The Nobel Peace Prizes for 2014 and 2015 gave global recognition to two key ILO concerns: combating child labour, and promoting national social dialogue.
I refuse to accept that we together cannot end child labour in this generation."
– Kailash Satyarthi, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate at the World of Work Summit, International Labour Conference, 11 June 2015
A leading advocate for universal education and girls’ and boys’ participation in the campaign against child labour, Kailash Satyarthi, together with Malala Yousafzai, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for their “struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”.
The ILO has worked with Mr Satyarthi since the early 1990s – through the Child Workers in Asia Foundation and the pioneering child-friendly organization he founded, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), which contributed to the development of the ILO’s integrated area-based approach to fight child labour. The ILO then collaborated with Mr Satyarthi through the Global March against Child Labour, established with ILO support to advocate a new standard to combat child labour in its worst forms: after crossing 107 countries in the spring of 1999, the Global March reached Geneva, where the International Labour Conference unanimously adopted the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, (No.182). With 180 ratifications, it has swiftly become the most ratified ILO Convention.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a tribute to the courage, perseverance and principles of the UGTT, the UTICA, and their partners. I salute their commitment to human rights and democracy. The ILO is proud to be associated with them and their activities."
– ILO Director-General Guy Ryder
In 2015, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet – the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), the Tunisian Human Rights Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA), the Tunisian Human Rights League, (LTDH), and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers (ONAT) who facilitated the peaceful negotiation and agreement on a new Constitution, adopted in 2014.
This came about as the natural consequence of previous work by the ILO to support UGTT and UTICA to develop a social contract for Tunisia in 2012, in part through a Norwegian-financed ILO project on social dialogue. The social contract resulting from that work was signed on 14 January 2013, and marked a milestone in political progress in the country.
In 2014, with ILO assistance, the Ministry of Social Affairs of Tunisia also formulated a draft law establishing the primary functions and modalities of the National Labour Council
