The Ministry of Woman and Child Development (WCD), which had launched the web-portal Khoya-Paya (lost and found) to track missing children earlier this year, is planning to step up its activity to trace country’s lost children.
Minister Maneka Gandhi, who with the Ministry of Railways, developed Special Operating Procedures (SOPs), which were to be implemented by railways to ensure care and protection of children lost or found on railway platforms has sought an action report on the programme. The programme was launched in November last year.
“Missing children are a cause of worry not only for the Government but also for the child protection institutions, society and mostly for the parents. These children are vulnerable to the mental and physical assault which leads to irreparable mental trauma for these children,” said an official from the Ministry.
“Most of the missing children are trafficked for labour, for sexual exploitation, abducted, or kidnapped, or due to crimes against children. They could be runaways from home, or simply be lost. The Government is trying to trace these children and repatriate them at the earliest,” he said.
The official said that the WCD Ministry is making all efforts to get the information related to these missing children from all possible sources, and enable quick information exchange to speedily to locate and rehabilitate the children.
Government’s own data shows that on an average, the country has been losing an average of one lakh children since 2011 every year. Even until April, this year, the data provided by National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), shows that 16,000 children missing.
Official admitted that this figure could be much higher as these are only those where police complaints have been registered.
The NCRB data shows that the country lost 90,654 children in 2011, the missing children figured at 65,000 in 2012, and years 2013 and 2014 reported 77,721 and 73,549 minors missing.