Oslo:
On Wednesday, India's Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai addressed the gathering at the Nobel Peace Prize function in Oslo, Norway.
Here are the highlights of Kailash Satyarthi's speech:- I am deeply honoured to recite a mantra from the ancient texts.
- This mantra carries a prayer, an aspiration and a resolve that has the potential to liberate humanity from all man-made crises.
- I bow to my parents, my motherland and to mother earth.
- With a warm heart I recall how thousands of times, I have been liberated, each time I have freed a child from slavery. In the first smile of freedom on their beautiful faces, I see the Gods smiling.
- I give the biggest credit of this honour to my movement's Kaalu Kumar, Dhoom Das and Adarsh Kishore from India and Iqbal Masih from Pakistan who made the supreme sacrifice for protecting the freedom and dignity of children.
- I humbly accept this award on behalf of all such martyrs, my fellow activists across the world and my countrymen.
- I am here to share the dreams and voices of our children.
- I represent the sound of silence and the cry of innocence.
- There is no greater violence than to deny the dreams of children.
- The single aim of my life is that every child is: free to be a child, free to grow and develop, free to eat, sleep, see daylight, free to laugh and cry, free to play, free to learn, free to go to school, and above all, free to dream.
- Shackles of slavery not stronger than the quest for freedom.
- Undoubtedly, progress has been made in the last couple of decades. The number of out of school children has been halved. Child mortality and malnutrition has been reduced, and millions of child deaths have been prevented.
- There is one serious disconnect in this world. It is the lack of compassion. Let us inculcate and transform the individuals' compassion into a global movement. Let us globalise compassion.
- Governments must make child-friendly policies. Businesses must be more innovative. Inter governmental agencies must work together to exercise action.
- We must stand with our children. We must be bold and ambitious.
- 50 years ago, on the first day of my school, I met a cobbler boy sitting at the school gate, polishing shoes. I asked my teachers these questions: "Why is he working outside? My teachers had no answer.
- One day, I gathered the courage to ask the boys' father. He said: "Sir, I have never thought about it. We are just born to work." This made me angry. It still makes me angry. I challenged it then, and I am challenging it today.
- I see thousands of Mahatma Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings. I call for democratisation of knowledge. I call for a march from slavery to liberty.
- Let us march from darkness to light. Let us march.