Help end child abuse, big guns told

Hyderabad: Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi urged major industrialists to come up with innovative technological and business solutions for social problems. Technology must put an end to sexual abuse and child trafficking, he added while interacting with more than 150 industry leaders including organisations like CII, HYSEA, TiE Telangana Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Thursday.

Addressing the gathering, the Nobel laureate said though they knew how to run the business, doing business only for making profits was wrong. He said that the business community also has a social responsibility. He asked them to join in his fight against child abuse to prevent violence against children.

You are the change agents, he told the business captions, who were present in large numbers to listen to him. Kailash Satyarthi said that children were not safe anywhere and were facing threats everywhere. Children were not safe in their homes, in their neighbourhood and even in their schools, he lamented.

Anyone can turn into a predator, he added. He said that in the name of family honour and shame, the voices of victims were being supressed at every point, he said. Parents have no time for their children. Children have nobody at home to share their pain and misery. They were feelings suffocated from inside, he said. The Nobel laurate said that education was not a constitutional right in India in the beginning.

The Right to Education has been recognised as a human right in a number of international conventions. “We fought to make it a constitutional right. We took out a march across India for five-and-a-half months. As a result, the Right to Education (RTE) was enacted in August 2009 by amending the Constitution. This was possible because of the power of people”, he added. He said that he declared a war on rape, sexual abuse, trafficking and violence against children. “I am marching to end this moral epidemic that is destroying the spirit of our generation.

This march, the Bharath Yatra was started from Kanyakumari on September 11 and would culminate in New Delhi on October 15. But the war against the social evils would continue till we win”, he told the gathering. He said that he wanted one crore Indians to pledge their support for opposing violence in any form against children and the industrialists readily pledged to fight against any violence against children. Replying to a question whether the people of India have become immune to violence against children, Satyarthi replied that he didn’t think Indian citizens became immune, but only became passive.

Later, the Bharat Yatra rally was taken out from Moazzam Jahi market to Exhibition Grounds at Nampally in which NGOs, Amala Akkineni, Home Minister Nayani Narsimha Reddy, etc, took part.

He also visited the Telangana State Assembly building where he was received by Speaker S Madhusudhan Chary, Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari, Home Minister N Narsimha Reddy, Ministers T Harish Rao, K T Rama Rao, G Jagadish Reddy, MPs B Vinod Kumar, Konda Vishweshwar Reddy and other officials.