Sarguja girls sold in Ujjain spotlight MP’s missing-girl crisis

The revelation that two girls from Sarguja (Chhattisgarh), were trafficked and sold in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, for Rs 2.50 lakh each has once again thrown a harsh spotlight on the State’s long-unresolved crisis of missing girls.

While the case itself is under investigation, it has revived urgent questions about the scale of disappearances in Madhya Pradesh and the vulnerabilities that allow traffickers to operate with impunity.

According to official data presented in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly earlier this year, the State currently has more than 23,000 women and girls still untraced — a staggering figure that includes 21,175 women and 1,954 girls missing for over a year. Human-rights groups say these numbers place Madhya Pradesh among the worst-affected States in India when it comes to missing females and trafficking-linked disappearances.

A 2022 national report by Child Rights and You (CRY) underscored the scale of the crisis, finding that 32 children went missing every single day in Madhya Pradesh — the majority of them girls. Experts warn that although not all missing cases end in trafficking, the overlap between the two categories is disturbingly high.

“The Sarguja-Ujjain case is deeply alarming but not surprising,” said a senior CRY representative who works closely on trafficking prevention. “When tens of thousands of women and girls remain untraced for years, it is clear that Madhya Pradesh is facing a structural crisis. Traffickers exploit poverty, migration and weak monitoring systems and they do so repeatedly.”

Activists also point to the vulnerabilities of tribal and marginalised communities, where missing cases often go unreported or are not investigated with urgency.

Within the police department, there is growing acknowledgement that existing systems have failed to keep pace with the problem. A senior Madhya Pradesh police officer, speaking off the record, admitted: “Follow-up in missing-girl cases remains inconsistent across districts. Tracking mechanisms need strengthening. Without a coordinated, State-wide response, traffickers continue to find gaps.”

The Sarguja incident has triggered renewed calls for a dedicated anti-trafficking task force in Madhya Pradesh, mandatory inter-State coordination for missing-child inquiries and real-time monitoring of high-risk districts. NGOs are also urging the State to prioritise rehabilitation and compensation for survivors rescued from trafficking networks.

As the investigation into the Ujjain case progresses, the larger picture it exposes is difficult to ignore: behind every statistic is a life interrupted — or lost. The numbers, the patterns and the testimonies point to a crisis far deeper than a single incident.

For Madhya Pradesh, the challenge is not only to bring the perpetrators of this latest case to justice, but also to confront a long-standing reality that thousands of its missing girls remain unaccounted for and each absence is a reminder of a system that has failed to protect its most vulnerable.

2 girls from Chhattisgarh were trafficked to Ujjain, exposing Madhya Pradesh’s crisis of over 23,000 missing women and girls