Bachpan Bachao Andolan was founded by Kailash Satyarthi in 1980 as a mass movement to create a child friendly society where all children are free from exclusion and exploitation and receive free education. The movement has engaged itself in identifying, liberating, rehabilitating and educating children in servitude through direct intervention, community participation, partnerships and coalitions, promoting ethics in trade, unionizing workers, running campaigns on issues such as education, trafficking, forced labour, ethical trade, and by building child friendly villages.

 

Mr. Kailash Satyarthi is renowned for inclusion of child exploitation to global socio-political agenda. In 1998 he conceived and led one of the largest civil society movements Global March against Child Labour traversing across 103 countries covering 80,000 km with a demand for an International Law on Worst Forms of Child Labour. This eventually led to the adoption of ILO Convention No. 182 on worst forms of child labour which was formally acclaimed in 1999 and went on to become the fastest ratified convention in the history of ILO.

 

Mr. Satyarthi founded the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude for the elimination of child labour and provide the rescued children with education and rehabilitation services. Policy advocacy for upholding the rights of the child with the help of member partners in South Asia has been the most important facet of the organisation.

 

Satyarthi formed the Global Campaign for Education, and was made the organisation’s president on its inception in 1999. Global Campaign for Education is an international coalition of non-governmental organizations, working to promote children's and adult education through research and advocacy. It was formed in 1999 as a partnership between NGOs that were separately active in the area, including ActionAid, Oxfam, Education International, Global March Against Child Labour and national organizations in Bangladesh, Brazil and South Africa.

 

Satyarthi established GoodWeave International (formerly known as Rugmark) a network of non-profit organizations dedicated to ending illegal child labour in the rug making industry which provided the first voluntary labelling, monitoring and certification system of rugs manufactured without the use of child labour in South Asia. This latter organisation operated a campaign in Europe and the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the intent of raising consumer awareness of the issues relating to the accountability of global corporations with regard to socially responsible consumerism and trade. Rugmark International re-branded the certification program and introduced the GoodWeave label in 2009. The organization was also re-branded to GoodWeave International. Today the international network comprises producing country offices in India, Nepal and Afghanistan; and consumer country programs in the US, UK, and Germany.

 

The Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, established in 2004 by Satyarthi to achieve a child friendly world, operates with an integrated approach to address the issues confronting the children globally. Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation (KSCF) envisions a world where every child is free, safe, healthy and educated. The Foundation under the aegis of its Founder & Chairperson, Kailash Satyarthi works globally to uphold the rights of all children and ending violence against them. The Foundation has been at the vanguard of policy advocacy interventions with law makers both in India as well as globally. These endeavours have resulted in several path breaking national and international laws against child sexual abuse, trafficking of children for forced labour and for promoting universal rights of children ensuring their freedom, safety, health and education. The Foundation also plays an active role in engaging with the law enforcement agencies and aids them with training, sensitization and capacity building for effective implementation of both national as well as international laws related to children. The foundation actively works towards building capacity of other stakeholders like corporates, grassroots organizations/ civil society to help them unleash their true potential for contributing towards a child friendly world. Recognising Youth as one of the major and most important prime-movers of positive social transformation in the world, the Foundation effectively engages with this cohort for further protecting the rights of all children. The foundation also serves as a global platform to recommend best practices towards implementation of child related laws, charting out policy/regulatory frameworks with the help of various State actors, conduct research providing evidence for further shaping up the policy landscape in the best interest of children and bridging the trust deficit between various stakeholders so that everybody contributes towards building a child friendly world.