Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi calls for global effort against people smuggling

“If a single child is sold, the dignity of entire human civilization is sold,” Nobel Peace Prize winner and child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi says.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 29 May 2015, 05:45 PM
Updated : 29 May 2015, 07:16 PM

He was speaking about the stranded ‘boat people’ in the Indian Ocean on Friday.

He met the press soon after his arrival in Dhaka, his first visit after winning the last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Replying to a question, he said to him every child mattered.

Satyarthi suggested global efforts, and quality education with entrepreneurial skills to change this decades-old business of human trafficking and people smuggling.

He said lots of people were involved in this business who earned $150 billion illicitly per year.

“It’s a huge problem, he added.

Bangladesh is a ‘home’ to him as he has been coming here regularly since 1980, when he began his movement to end child labour and exploitation, quitting lucrative career as an electrical engineer.

Last year, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai for his fight for every child’s rights to be educated and not to work in childhood.

The Campaign for Popular Education invited him for a right to education conference on Sunday.

Satyarthi has been a member of a high level group formed by UNESCO on ‘Education for All’ comprising select presidents, prime ministers and heads of UN agencies.

He will also attend a right to food programme on Saturday with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and deliver a lecture at the Dhaka University.

He said it was “a shame” that millions of children were trapped into various forms of child labour and denied education.

He believed that only a four and a half day’s military expenditure worldwide could bring millions of children, deprived of education, into schools with an additional $22 billion funding per year.

From ‘boat people’ in the Indian Ocean to forced beggary, the Nobel laureate replied to a wide range of questions put forth by journalists at the press briefing.

The Indian child rights advocate asserted that quality education could bring change to everything from cutting poverty to eliminating fundamentalism.

He also applauded Bangladesh for achieving gender parity, despite being an LDC.

‘It’s a scourge’

Satyarthi is known for his three decades of work against child trafficking and child labour, and for child education in India.

He is also the architect of one of the largest civil society movements ‘Global March Against Child Labor’, which is a worldwide coalition of NGOs, teachers' unions and trade unions.

His press briefing at Dhaka coincided with the Bangkok meeting on migration crisis in this region.
 
Many people were found on boat in Indian Ocean starving and dying while trying to cross the border for better fortune.

Many of them were children.

Satyarthi said it had been a problem for long. “Lots of people benefit out of it (people smuggling).

“A person earned about $150 illicitly through human trafficking that has never been happened in the past”.

He said education should give emphasis on entrepreneurial skills and future employability.

He also advised that development policy must be focused on the poorest of the poor.
 
Social education was also equally important as many people instead of trying hard in their own countries start dreaming about other countries watching television and movies.

“And then they try to go to those countries illegally instead of getting visa”.

He said if agricultural workers and other labourers were ensured minimum wages under the law, then there would be less chance of them leaving the country.

“This is not migration, this is human trafficking and this is a scourge,” he described the current situation.

Education key to eradicate poverty

The Nobel laureate suggested introducing incentives for poor children to keep them in schools. 
 
“That can be done through cash transfer, mid-day meals and scholarships.”

At the same time, he said, community and parents must be sensitised. “They must understand the values of education against child labour and beggary”.

“We can’t eradicate poverty of the parents or intergenerational poverty without good quality education,” Satyarthi said.
 
He cited studies that say one single year of primary schooling of a child helps to increase 10 percent to 15 percent of his earnings when he becomes older.

Twenty to 25 percent additional income comes because of a year of schooling at secondary schools.

“If we want to get rid of personal poverty situation, we have to ensure education for our children,” he said.

‘Education is the best defence’

Satyarthi is also known for his advocacy to divert a percentage of defence budgets for education.

He said in the name of defence “we create offence in most of the cases”.

“Why are we spending on guns... why are we spending on bombs, when we are not able to provide books and toys to our children?

“Our children are threatened with guns and bombs, what kind of world we are creating for our children?” the activist asked.

He said he found in some places the number of soldiers were four to five times the number of teachers.

“Education is the best defence,” he said, asking the defence ministry of every country to earmark some budget for the education.

“Quality education is the biggest safeguard; it’ll help you to get rid of terrorism, fundamentalism, and many evils prevailing in the society.”

The Indian activist said he had been asking this to American political set-up again and again. 
 
“I heard recently the (US) defence administration has started funding schools in Afghanistan. It comes from the defence budget”.

“We have to define our priority. It’s a collective responsibility of global community. No single country alone can be blamed.”

He said terrorist groups had understood the power of education and that’s why they were targeting schools and children in many parts of the world.

“They (terrorist groups) have realised that good quality education can open their (children’s) mind and they are not going to be trapped into their designs to become fundamentalists and terrorists and that’s why they are destroying schools and attacking children.”

He advised giving children “values of global citizenships”.

The world would have to listen to the children and youths, he said, “if we cannot give them the value of global citizenships, they will be impatient, intolerant, and violent”.

He said the biggest challenge was to ensure education that imparted values of global citizenship.

“We must ensure scientific and rational education, so that they (children of a country) can compete with the rest of the world,” he said.

Many things to applaud in Bangladesh

Executive director of the Campaign for Population Education Rasheda K Choudhury, who knows Satyarthi for long, introduced him as a “friend” of Bangladesh. 
 
“He has a special feeling for Bangladesh”.

Satyarthi applauded Bangladesh for achieving gender parity goals in education, despite being a Least Developed Country.

Most of the LDCs could not achieve it, he said.

He also appreciated Bangladesh’s reduction of extreme poverty and infant mortality rate. 
 
It was possible, according to him, due “to a good collaboration and cooperation” between government and civil society agencies.

Still, he said, challenges remained as Bangladesh government’s official figure shows 4.7 million children are still working.

“Domestic child labour is still an issue and trafficking is going on. There are many things to applaud and praise, but at the same time challenges must be accepted.”

“Bangladesh society has tremendous power to solve its challenges,” the Nobel laureate said.

He also called upon the international community to cooperate and support Bangladesh for its good endeavours.
 
Satyarthi will leave Dhaka on Monday morning after completing his engagements that also include meeting with Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, and customary meeting with Nobel Peace Laureate Mohammad Yunus.