SYNOPSIS : Bondage - Human Rights & Development
Programme
Speakers
Hon’ble Justice P C Pant, Member, National Human Rights Commission
Justice Prafulla Chandra Pant assumed office as Member of the National Human Rights Commission on the 22nd April, 2019. Prior to his appointment as Member, NHRC, he was Judge of Supreme Court of India from 13th August, 2014 to 29th August, 2017. Born in Pithoragarh Uttarakhand, Justice Pant graduated from Allahabad University with a degree of Bachelor of Science, and thereafter obtained a degree of L-L. B from Lucknow University. In 1973 Justice Pant enrolled with U.P. Bar Council and practiced Law in High Court of Judicature at Allahabad. Justice Pant served as Inspector, Central Excise and Customs (Feb 1976 – Nov 1976) at Sagaur, M.P. Justice Pant has also served as the first Secretary, Law and Justice of Uttarakhand. He has written books on different subjects of law, few of which include: Marriage, Divorce and other matrimonial disputes, Commentary on Code of Civil Procedure and Relief of Injunctions. Also he has revised more than fifteen books on various subjects of Law.
Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi
Mr. Kailash Satyarthi is internationally acclaimed child rights activist who has been a tireless advocate of children’s rights for four decades now. His interventions are spread across over 140 countries in the world in an endeavor to protect children from slavery, trafficking, forced labour, sexual abuse and all forms of violence. He has been instrumental in bringing the issues of children in the global and national development agendas besides leading worldwide movements against child exploitation and upholding the rights of children for peace, safety, health, wellbeing and education. His unrelenting efforts for restoring the rights of the most marginalized and exploited children in the world won him the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 2014.
Dr. Lakshmidhar Mishra IAS (Retd.)
Dr. Lakshmidhar Mishra joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1964. He holds a doctorate in educational planning from Inter- Cultural Open University, Amsterdam. He held important positions in the Government of Odisha (1964-78 and 1994-95) and Central Government (1979-2000), during which time was also appointed by the Supreme Court as Socio-Legal Investigating Commissioner into bonded labour. In 2000, he took voluntary retirement to join ILO as Senior Advisor. A prolific writer, he has twenty books and about 350 articles to his credit, as well as seven prestigious awards, including the Mother Teresa International Award for outstanding contribution to promotion of human rights.
Mr. Samir Mathur, CEO, Bachpan Bachao Andolan
Shri Samir Mathur is currently the CEO of Bachpan Bachao Andolan and is an IAS from 1980 Batch. He was a former Home Secretary and Additional Chief Secretary, Haryana. In his tenure he sensitized the Police and Prosecution Department personnel to the POSCO Act, gender issues, rights of SC/ST remained high on his agenda even as action was taken to modernize the Police force for effectively delivering protection and justice to citizens. He was instrumental in operationalizing the State Human Rights Commission and the Police Complaints Authority.
Mr. Rakesh Senger, Executive Director, Programme, KSCF
Mr. Rakesh Senger, Executive Director, Programmes, has over 25 years of experience in child rights movement, with an expertise in advocacy, communication, lobbying, networking, fund raising and direct action to release child bonded labourers.
Currently he is involved in strategising and implementing the Bal Mitra Mandal programme in urban slum communities to make these communities child friendly. He is also involved in strategic interventions related to raid and rescue programmes at Bachpan Bachao Andolan, and campaigns and communication at KSCF.
Mr. Senger is also an expert trainer in the issues of child labour, child trafficking and child rights and has conducted numerous trainings workshops for various stakeholders including member of police department, judiciary, law enforcement agencies and others.
Moderator- Ms. Jyoti Mathur, Director, KSCF
Ms. Jyoti Mathur has been associated with the development sector for over the last 27-years. She has worked with the Central Government, national and international organizations like UNICEF, Aga Khan Foundation, World Bank and Dorabji Tata Trusts among others.
Ms. Mathur has assisted the Ministry of Women and Child Development in developing key laws and policies for the protection of children in the country such as the National Policy for Children, POCSO Act and the JJ Act. She has documented the Third and Fourth Periodic Report on UNCRC and also represented the Government of India for its review before a UN Committee in Geneva. She holds an MPhil in Economics from Delhi University and has taught undergraduates for two years at the varsity.
Vitasta Publications
Vitasta Publishing, a Delhi-based independent publishing house, marked its 16 years in the publishing industry this year with a bevy of brave books. Known for bringing into the public domain sacrosanct subjects, and questioning foregone conclusions, deep buried ideologies, and flawed belief systems, Vitasta has all these growing years tried very hard to give the term ‘independent publisher’ a meaning. Some of the well-known books that the House has produced include Brahmacharya, Gandhi and His Women Associates by Girja Kumar, No country for Women by Taslima Nasreen, India’s Biggest Coverup by Anuj Dhar, Who killed your Prime Minister by Anuj Dhar, Denied by Allah by Noor Zaheer, Sardar Patel Unifier of Modern India by RNP Singh, Indian Constitution Conflicts and Controversies by Subhash KAshyap, K File Conspiracy of Silence by Bashir Assad, Narendra Modi the Gamechanger by Sudesh Verma and Missing Children of India by Bachpan Bachao Andolan.
Dr. P M Nair, IPS (Retd), Former Director-General, National Disaster Response Force & Civil Defence, Govt. of India
Dr. P M Nair, IPS (Retd), is the former Director-General, National Disaster Response Force & Civil Defence, Govt. of India, New Delhi, Dr. Nair has handled several crimes including Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, International Arms Drop at Purulia, Sanjay Ghose abduction etc.. Dr. Nair served the National Human Rights Commission as its Nodal Officer, Anti-Human Trafficking. As Project Coordinator, Anti-Human Trafficking, with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), New Delhi, Dr. Nair carried out training of more than 11,000 police officials and prosecutors across India and set up nine Anti-Human Trafficking Units.
Mr. Fowzul Insaf Nizam, Specialist on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, ILO, India
Insaf Nizam is a committed development and humanitarian professional with extensive experience in Human Rights at Work, Emergency, Crisis, Fragile, Post-Conflict and Development programming. His experience cuts across a number of social development areas such as child labour, forced labour, discrimination, child protection, education, legal and policy development, Emergency humanitarian relief and Mine Action. He holds a Master’s Degree in Development Studies and Public Policy and a First Degree in Sociology and a professional diploma in Governance. He started his career in Education and moved on to work in conflict and post conflict programmes joining an international NGO in 1999. He then joined UNICEF in 2003 and worked in Sri Lanka, Sudan, Libya and Syria and then moved to ILO and worked in Jordan leading ILO’s Child Labour programme in the country. In September 2016 he was appointed as Senior Technical Officer for crisis and fragile situations at ILO’s
Headquarters in Geneva. And in September 2018 he took up the position of Specialist on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work for the South Asia Region.
Mr. Sanjay Macwan, Regional Vice President, International Justice Mission
Mr. Sanjay Macwan serves as the Vice President of Partnerships for International Justice Mission (IJM) in South Asia. In India, IJM has been operating for nearly 20 years, in over 15 states, to combat bonded labour and sex trafficking of minors. So far, IJM has supported government officials in rescuing more than 20,000 victims of human trafficking in India. In the recent past, two cases of bonded labour trafficking, where IJM was assisting the prosecution, have resulted in life sentences and a 10 years’ imprisonment respectively.
Sanjay being entrepreneurial and visionary, in the current role is overseeing scaling and replicating solutions in response to both bonded labour and sex trafficking of minors in South Asia.
Mr. Amarlal, Survivor Leader
Amar Lal, aged 23, comes from the Banjara community, a nomadic tribe in India. He worked as a child labourer in a stone quarry at the age of 5, breaking stones and incurring injuries in the process quite often. When he was 6 years old, he was rescued by Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi and was rehabilitated at the Bal Ashram, the long-term children’s rehabilitation centre, where he received informal education and went on to complete school and study law.
He is a child rights advocate and has been representing India on the importance of children’s rights and protection by emphasising the importance of education on national and international foras. Today he takes pride in fighting for the human rights of child labourers in his capacity as a freshly enrolled lawyer.
Ms. Sampurna Behura, Director, Bachpan Bachao Andolan
Ms. Sampurna Behura, is the Director of Bachpan Bachao Andolan and a long time human rights activist and legal expert. She holds a Doctorate degree from Central University, Hyderabad and have over 24 years of experience in handling legal cases involving violation of rights of children, women, tribals, dalits and transgenders. Have filed many PIL’s in Supreme Court and various High Court and one of the landmark PIL is of Sampurna Behura vs Union of India WP (Civil) 473 of 2005, which has changed the course of legal liberty for children in India and has brought many changes in the discourse of child rights. She has also handled more than 500 cases in relation to children & women, have assisted the Apex Court in some matters and also been a part of drafting of laws& policies pertaining to children, trafficking, transgender, tribal , dalits, environmental issues and women rights. She have had held various training programs on the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act, POCSO, trafficking and other child & women related laws at the CBI, National Police Academy, among others, State Judicial Academies and been a guest faculty for National Law School, Bangalore, Christ Law College, etc.
Ms. Niharika Chopra, Director, Policy, KSCF
Niharika Chopra (Director- Policy Research) joined the organisation in 2015. She has completed her Masters in Childhood and Youth Studies from the University of Sussex, UK and was awarded the Cathy Irwin Prize for the thesis on the Vulnerability of the Girl Child to Rape in India: A Socio-Cultural Study. She was born in Lucknow, completed her graduation in Philosophy (Hons.) from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, and is a trained Bharatnatyam dancer.
Mr. Bidhan Chandra Singh, Executive Director, Campaign, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation(KSCF)
Bidhan Chandra Singh, Executive Director of Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, has over 20 years of experience in the social and environment sector. He has experience in designing campaigns and strategic action in the area of climate change, child protection, Animal Rights, and Human Rights. He is currently heading the Campaigns Team, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation. His current work involved guiding Campaigns and Communication teams focused on local, national and global action for bringing sustainable changes in child protection. He is also one of the core team members of 100 Million for 100 Million Global Campaign.
Mr. Bidhan Chandra Singh, Executive Director, Campaign, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation(KSCF)
Bidhan Chandra Singh, Executive Director of Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, has over 20 years of experience in the social and environment sector. He has experience in designing campaigns and strategic action in the area of climate change, child protection, Animal Rights, and Human Rights. He is currently heading the Campaigns Team, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation. His current work involved guiding Campaigns and Communication teams focused on local, national and global action for bringing sustainable changes in child protection. He is also one of the core team members of 100 Million for 100 Million Global Campaign.