New York , sep 22. Former child labourer and now a social activist, Kinsu Kumar from Jaipur in Rajasthan appeals to world leaders at United Nations that “elimination of child labour and exploitation of children will only be possible by educating children to provide them with better and more opportunities”.
Nobel
Peace Laureate LeymahGbowee, Former Swedish Prime Minister Stephen Lofven and Human
Rights activist Kerry Kennedy were also present at the “Laureates and Leaders
for Children” Summit.
Kinsu
Kumar worked as a child labourer in a motor garage in Mirzapur in Uttar
Pradesh, when he was only 6-years old. He was forced to drop out of school as
his family could not afford his education and had to contribute to his family’s
income by working as a child labourer. His life reached a turning point when
his father came in contact with BachpanBachaoAndolan founded by Nobel Peace
Laureate Kailash Satyarthi during the organisation’s Education March in 2001.
After
his rescue, Kinsu was brought to the Bal Ashram Trust, where he received
non-formal education and then was enrolled in the nearby school in class 4. Bal
Ashram Trust, located at Virat Nagar near Jaipur, is an innovative and
transformative solution that addresses deep-rooted and complex societal
problems to ensure child protection and create a child-friendly world. It was
founded by Kailash Satyarthi in 1998 as a long term rehabilitation centre for
children rescued from child labour, child slavery and child trafficking. The
Trust has positively impacted 174, 724 lives till date.
After
completing his higher education, he joined the Bal Ashram Trust as a program
officer. Throughout his journey, Kinsu’s passion to protect child rights and
the will power to stop child labour has never waned, making him a global
ambassador for the rights of children. In this role, he has traveled all over
the world, including the United States where he testified in an congressional
hearing and the European Union where he spoke at a high level panel on
education in the presence President of World Bank and Former Prime Minister of
UK Gordon Brown and other global leaders. He has also participated in The Hague
Global Child Labor Conference as a Representative of the more than 60 million
children who are forced to work as child labourers to benefit their employers.
It
is noteworthy that the recent appeal by Kailash Satyarthi for a nationwide
campaign against child marriage will give a huge boost to our collective
resolve to fight against the social evil and enable children like Kinsu Kumar
not fall victims to various forms of child exploitation like child labour and
child marriage.