Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, May 19: Many children living in the state seem to be vulnerable to the menace of trafficking, forced prostitution and kidnappings. Latest data from the home ministry suggests Orissa is home to 640 missing children in 2014.
Last year’s data also says that of the 640 missing kids, 70 per cent are girls, raising obvious questions on the safety of the girl child in the state. Experts from the state blame the authorities for their casual attitude towards checking the menace.
Tapas Padhi, founder of city-based NGO Mission Justice, said police inaction is to blame. “The lax attitude of the police department is a prime reason for the menace. More often than not, police desist from lodging FIRs in such cases which gives the criminals a free run. Timely intervention of the police department can go a long way towards checking such crimes and nipping them in the bud,” Padhi said.
Many of the missing kids are trafficked to states like Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, where they are forced into prostitution, Padhi said. It was also found in many cases that such abducted children were amputated by beggar-gangs and later pushed into the begging racket.
Like Padhi, many others from the city working for the welfare of children also raised concerns at the shoddy state of affairs. Benudhar Senapati, programme manager of city-based NGO Childline which works for child rights, said the menace can be tackled by better coordination among agencies. “The problem can be addressed to some extent by a coordinated effort by different departments like women and child development, education, labour, home and panchayati raj. In these departments, detailed data of children are available and if they go missing, ground-level workers are informed. But they do not take any action. To my belief, 80 per cent of the total missing children are in the age group of 6-14 years (school-going age),” Senapati said.
“The SC has directed that police officers have to mandatorily file FIRs and ensure speedy justice, but the scene at the ground-level begs to differ. Mostly orphans and poor kids are kidnapped and trafficked through an organised racket which trafficks kids in and outside the state,” said another child activist on condition of anonymity.
Police authorities however say they are doing the best they can to crack down on this menace. “We have five dedicated and integrated human trafficking units in Orissa that keep track of missing children. Moreover, the police department here passes on the information of missing kids to all the police stations in the state, crime branch and also to the crime records’ bureau. We try our best to track them,” Commissionerate Police PRO Manoj Samanta said.
When asked if the there are laxities when it comes to filing FIRs in such cases, he said, “After the SC order of filing mandatory FIRs in such cases, we are taking special attention to report all cases.”
Interestingly, the ministry of women and child development in 2009-10 after the infamous Nithari case implemented the Integrated Child Protection Scheme with a prime objective to track missing children. After the implementation of the scheme, a portal was launched to make an online repository of missing children.
The portal available at trackmissingchild.gov.in hosts data from all over India about some missing children at rehabilitation homes. It also has provisions of filing information online about missing children and also about spotting some of the missing children by some persons.
However, the performance of Orissa on the portal depicts a sorry state of affairs. The links related to review meetings, news and events and other crucial subjects are never filled by the state authorities. Many activists blame the laxity of authorities in tackling this grave issue.
