Girls account for 83pc of over 10,600 kids reported missing in MP in 2021: CRY

Of the 10,648 children reported missing in Madhya Pradesh in 2021, 83 per cent were girls. The number of missing girls at 8,876 is five times more than that of boys (1,772), showing vulnerability of girls, and raising a question on their safety.

On an average, 29 children went missing each day in MP during the year.

This shocking situation has been revealed in the 10th edition of the status report on missing children by Child Rights and You (CRY), which obtained data of missing children in MP, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi through right of information (RTI).

The report was released on occasion of the International Missing Children’s Day (May 25).

The RTI data of 2021 for Madhya Pradesh, when compared to 2020 data of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), shows a 26 per cent increase in the number of missing children within a year. In 2020, the NCRB reported 8,751 cases of missing children.

Indore and Bhopal reported the highest numbers of missing children, at 872 and 584 respectively in 2021, of which 698 and 405 respectively were girls. Surprisingly, the tribal district of Dhar reported the third highest number of missing children at 480, of which as many as 451 (94 per cent) were girls.

“It is a matter of grave concern that the trend of girls constituting a significantly high proportion of missing children is persistent and growing for the last five years at all-India level, including MP,” said Soha Moitra, regional director of CRY.

Analysis of NCRB data suggests that the proportion of girls in total missing children has increased from about 65 per cent in 2016 to 77 per cent in 2020 at the all-India level. This has been the trend across all the four states analysed, with Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan accounting for the highest proportion missing girls, Moitra said.

“The phenomenon of missing girls constituting the larger portion of missing children could have been driven by increased demand for domestic helps, commercial sex work, and girls themselves running away due to domestic violence, abuse and neglect. Number of missing boys is also of a grave concern as demand for child labour has increased due to the shortage of cheap labour in the unorganised sector during the pandemic,” Moitra said.

She said the challenges multiplied during the Covid-19 pandemic as mandatory use of face masks made it difficult to identify the traffickers and kidnappers. Besides, the police personnel were given additional responsibilities during this period, such as the implementation of lockdown, impacting investigation of other cases related to children.

“In more than a decade of CRY’s work on missing children, it has been observed that though proactive measures were taken by different departments and authorities, there were several constraints due to which the situation has remained more or less the same. The need of the hour is to strengthen the village level child protection committees (VLCPCs) to ensure a robust mechanism of vigilance at the ground level. At the same time, adequate resources should be allocated to strengthen the anti-human trafficking units (AHTUs) and make sure they work in tandem with all concerned stakeholders,” Moitra emphasised.

Apart from NCRB data (2016-2020), CRY used RTIs with the ministry of women and child development (MWCD), ministry of home affairs and state police department of the respective states to gather data for its status report.

Situation in other states

*A total of 2,998 children were reported missing—385 boys and 2163 girls—in 2021 in Uttar Pradesh (data of 58 districts out of 75). Among these, 88.9 per cent children were of age group 12-18 years.

*Five children went missing per day in Delhi in 2021 in the eight districts (out of 11) for which data was available. During the year, 1641 kids went missing in eight districts of Delhi. Eighty-five per cent of the children reported missing in Delhi were within 12-18 years

*In Rajasthan a total of 5,354 children went missing of which 4,468 were girls and 886 were boys. On an average, 14 children including 12 girls and two boys went missing per day from Rajasthan.

Top 5 districts in terms of missing children in Madhya Pradesh