Missing Children, Child Trafficking and the Law – The Challenges Therein

The number of children that has gone missing between 2013 & 2015 has increased by 84% with one child going missing in the country every eight minutes and that 3.25 lac children have gone missing in between 2011-14. A US report... [ view full abstract ]

The number of children that has gone missing between 2013 & 2015 has increased by 84% with one child going missing in the country every eight minutes and that 3.25 lac children have gone missing in between 2011-14. A US report on human trafficking states that India is one of the world’s main hubs for child sex trafficking. It would seem that child trafficking is on the rise. In 2010, almost one in every three missing children was untraced. But in 2013 one in two missing kids was lost forever. The official agencies are limited in their ability to estimate the extent of child trafficking, and their estimates fall far short of those by researchers and activists.

The statistics, however, tell only part of the story. Activists say the number of registered cases is far lower than the actual incidence of such crimes in the country. They say that policemen across India refuse to register First Information Reports for poor missing children as it affects their station’s performance evaluations – and that they have to look for the child.

Lack of proper government policies, absence of a mechanism to monitor these illegal activities besides apathy from the people who employ this helpless lot as domestic workers cannot escape scrutiny. The problem of trafficking of children has reached such a fearful proportion that even the Supreme Court of India has stepped in and have asked the government to deal with the matter urgently.

This paper is an attempt to highlight the issue of apathy of the society and government at large towards missing children in India and suggest the measures to address the legal framework for tackling this borderless organised crime.