How We Began
		Strategies
		Milestones
		Our Partners

Milestones

Rescue and Rehabilitation

• Freed over 76,000 bonded/child labourers from different industries (carpet, stone quarry, brick kiln, construction, agricultural, bidi, glass & bangles, domestic child labour etc.) through secret raids and with the help of judicial intervention in the last 26 years.
• Rehabilitated over 15,000 child/bonded labourers through transit rehabilitation programmes run by BBA, others and through different government schemes since its inception.
• Running 3 transit rehabilitation centres named Mukti Ashram, Bal Ashram and Girls’ Collective for vocational training, social education and leadership building.
• Running 18 non-formal education centres for freed child labourers. Educated over 20,000 former child labourers through these schools.

• Emerged as a network of over 750 NGOs, trade unions and human rights organisations in South Asia.
• Created the world’s single largest coalition on child servitude as Global March Against Child Labour with over 12,000 partners (NGOs, trade unions and human rights bodies) spreading over 144 countries across the world.

• To sensitise and mobilise social action, Global March, in association with over 12000 organisations, accomplished the 80,000 k.m. march against child labour in three different directions across Asia, Africa and Latin America. The GMACL is the brainchild of Mr. Kailash Satyarthi, Chairperson, BBA, and is therefore headquartered in New Delhi, India.
• Over 7.2 million people in 100 countries joined the March supported by eminent personalities, to name a few, Pope John Paul II, United Nations Secretary General Mr. Kofi Annan, USA President Mr. Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair, French President Mr. Jacques Chirac and many others that paved the way for the adoption of ILO Convention 182 to combat worst forms of child labour.
• 2000 k.m. South Asia March (India to Nepal) helped in sharing and converging the common issues and interests of both the countries related to child servitude like cross- country trafficking, sale of children in south Asian region.
• 5000 k.m. India March (Kanya Kumari to Delhi) helped to raise the issue of child labour and putting it in the Indian parliamentary agenda.
• 2000 k.m. Bihar to Delhi March highlighted the issue of the plight of children and child slavery in carpet industries in India over the world and generated enormous media attention, consumer, social and political concern.

• The social labelling on Rugs/Carpets (Rugmark Foundation founded by Global March) has been an innovative initiative of BBA in early nineties, which started with a Carpet Consumers Campaign in Germany, and later on in Europe and USA. This was the first consumer campaign on the issue of child labour in the world to link Rugmark consumers’ sensibility and purchasing power for a positive and constructive solution. Instead of calling for boycott, BBA has educated and advised the consumers and gave a product in concrete form that is Rugmark. It is a labelling certificate given on the child labour free carpets after being thoroughly monitored by the independent professional field monitors. It is calculated that in the last few years, over two million carpets with Rugmark label have been sold in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Germany. Also, Rugmark has a program of Rehabilitation of the carpet children implemented through BBA.
• Encouraged by the success of Rugmark initiative, BBA has launched a similar campaign in sporting goods industry with the help of Foul Ball Campaign in USA and in association with International Labour Rights Fund, Washington (Global March is one of its Board Members). In India, BBA had launched a similar campaign called Fair Play in sporting goods industry with the support of Christian Aid, London.
• In addition to this, BBA has initiated the Campaign against child labour in hosiery and knitwear industries in Thiruppur, South India.
• BBA has also been the leader in the campaign against domestic child labour. One of our earliest interventions led to an amendment in the service rules of central government employees. We are now lobbying for a full fledged law on the issue of domestic child labourers.

Bal Mitra Gram (Child Friendly Villages)

• BBA activities are also aimed at tackling the twin problems of child labour and illiteracy through the promotion and implementation of a unique programme model known as the Child Friendly Village or Bal Mitra Gram (BMG). The concept of BMG is an approach developed by BBA in 2001. The concept revolves around the total elimination of child labour and enrolment of all children into schools in target villages, through community participation and empowerment of children and the local people. Children of the villages then elect their representatives into the Bal Panchayat (Children’s Parliament), which in turn is represented in the Village Panchayat (Village Governing Body). The children take up development issues for the common benefit of the village at the village panchayat meetings and jointly find solutions to their problems. The broad guiding principles behind this concept are parental persuasion, community participation, teachers’ motivation, children’s empowerment and the involvement of village Panchayats.

• Besides this, BBA initiated Campaign for Free, Primary, Compulsory and Meaningful Education for all the children below the age group of 14, and joined hands with All India Federation of Teachers Union, Trade Unions and Human Rights bodies, which resulted in the 93rd constitutional amendment in India, making education a fundamental right. Moreover, Mr. Kailash Satyarthi (Chairperson of BBA and Global March) is the chairperson of the recently launched Global Campaign for Education in association with Oxfam International, Education International, Global March Against Child Labour and Action Aid. GCE is basically focussing on advocacy and lobbying with the Governments all over the world to fulfil their promises made in Jomtien, Thailand during World Summit on Education in 1990 to provide ‘education to all’. As the result of GCE pressure UNESCO agreed to establish a high level group on Education composed of Head of the Nations and Governments, Heads of the UN agencies including UNICEF, World Bank, UNDP and UNESCO as well as heads of some International Civil Society organisation. Mr. Satyarthi has been invited as a key note speaker and a member of this High Level Group.
• Advocacy for elimination of child labour and ensuring quality education for all children, through consumer actions, through political intervention and lobbying, and through other indirect actions of mass mobilization, such as the use of mass, electronic and print media, campaigns, awareness generation activities, lobbying, marches, demonstrations and organization of seminars, workshops, press briefs, policy briefs etc.
• Advocacy and Lobbying at national and international levels for synergy in policies of governments and international bodies in line with the Dakar Framework on ‘Education for all’ goals and the Millennium Development Goals and the Conventions of ILO (138 and 182) on child labour.
• Dissemination of thematic research results, and mobilization of public opinion through various strategies of campaigning especially among women and target groups.
• Spearheading campaigns for free, compulsory and meaningful education, sensitization of parents, communities and school children, coalition building with Trade Unions, Teachers’ Organizations, Religious Groups, Political Parties and Employers.

• BBA organised an extensive political advocacy and lobbying campaign in 6 states just before the parliamentary elections in May 2004, to sensitise the potential parliamentarians/ state legislators on the issue of education and to receive a commitment from them to include this issue in their election mandate. Our efforts at various levels lead to the newly elected government promising an increase in the budget allocation for education to at least 6% of the GDP and the introduction of a cess on all central taxes to finance the commitment to universalise access to quality basic education, and the setting up of a National Commission on education.
• Parliamentarian Forum on Education: With 168 members of Parliament on Board, the parliamentarian Forum has been instrumental in bringing issues of education to the decision makers of the country. All across the party lines, the MPS have been motivated by BBA to come together on a common mission of realising education for all children. BBA regularly meets with its members to bring important agenda onto the floor. The Parliamentary Forum on Education in India, paved the way for the 93rd constitutional amendment on education in both the Houses of Indian Parliament, and would further play a vital role in effecting pro-education, anti-child labour polices at the central level and also to mobilise legislators at state levels.
• State Legislators Forum: Legislative Forums are being formed at state levels with the members of state governments and local stakeholders, to build and maintain pressure in each state to have full implementation of the right to education.
• Peoples Vigilance Committee at District and State Levels: Peoples' Vigilance Committee is an earnest civil society's endeavour to put people's vigilant eye over the functioning of education system with an objective to ensure optimal utilisation of economic and non-economic resources in the best interest of the public.