NCL congratulates Satyarthi on Nobel Peace Prize – National Consumers League
October 10, 2014
Contact: Ben Klein, National Consumers League, benk@nclnet.org, (202) 835-3323
Washington, DC – The National Consumers League (NCL) congratulates Kailash Satyarthi, a great friend and 1995 recipient of the NCL Trumpeter Award, for today’s announcement that he has received the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. Satyarthi is the world’s leading champion in the fight to end global child labor and is credited with freeing tens of thousands of children from child labor in India.
Satyarthi shares the honor with Malala Yousafzai, the youngest ever Nobel Prize recipient at 17 years old, a Pakistani teenager who bravely fought threats on her life and endured a gunshot wound to the head in her quest for access to education for girls across the Middle East.
Since NCL’s founding in 1899, the League has worked to end the scourge of child labor both domestically and abroad. Twenty-five years ago NCL founded—and has since co-chaired—the Child Labor Coalition (CLC), a group of 34 advocacy organizations dedicated to reducing the number of children trapped working in factories, mines, and agriculture around the globe. The CLC has worked closely with Satyarthi for the last two decades; in 2012, the CLC assisted him with the planning of an international child labor in agriculture conference that helped highlight the predominant child labor sector.
The following statement can be attributed to Sally Greenberg, executive director of NCL and co-chair of the CLC:
“Today, the world’s leading champion in the fight to end child labor was rightfully recognized by the international community. Today, 168 million children continue to toil in the worst of conditions: as domestic workers at very young ages, in artisanal mines, picking trash in dumps, carrying bricks, and diving for fish in dangerous waters. Because of the work of Kailash and others, the number of child laborers has decreased by 70 million over the last decade. Still, far too many children’s lives are cut short under the yoke of these oppressive conditions. This Nobel Prize recognition will focus the world’s attention once again on the scourge of child labor. Advocates like Kailash Satyarthi, who has committed his life to ensuring that children have access to education and a safe and healthy childhood, have helped raise awareness and helped to pull millions of children out of child labor and given these children new opportunity and hope.”
Satyarthi’s organization, Bachpan Bachao Andolan or Save the Childhood Movement, is attributed with rescuing 83,000 children from servitude in India since 1981.
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About the National Consumers League
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.
