Number of missing children in Delhi continues to rise
Updated
The number of missing children continues to rise in New Delhi. In 2008, an average of 17 children disappeared every day in the Indian capital. Many of these children are never found; others go missing for several years. Local police are now being urged to do more to rein the spiralling numbers. It's still unclear why the children go missing but social activists believe they could be part of a human trafficking racket.
Presenter: Murali Krishnan
Speakers: Manish Kumar Singh, Indian daily wage laborer; Sheotaj Singh, spokesperson, Bonded Labour Liberation Front; Jayanthi Kumari, Indian domestic helper
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KRISHNAN: For the last two years Manish Kumar Singh, a daily wage labourer tries to make it a point to come to the rail track next to his shanty in east Delhi. It was here that his son Rahul, just 10 years old, mysteriously disappeared.
SINGH: My son has been missing for the last two years. His name is Rahul. I have done everything, complained to the police but they have done nothing. But I still hope that I will find my son one day. That hope is still there.
KRISHNAN: On an average 17 children went missing each day of 2008 in the capital says a report by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan or Save the Children Campaign submitted by the government appointed rights body to the Delhi High Court. It also pointed out that the police had failed to act.
The report says that traffickers are selling children in India for amounts that are often lower than the cost of animals and most of them end working as laborers or commercial sex workers.
Late last year the Delhi High Court pulled up the city police for its failure to check the growing number of missing children from the capital and sought a response on the steps taken by it to deal with alarming situation. The police however claimed that in the majority of the cases children ran away from homes for various reasons including elopement and they cannot be said to be in the category of missing.
Sheotaj Singh of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front who has been campaigning against child labour and the disappearance of children for over two decades say the government has been indifferent to the problem that continues.
SINGH: This number is less because there are more children that are missing. They are so many children that are trafficked to some other countries in some way or the other and this is the most flourishing industry in the world today. There are so many children in Delhi who are missing for many years and this racket is still going on. The government is apathetic towards this and even the police is unable to control this menace at present.
KRISHNAN: According to the National Crime Records Bureau, over 34,000 children have gone missing in Delhi in the last 20 years. And in the last three years alone over 6500 children in Delhi have been declared untraceable by the crime branch's missing persons squad.
The sad fact is that most of the missing are from Delhi's poorer communities. That means their parents have no access to power or influence. Many of them do not know if their children were lost, stolen, sold or murdered. And authorities often treat their complaints with indifference.
Unlike Manish Kumar Singh, domestic help Jayanthi Kumari was fortunate and managed to find her 12-year-old son after a frantic two-month search.
(Street Sounds)
"My son went missing for two months. I did not know what had happened. You do not know where all I went looking for him. I went to the courts but nothing happened and everyday my hope of finding him kept dipping. But one find day I could not believe it. I found him weeping and now I have him back."
Two years back the abduction and killing of at least 19 children caused a national outcry and forced the authorities to arrest two persons. The rampant child disappearances has become a matter of serious concern and unless something is done urgently, India's capital will earn the dubious reputation of becoming a safe haven for traffickers and abusers of children.
