Mukherjee to open global campaign for child rights

President Pranab Mukherjee will host a summit of Nobel laureates and global leaders here on December 10-11 in support of a campaign for child rights, it was announced on Thursday.

Titled "100 Million for 100 Million", the campaign aims to mobilise 100 million youths and children to work for 100 million underprivileged children across the world, the Rashtrapati Bhavan said.

Mukherjee will host the "Laureates and Leaders" summit to deliberate on ways build a strong moral platform for protecting children from violence.

The event is being organised by the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation.

Child rights activist Satyarthi will be one of the five Nobel Prize winners at the summit.

The others are Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, former Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta, Leymah Gbowee (Liberia) and Tawakkol Karman (Yemen).

The Nobel prize winning organisations attending the event are the International Labour Organisation (ILO), ICRC, Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, MSF or Doctors Without Borders and Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet.

The other VIPs who will be coming are Princess Charlene of Monaco, Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, Princess Laurentien of The Netherlands, former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, former Togo Prime Minister Gilbert Houngbo, The Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs as well as Angel Gurria, Secretary-General, OECD.

A Town Hall meeting will be organized on December 11 when the Nobel Laureates and others will interact with an audience of child and youth leaders, government and business leaders and civil society groups.

A total of 4.52 lakh cases of human trafficking and forced labour were registered in India between 2008 and 2012, according to information provided by the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation.

India is said to be home to some 4.3 million child labourers.

--IANS

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