MISSING CHILDREN OF INDIA

About the Book

The issue of missing and trafficked children in India is a highly complex area of criminal activity even involving organised trafficking gangs. Sadly, however, there is little understanding of this issue and little research work has been carried out.

For the first time in India, comprehensive information on missing children has been collected, analysed and reported by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA). This study has yielded an extremely alarming figure of 1,17,480 missing children from 392 districts of India (as data from other districts was not available), from January 2008 to January 2010. Out of this, 74,209 children were traced whereas 41,546 children remain untraced. BBA believes that this is only the tip of the iceberg as majority of cases of trafficking of children, including for forced labour, go unrecognised, unreported and uninvestigated.

The overall paradigm of this grievous issue includes various causes of children going missing for forced labour, commercial sexual exploitation, begging, organ trade, medical testing etc. Besides, abandonment, animosity, natural calamities, etc., also result in a child going missing. Nevertheless, a child missing is not considered in the legal system as a heinous crime resulting in large number of cases either not being registered or with little investigation and follow up. BBA has been working in the area of missing children and has come across dozens of cases of missing children requiring legal assistance.

The study focuses on the possible reasons that contribute to the lacklustre law enforcement response to the problem of missing children in the country in the form of gaps in policy, knowledge, resources, institutional capacity and commitment / political will.

Based on the gaps, the study recommends a highly skilled investigation and rapid response agency/task force on missing children, formation of National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and establishment of a centralized data bank. The study has also recommended development of a Standard Operating Procedure for investigation and proposed a definition of Missing Children and policy guidelines on trafficking and missing children.