Dubai: Nobel Peace laureate Kailash Satyarthi will highlight the issue of trafficking and ending child slavery as he addresses the second edition of Investing in the Future (IIFMENA) conference in Sharjah as its keynote speaker.
The second IIFMENA conference titled Building the Resilience of Women and Girls in the Arab Region is being organised by The Big Heart Foundation (TBHF), a Sharjah-based international humanitarian body dedicated to aiding vulnerable people worldwide. The event, being conducted in collaboration with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), will be held on October 19-20.
The conference is held under the patronage of His Highness Dr Shaikh Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah; and his wife, Shaikha Jawaher Bint Mohammad Al Qasimi, Chairperson of TBHF and the NAMA Women Advancement Establishment (NAMA). It will provide a platform for engaging discussions highlighting the need to incorporate women and young girls in decision-making through economic empowerment, paying attention to their specific needs in education, skills training and employment.
Mariam Al Hammadi, director of Salam Ya Seghar — a TBHF initiative — expressed the foundation’s delight at having Satyarthi on their distinguished speakers list.
“Satyarthi, who is a veteran in the field of rights advocacy and education, has personally rescued thousands of children from the clutches of child labour and slavery inspite of several attacks on him. He has not only helped them re-establish trust in society but enabled them to build promising futures for themselves,” Al Hammadi said.
Satyarthi founded the grassroots movement, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), which has liberated more than 85,000 children from exploitation. The children’s right advocate for over three decades has been the architect of the single largest civil society network for the most exploited children, the Global March Against Child Labour, which is a worldwide coalition of NGOs, Teachers’ Unions and Trade Unions active in 140 countries.
Satyarthi’s efforts led to the adoption of ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labour in 1999. He was also the founding president of the Global Campaign for Education, a civil society movement working to end the global education crisis, among other programmes.
In September 2015, Satyarthi’s efforts to end child slavery, trafficking, forced labour and violence received international support when he succeeded in getting child protection and welfare-related clauses included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations.
