Kailash Satyarthi, Malala Yousafzai to speak at Sharjah IIFMENA conference

Sharjah - The event, being conducted in collaboration with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), is being held in Sharjah on October 19 and 20.

Nobel Peace laureates Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai will be the keynote speakers at the second edition of 'Investing in the Future' (IIFMENA) conference in Sharjah. Satyarthi will be speaking at the conference's opening ceremony on October 19 (Wednesday). The renowned child right activist has been at the forefront of the global movement to end child slavery and exploitative child labour since three decades.
Also read: Malala Yousafzai to speak at Sharjah IIFMENA conference
Pakistani female education activist Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, will also be a key speaker at the conference in Sharjah.
The second IIFMENA conference titled: 'Building the Resilience of Women and Girls in the Arab Region' is being organised by The Big Heart Foundation (TBHF), a Sharjah-based international humanitarian body dedicated to aiding vulnerable people worldwide. The event, being conducted in collaboration with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), is being held in Sharjah on October 19 and 20.
Held under the patronage of His Highness Dr. Shaikh Sultan Bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah; and his wife, Her Highness Shaikha Jawaher Bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, Chairperson of TBHF and Chairperson of the NAMA Women Advancement Establishment (NAMA), the IIFMENA conference will provide a platform for engaging discussions highlighting the need to incorporate women and young girls into decision-making through economic empowerment, paying attention to their specific needs in education, skills-training and employment.
Mariam Al Hammadi, Director of Salam Ya Seghar - a TBHF initiative - said: "We are glad to have Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi among our distinguish speakers list. Satyarthi who is a veteran in the field of rights advocacy and education has personally rescued thousands of children from the clutches of child labour and slavery inspite several attacks on him. He has not only helped them re-establish trust in society but enabled them to get promising futures for themselves. Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has been a tireless advocate of Children's right for over three decades.
The grassroots movement founded by him, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), have liberated more than 85,000 children from exploitation and developed a successful model for their education and rehabilitation. As a worldwide campaigner, he has been the architect of the single largest civil society network for the most exploited children, the Global March Against Child Labour, which is a worldwide coalition of NGOs, Teachers' Union and Trade Unions active in 140 countries. Satyarthi's efforts led to the adoption of ILO Convention 182 on worst forms of child labour in 1999. He was also the Founding President of the Global Campaign for Education, a civil society movement working to end the global education crisis, and GoodWeave International, which was one of the first consumer awareness programmes and the earliest examples of modern corporate social responsibility.
Satyarthi's efforts to end child slavery, trafficking, forced labour and violence received international support when in September 2015, he succeeded in getting child protection and welfare-related clauses included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. To achieve his vision of a world free of violence against children - a child friendly world where all children are free, safe, healthy and enrolled in a quality school, he has founded the Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation. The foundation's mission is to help create, implement, and advocate child-friendly policies that ensure the holistic development and empowerment of children worldwide.
Kailash Satyarthi underlined that his participation at the IIFMENA Conference will help him highlight the issue of Trafficking and child slavery particularly focusing the young girls. He would also highlight on areas that ensure protection and education for them as he rightfully thinks that children who are not able to attend school will not acquire the necessary knowledge and skills needed by their communities to achieve development and progress. The two-day forum will bring together government officials, representatives of international and non-governmental organisations, advocates of gender equality, academics and a number of experts and media personalities from across the world.
The second edition of the IIFMENA conference will strive to further cement the grounds that are being laid for women to be recognised as equals and as agents of change for peace and economic prosperity. The conference aims to support all women, including refugees and displaced persons, by working to meet their needs and to ensure full rights and justice for them.  
All institutions, organisations and individuals interested in registering for the second 'Investing in the Future' conference should submit their applications via http://iifmena.org before mid-October.

• Sharjah