CHENNAI: Only about 50 per cent of the missing children from Chennai were able to be traced in Chennai between 2017 to 2019, reveals data by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
In a reply to a Lok Sabha question, data issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs said that out of the 737 children aged between 5 and 14 years who went missing between 2017 and 2019, only 367 were traced back, which is 49.7 per cent.
In 2017, a total of 190 kids had gone missing in Chennai and 124 were traced, followed by 239 missing children in 2018 and 102 were traced. In 2019, a total of 308 had gone missing and 141 were traced.
In comparison, out of the 10,506 kids who went missing in Delhi, 5784 were traced (55 per cent), followed by Kolkata where 739 children went missing during the same period and 398 were traced (53 per cent) and
in Mumbai, during the same period, 993 kids went missing and in that 819 (82 per cent) were traced.
Child’s rights activists stress the need to trace these children in areas where bonded labour, child trafficking and interrogate the brokers and mediators who are associated with such crimes.
“The missing children generally are vulnerable to sexual exploitation, bonded and child labour,” says Child’s rights activist Sesha Rathnam. She says that the children may be exploited due to a lack of proper
empowerment, education and poverty.
“There won’t be proper guidance from the parents too due to migration of the parents and severe unemployment. Some of the children may also be from single parents,” she said, pointing out that it is vital to search for these kids in places where brokers and mediators of organised trafficking and crime are involved.
Similarly, another data revealed by the Labour Ministry stated that 10,773 children were rescued from child labour in Tamil Nadu under the National Child Labour Project since 2017. Activists say that most of
the children stuck in bonded labour are tribals.
“Ninety per cent of the children who are caught in bonded labour are tribals. The families themselves hand over their children to a landlord for daily coolie work in exchange for a meagre sum of Rs 5000,” says M Thamilarasan of State Tribals Association.
He said that since the families suffer due to abject unemployment and poverty, they are pushed with no other means. “Most of these children work in rice mills. Only if NGOs and activists find out about their
whereabouts and flag it, the revenue officials inspect and rescue the children,” says Thamilarasan.
In Tamil Nadu, near Chennai, child bonded labourers are very prominently employed in Redhills, Puzhal, Thiruthani, Pallipattu, he adds. "The missing children would be employed as bonded labourers too," he adds.