Kailash Satyarthi speaks during Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi
Kailash Satyarthi is internationally acclaimed child rights' activist and pioneer in the fight against child slavery. Winner of 2014 Nobel Peace Prize and renowned for inclusion of child labour to global social and political agenda, Mr Satyarthi spoke about building a child-friendly world during the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi today.
Here are the highlights:- For many years have been reading about this summit, didn't know I was going to speak one day
- We live in a world where millions of children are sold and bought like animals
- This sentence took me 15 seconds, and in that time one child has died somewhere due to malnutrition
- A nine-year old in Pakistan who was making footballs told me his dream was to hit a football one-day
- In Ivory Coast, boys and girls working on cocoa farms told me they'd never tasted chocolates
- If you can comfortably ignore these children, how can you shape the country?
- See the faces of invisibility, listen to the sounds of silence - for centuries, these children have been voiceless
- Respect childhood, notice the ignorance around you and respect it
- There is a child inside you - if you are truthful and honest, if you are helping others and caring - if you are true, it is because child is still alive inside you
- Childhood means simplicity - look at the world with the child's eye - it is very beautiful
- We the adults make it complicated - we make it violent. We're responsible for poverty and not the children
- Knowledge is power. You can't think of sustained economic growth in a country which has less than 40% of its population educated
- Every year of secondary schooling adds to 20-30% of additional earning - one single year of schooling for a farmer helps in 20% addition to his crop.
- One billion children living in a situation of violence and war
- We can't keep our eyes closed - we talk of terrorism and global warming... no problem in the world is isolated
- There is an inter-connectivity in problems and therefore inter-connectivity in the solutions
- How are we going to liberalise our minds and souls? With compassion
- India is the land of 100 problems but is the mother of one billion solutions
- We have to make a little more effort and we will find the solution to every problem... we're the land of Mahatma Gandhi
- Quotes Gandhi: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- I have great regard for the judiciary in this country- but I'm focusing more on collective responsibility
- You can't post policemen and labour inspectors in every nook and corner - I'm talking about social responsibility, social audit
- If people in this hall decide now to put an end to the scourge of child labour, it is achievable
- When I took the first step giving up a career as an electrical engineer, my mother was crying, my friends thought I was mad
- For me peace is a fundamental human right of every child, it is inevitable and divine
- Peace is not a diplomatic issue across the table. In India and Pakistan, eventually the people to people relationship - and if we prioritize education and rights of children - no one can stop us..
- Inequality is the mother of tension and violence
- Child labour, poverty, illiteracy unholy troika. Education, employability, entrepreneurship, equality, efficiency and ethics are the solution.