PIONEER NEWS SERVICE | Derhadun
Among the many who practice law, Bhuwan Ribhu wields it to uproot injustice. He was recently honoured by the World Jurist Association for his efforts to build a just world for children.
In 2005, as a young lawyer, Ribhu challenged India’s silent acceptance of child labour in the Delhi High Court. That landmark petition set off legal reforms criminalising child labour. Since then, he has led over 60 PILs, pushing the judiciary toward speed, accountability, and child-centric justice.
His vision of a child marriage-free India reframed the issue for what it truly is—child rape disguised as tradition. His strategy, featured in his bestselling book When Children Have Children, echoed in a landmark judgment by the Supreme Court of India on child marriage in October last year. This vision soon catalysed into an unprecedented movement, with the Government of India launching the Bal Vivah Mukt Bharat campaign in 2024.
By early 2025, this vision had gone global—mobilising millions of people across 30 countries toward a child marriage-free world. At the heart of this revolution is Just Rights for Children (JRC), the network Ribhu founded. Active in India, Nepal, Kenya and the USA, JRC claims to have, in two years, rescued over 85,000 trafficked children, prevented more than 3,00,000 child marriages and supported thousands of survivors of sexual exploitation. Ribhu’s legal victories include the Supreme Court’s definition of trafficking, reforms to the Juvenile Justice Act, and the 2024 judgment that legally introduced CSEAM (Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material).
The Medal of Honour stands as a recognition not just of individual achievement, but of a powerful legal movement transforming the lives of children across the globe
