Who is to be held accountable for the missing children in Delhi?

Recently the National capital came under radar for human trafficking in the state and reports also suggested that Delhi is emerging as one of the hubs and transit points for trafficking. This becomes more worrying as reports now suggest that 18 children go missing everyday in the national capital.

And more worrying is the fact that these children who go missing are never found and in case they are found, they seems to have lost their connect with their own family and are often lost in their own world.

18 children go missing in Delhi every day

As per a Hindu report, "on an average, 18 children go missing in the Capital every day and four of them are never traced, the report by the Alliance for People's Rights found. A total of 6,494 children, 53 per cent of them girls, disappeared in Delhi from January 1 to December 31, 2013, the report said, citing Right to Information replies from the Delhi Police."

The report also says:

6,494 children went missing in Delhi in the year 2013.

3059 of these missing children were girls.

Of all the crimes reported in Delhi, 12.36 are crime against women.

And the children never return and if they do they have lost their childhood

Children who go missing are either found slogging at a circus or in fields and are found facing violence at the hands of employers who leave them reticent.

Rakesh Senger, activist of a New Delhi non-profit Bachpan Bachao Andolan (the save childhood campaign), says data collected by his organisation from individual districts across India for 2009-2010 indicates the tally of untraced children is nearer 40,000. Others suggest a range up to 50,000. "Many of these children come from poorer sections of the society, largely urban slums and poor village homes. They could be abducted or they could be runaways, lost, abandoned-but they often end up being targets of trafficking," Senger was quoted as saying in thenewindianexpress.

"They are pushed into forced labour at homes, roadside eateries, farms or absorbed into prostitution, the organ trade or begging rackets far away from their homes, where it's difficult to trace them." More than 15,000 children remain untraced in India's capital. They are mostly from slums called resettlement colonies. The missing are largely the children of migrant workers settled in these slums, Delhi Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat was quoted as saying in the daily.

Where do these children vanish?

The social activists and number crunchers say that the number of missing children is rising at an alarming rate due to the rising widespread network of trafficking in the capital and the neighbouring States. Those who go missing are either found in the nieghbouring states for illegal trades. They are also abducted for reasons like bonded labour, child marriage and prostitution in other states.

All this is done withing hours of abducting the kids and what is more shocking is that our police take nearly two days to register these cases till when these kids have reached those parts of the country which are untraceable.

The number of missing children has not reduced rather it keeps on rising with the passing time. It's high time that the Government intervenes and does something strict to control such incidents. The woman and child welfare ministry must, on a regular basis, take account of the pending cases and what steps the cops have taken to trace the missing kids. Also, there is a need to sensitise the police on such issues and the accountability for missing children is to be fixed so that they either don't go missing and if they do then are found too.