JAIPUR: A total of 1,555 cases of missing children were reported in Rajasthan between January-July 2020.
In 85% cases, missing children were girls. In absolute numbers 1,323 girls went missing in the first six months of 2020, revealed a status report by Child Rights and You (CRY) on situation of missing children during Covid-19 pandemic.
In its status report ‘Covid and Missing Childhood’, CRY has analysed data accessed from Rajasthan police and ministry of women and child development (MCWD). The survey was conducted for World Day Against Trafficking in Person which revealed that in Rajasthan on an average five children were reported missing per day between Jan-July 2020, out of which four were girls. Rajasthan was among the five northern states from which CRY drew the inferences including Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.
Both primary and secondary data were used in the status report to analyse the status of missing children during Covid-19. Secondary data were accessed through the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) Annual Report ‘Crime in India’ (2015-2019) to understand the trends of previous years.
Explaining the relevance of the status report, Soha Moitra, regional director, CRY (North), said, “Children who go missing are often an easy target of human trafficking and the current situation of pandemic has only made it worse. Implications of pandemic in terms of loss of life and livelihood, rise in school dropouts, child marriages, children orphaned due to Covid related death of parents/guardians has added to the vulnerability of children of being trafficked. The data acquired from Rajasthan police and MWCD suggests extremely concerning trends related to missing children in the state.”
The report said that despite strict nationwide lockdown and increase police presence at borders as well as streets 316 children went missing in the state in the month of April and May out of them 91% (288 in absolute number) were girls. The situation only went worse after unlocking with the number of missing children cases rising to 359 in just one month.
The number of traced and found children was also less during the lockdown months in Rajasthan. Least number of children were traced/found in March, April and May of 2020. With 7 % of children found/traced in April, less than half of the number of children was found/traced in February, said the report.
The data acquired from MWCD gave an insight on age wise segregation of missing children cases in the state. Elaborating the age wise trend of missing children cases in Rajasthan Moitra said “The trend which raises concern is that the highest number of children who went missing were of age group 12-18 years. Out of total number of cases 73% children were of age 12-18 years. What’s more alarming is maximum missing children in this age group were girls (82%)”.
