CHILD Protection & Rights > Protection
Issues
Missing Children
Every day, thousands of children are reported missing in India
. Most of them are never found. Many of the abductions end tragically
in rape, assault or death.
The cases of missing children are so heterogeneous that there
is no adequate data or consistently applied set of definitions
to describe them. In addition, many cases of missing children
are not reported to the police at all for various reasons, and
police involvement in the resolution of different kinds of cases
varies widely across the country.
In India no exact data is available, however,
according to figures compiled by the National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC) 45,000 children go missing in India every year out of
which 11,000 are untraced but we can estimate 1000's more to
these numbers . According to an article in an English daily quoted
on the website of the National
Center for Missing Children the number
of runaway children is 10, 00, 000 per annum; every 30 seconds
a child runs away from home. NGOs working in the field estimate
that only 10% of all cases are registered with the police, so
the actual numbers could be several times higher. If you add
the number of missing, lost and abducted children the number
of missing children is phenomenal.
Cases of missing children represent a conglomeration of different
social problems, including abductions/kidnappings by family members,
abductions/kidnappings carried out by non-family members or strangers,
children who run away on their own or are forced to run away
due to compelling circumstances in their families and extended
surroundings, children who face unfriendly and hostile environment
and are asked to leave home or who are abandoned, children who
are trafficked or smuggled or exploited for various purposes,
and children who are lost or injured.
Most missing children are said to remain untraced because the
police do not try, and their stories are not taken up in the
media. According to Kailash Satharay of the NGO Bachpan
Bachao Andolan (Link: http://www.bba.org.in/) ,
most missing children came from Dalit, tribal and poor Muslim
families, who do not have the means or visibility to pressure
the police and the media. Cases of child abuse or paedophilia
come clearly low down on the police's list of priorities. The
National Human Rights Commission's study on missing Children
shows that 80% of the police staff did not feel tracing a missing
child was a priority; 54% thought it was not even worth the effort.
The most effective means to find missing children are to react
quickly to inform the police, the media, different concerned
NGOs as well as even friends, relative to search for the child
and to create a mass awareness among the general public.
Some aspects to develop to make the search for children more
effective and quicker include the following ideas:
- The Directors General of Police of States should take appropriate
steps to issue police orders/circulars/standing instructions
etc., sensitize all officers in this regard and also make them
accountable.
- Every Police Station across the country should have Special
Squad/Missing Persons Desk to trace missing children. This Squad/Desk
should have a Registering Officer who should be made responsible
of registering complaints of missing children. He/she should
maintain complete records of efforts made by them to trace missing
children.
- The State Police Headquarters should evolve a system of mandatory
reporting whereby all incidents of missing children across the
country should be reported to the newly constituted National
Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) within 24 hours
of occurrence.
- Family, community, NGOs should be deeply involved in the search
for the child.
- Family and community should be more informed on how to react
when a child is missing.
- Government and non-government organisations should cooperate
and share experience to track missing children.
- It is also essential to inform children at school and even
in community about the risks they may face in they run away from
home and to develop poverty alleviation measures to prevent children
from living their family to find an earning.
3 main organizations in India may help in searching and restoring
missing children:
www.homelink.in is a web
site specifically dedicated to ensure the restoration of children
back 'home' and assist in tracing lost or missing children. The
missing child search network is open to all organizations that
serve the unaccompanied youngster and is part of the HomeLink
Network.
www.missingchildsearch.net is
a web site specifically dedicated to assist in tracing missing
children and that provides you with practical links and information
to find such children .
www.missingindiankids.com is
a web site specifically dedicated to assist in tracing missing
children and that provides you with practical links and information
to find such children.
Resources
Some organisations:
National Center for Missing Children: http://www.missingindiankids.com/
Missing Child Search: www.missingchildsearch.net
National Human Rights Commission: http://nhrc.nic.in/
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): www.unodc.org
Some publications:
- Indian Express article on Missing Children. February 2007: http://www.indianexpress.com/sunday/story/22488._.html
- Report on missing children by the National Human Rights Commission,
available online: http://nhrc.nic.in/
- Study
on missing children in West Bengal , Save the children, 2008:
- Childline Publication on "Missing Children" 2008:
http://childlineindia.org.in/pdf/Missing-Children.pdf
More links and publications are available on the respective
websites of the above organisations.
|
