Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s message to PM Modi

Urging the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prioritize children, Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has made an appeal. He wants to make sure that children are not trafficked, forced into marriage or put into labour in the wake of India recovering from its worst drought in decades.

Satyarthi wrote a letter to the PM urging him to declare the drought as a national emergency. He said that more than 160 million lives of children were at stake. He wrote in the letter that there are many reports of children being forced into child labour, trafficking, child marriage, and the devadasi which dedicates girls to service in temples. He wrote that many children are dropping out of school because of large scale migration due to the crisis.

The letter from Satyarthi circulated to the media on Tuesday. The letter explained that because of the drought and the current water crisis, more and more children are becoming vulnerable by the day. According to him, in the coming months, there will be more (lakhs) of children who will be victims of this crisis.

With the ongoing crisis, the government has estimated that more than 330 million people would be affected. That is almost one fourth of the population of the country facing a scarcity of water. The states which are hit the most are Maharashtra in the west and Karnataka in the south.

Due to the lack of water, there are thousands of people who are migrating from their homes just for the sake of water and food. Many men are leaving women and children behind to find jobs somewhere else. This is making many children vulnerable to exploitation by traffickers.

Satyarthi’s office has released figures which show that there was a 22 percent increase in children dropping out of school in the drought affected states. There was also an increase in child trafficking cases by 24 percent.

Image Credit: Wilson Dias/Agência Brasil /CC BY 3.0 BR, via Wikimedia Commons

Source: http://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/internacional/foto/2016-02/entrevista-com-o-premio-nobel-da-paz-kailash-satyarthi

Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kailash_Satyarthi_no_Brasil_02.jpg