new billionaire is born somewhere in the world.

Our world is not so poor that it cannot take away the tools and guns from the tiny hands of children and replace them with books and pencils.

What is urgently needed is a renewed sense of moral responsibility and unwavering accountability for those millions who may not have the opportunity to knock on our doors, as Wasal Khan did forty-four years ago.

But even now, I can still hear that desperate knock, the silent cry of a broken spirit. I still feel the weight of responsibility for each of those 160 million children, as if they were my own.

And as I write these words, I extend an invitation to you: can you feel the same?

I am often asked, “Kailash ji, what has been your greatest contribution in life?” My answer remains, “My most humble bit has been to make visible and to give a voice to those children who have remained nameless, faceless, and voiceless for centuries.”

My struggle, our struggle, continues.

Let us, on this anniversary of Sabo’s liberation, rededicate ourselves to ensuring that no child is left behind, that every child knows the true meaning of freedom.