Kailash Satyarthi — A Lonely Crusade in a country which scarcely cares for its children

2006 Nithari exploded on us. It is a village near Noida, where there were allegations of mass murder of children by a serial killer. Over some time, more than 40 victims were identified, and all were linked to one Moninder Singh and his house help Surinder Koli were accused of the crimes, and were convicted. Only for the prosecution to be overturned recently on account of lack of sufficient evidence.

While beastly acts hogged the headlines, what most missed was the backstory of the victims. All of them were from financially disadvantaged families. Their parents claimed that in the years preceding the discovery of the crimes, children were regularly disappearing from the Nithari village. When people approached the police to lodge complaints, they were dismissed — saying that the children had run away of their own volition. All these happened when the perpetrators were having a free run, with victims to surface later only as bones.

Nithari remains one of the many examples of how India treats its children, especially when they are from an underserved community.

So it was not a surprise that when 2014 Kailash Satyarthi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, most including me asked — Who is He? And I am sure, almost a decade after that many are still asking the same question.

Well, Kailash Satyarthi works on the eradication of child labor, trafficking, and slavery among the children of India. He and his team have had tremendous success working against giant odds — the Nobel Prize is an international testament to that. And that he has not been awarded any of the top civilian awards in India is another commentary on our inability to look at the ills that plague our society, and correct them.

Why do we have the menace of child labor? We don’t hear so much about it in the developed nations — why so? The 10.1 million estimates of ILO for children between 5–14 working as laborers should not give any comfort to us, but rather a national shame.

We need a solution, but for that, we need to understand that it is a nuanced issue. And it needs a comprehensive solution, only law and prosecution will not help.

The challenge begins with parents having more children, to have a significant number of them during their fertility years, so that even though some of the deaths are lost on account of infant mortality, still progeny is left to take the lineage forward.

Add to this the poverty, which makes rearing children a financial challenge. So if there is an opportunity where their basic needs are taken care of (food and shelter), and in odd cases an additional income, it becomes a lucrative option.

That is the supply side story, but what about demand?

Well, children are favored as laborers for many reasons — they can be controlled easily, they can’t organize, violence can be used by them, they have almost no social equity, and most importantly — they are not protected by any labor law. And some industries have a distinct advantage for their nimbleness — like carpet or fireworks.

The unholy meeting of the demand and supply of child labor makes a dangerous concoction, which is not easy to manage. But while the situation may look bleak to us, things are improving — albeit slowly.

The most important change is the reduction of poverty, increase in education, and better reach of the welfare state, which has brought down the fertility rate significantly. As a result, people are having fewer children, with a higher ability to provide for them, making fewer children available in the labor market.

On the demand side the consumers, especially the global ones, have become more conscious and started demanding more accountability from the suppliers on legal compliance and fair trade practices. There had been unrelated market evolution which has also affected, like the fall in demand for firecrackers.

But the most potent and visible driver had been the work done by the likes of Kailash Satyarthi. They have kept the violators on the tenterhooks, made the authorities responsive, tirelessly communicated to the global and local audience, and created an ecosystem to support the children when they are liberated from the clutches of evil.

The number who have gotten freedom through the interventions is still very small compared to the size of the problem, but I think we reached the critical mass in problem problem-solving trajectory and will see much better results very soon.

And pray that the like of Kailash Satyarthi continue to guide us.