By Jaison Wilson
New Delhi, Nov 14 (UNI) Politicians belonging to all parties must support the passing of the anti-trafficking bill stuck in the Rajya Sabha, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi said on Children's day Wedenesday.
"There are two things I urge in this Children's day, one is if a politician from any party wants to celebrate Children's Day in a true sense, he or she should take pain to pass the anti-trafficking bill in Rajya Sabha as children are most affected by trafficking," the child activist told UNI in an interview.
"The second thing is to take steps to stop the domestic work by childrens in various places," Satyarthi said.
The Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018, was passed in the Lok Sabha in July and he says that it should be passed in the Rajya Sabha as well.
Satyarthi said that stopping child labour, though difficult, is not impossible.
According to him, child labour was prevalent in most of the European countries in the last 100 years. But when these countries gave priorities to children, especially through education, child labour became invisible.
A similar trend could be discerned in India too.
According to government data, child labour declined to 4.3 million from 12.3 million in the last 10 years.
In June 2017, India ratified two fundamental ILO Conventions on Child Labour concerning the elimination of child labour. Child labourers in India are 5.8 million as per the ILO data.
"The numbers may vary and the figures may be more, but the trend is very clear--child labour is declining," Satyarthi said.
The Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation (KSCF) recently joined hands with the Jharkhand government and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to eradicate child labour in mica mining in Jharkhand and Bihar.
He also talked about the documentary film on his life, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. The film will debut on YouTube in November 27.
The movie depicts how Satyarthi left a career as an Electrical Engineer and started the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement).
While talking about his experiences before and after getting the Nobel prize, he said "The visibility of the children's issues got more attention than my 35 years of work just after 35 minutes of Nobel price announcement."
"People started discussing these issues and the recognition was global. I was demanding to take children-related issues in the United Nations agenda of sustainable development for a long time before 2014 but nobody took it seriously. Now this is accepted globally."
UNI JW ADG 1622