New Delhi: More than 47,000 children are missing in India, according to the latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), with 71.4 per cent of these being minor girls.
NCRB figures for the five years up to 2022 also show a mostly rising trend in the figures of missing children — a spike of 7.5 per cent in 2022 in comparison to 2021, a significant surge of 30.8 per cent in 2021 against 2020, a drop of 19.8 per cent in 2020 against 2019 and again an increase of 8.9 per cent in 2019 against 2018 and of 5.6 per cent in 2018 against 2017.
State authorities have also found or traced many missing children, but the gap in the figures continues to remain unbridged.
The NCRB’s annual report ‘Crime in India’ for the year 2022 was released 3 December. The data shows that 83,350 children (20,380 male, 62,946 female and 24 transgender) were reported missing last year.
Further, a total of 80,561 children (20,254 male, 60,281 female and 26 transgender) were recovered or traced.
Going by the standard procedure for missing children, upon receipt of information about a missing minor, the police, after a preliminary probe and verification, are bound to register an FIR under Indian Penal Code Section 363 (kidnapping).
The data for 2022 also shows that 76,069 children were reported kidnapped during the year, of which 62,099 were females. Up to 51,100 minors are listed under ‘Unrecovered Victims of Kidnapping & Abduction’ category, including figures from previous years, of which 40,219 or 78.7 per cent are minor girls.
For cases of missing children that are registered under sections of kidnapping, the NCRB puts the data under the category “missing children deemed kidnapped”. This is apart from FIRs lodged under sections of kidnapping right after such a complaint is received.
In 2022, 33,650 missing children were deemed kidnapped. In 2021, the figure under this category was 29,364, in 2020 it was 22,222, in 2019 it was 29,243; and in 2018 it was 24,429.
Speaking to ThePrint, former Delhi Police Commissioner S.N. Shrivastava, who had announced the grant of additional incentives including out-of-turn promotion for police personnel who traced 50 or more missing children below the age of 14 years, said: “The problem of missing children needs more attention. These children could end up on the streets and get influenced by criminals and become part of their nexus. In other instances, they are also sold off, forced into prostitution and other illicit activities.”
“Tracing missing children should be done on priority and it can help if police personnel working on such cases are promised benefits and other incentives for their work,” he added.
Rishi Kant, a social activist working with Shakti Vahini, an NGO that works against child trafficking, child marriage and the sexual abuse of minors, termed the data on missing children as “stark” and flagged “shoddy investigations” in the first 24 hours for the high number of such cases.
“It is important to understand that it is the first 24 hours that can help trace a missing child. After 24 hours, the chances of finding the child in a healthy mental and physical state are bleak,” Kant said.
“Police officers handling these cases have to start by finding out with whom the child has left, if the child was talking to anyone in the neighbourhood, if anyone new had been trying to befriend the child, and this has to be done immediately after a missing report is filed. The number of missing minor girls is always higher than that of minor boys. These minor girls are often trafficked into prostitution and then there is a new racket, of massage parlours.”
“There are other rackets as well in which these children are trapped — begging, child labour, etc. If from the start itself, the police start investigating all angles and motives, including trafficking, the probe is expedited and the chances of the child being found are better”.
Data, however, paints a faint picture of trafficking of minors, with only 424 such cases lodged in 2022, according to the NCRB. Further, just 11, 10 of whom were girls, were recorded to have been sold for prostitution all over India.
Where states stand
A look at the NCRB data for these five years reveals that West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh top the charts with the greatest numbers of children missing. The number of missing girls is also much higher than that of missing boys.
Data for 2022 showed that West Bengal had the highest number of missing children — 12,455 (1,884 boys and 10,571 girls). Madhya Pradesh followed, with 11,352 children (2,286 boys and 9,066 girls).
In 2021, Madhya Pradesh reported 11,607 children (2,200 boys and 9,407 girls) as missing, followed by West Bengal with 9,996 children (1,518 boys and 8,478 girls).
In 2020, Madhya Pradesh topped the list with 8,751 missing children, including 7,230 girls. West Bengal followed with 7,648 missing children (1,008 boys and 6,640 girls).
In 2019, Madhya Pradesh again topped the list, with 11,022 children missing, including 8,572 girls. For West Bengal, the NCRB said that it had to use 2018 figures as the state didn’t provide the data for 2019.
In 2018, Madhya Pradesh was at the top with 10,038 children missing, including 7,574 girls.
Still untraced
According to data for 2022, West Bengal reported finding the highest number of missing children at 12,546. However, the state still has the highest number of unrecovered or untraced children at 6,994. Madhya Pradesh follows with 11,161 children found, and 3,926 children untraced.
In terms of the number of missing children, Bihar trails behind West Bengal with 6,781, followed by Delhi with 6,040 such children. These figures are cumulative, taking into account those reported missing in previous years and still untraced.
As many as 47,313 children are still missing in India, including 33,798 girls, which is 71.4 per cent of the total number of children missing, according to the NCRB report for 2022. The figure includes numbers for previous years.
In cases of kidnapping, apart from Section 363, various other sections are added according to the investigation, such as missing deemed as kidnapped, other kidnapping & abduction, kidnapping and abduction for the purpose of begging, kidnapping and abduction in order to murder, kidnapping for ransom, kidnapping and abduction of minor girls to compel for marriage, and procuration of minor girls.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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