17 children go missing from Delhi every day: Study

The panel has found that a majority of missing children are migrants — mostly settled in the peripheral districts. The study showed that between 2014 and 2016, there was a rise in the number of girls who went missing.

On an average, at least 17 children go missing in the national capital every day and at least two of them remain untraced, revealed a report published by the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) Wednesday. The report was based on their study on Delhi Police data between 2008 and 2017. The report states 64,357 children went missing in these 10 years, of whom 9,383 remain untraced.

On an average, at least 17 children go missing from Delhi every day.(Prateek Choudhary/HT File Photo)

“The number of missing children has come down over the past three years. From 8,364 in 2015, the number has come down to 5,727 in 2017,” the report stated.

The panel has found that a majority of missing children are migrants — mostly settled in the peripheral districts. The study showed that between 2014 and 2016, there was a rise in the number of girls who went missing. The trend, however, saw an exception in 2017.

On analysing the trend of the 20 police stations recording highest number of missing children cases between 2014 and 2017, the panel found that most vulnerable police station areas were those in the border districts such as Narela , Shahbad Dairy, Jaitpur, Vijay Vihar, Khajuri Khas, Dabri, Uttam Nagar and Mehrauli.

According to DCP (outer) Seju P Kuruvilla, “Such cases are found mostly in areas with inter-state borders. The socio-economic conditions of these areas are different in comparison to other central areas in the city. There is a large concentration of families where both parents are working such as daily-wage labourers who have migrated from other states, while there is nobody to look after the children. The reasons for children going missing vary for different age-groups while there are cases of elopement and high aspirations for those aged between 14 to 17 years. There have been some cases of younger children leaving home for being scolded by a parent or at school. ”

The report prepared by the DCPCR that includes the findings, court orders, guidelines and SOPs to be followed by different stakeholders including the police, district magistrates, child rights panels and child welfare committees (CWCs), among others was released at the Delhi Secretariat.

Vijay Kumar Dev, Delhi chief secretary, said, “A multi-pronged strategy is required for more effective handling and preventing such cases. All agencies have to step up vigilance and coordinate better,”

“The panel has taken several steps to increase interaction between the stakeholders such as appointing Bal Suraksha Mitra in all the vulnerable police stations and holding sessions of parents and children along with police officials. Civic bodies could help by enrolling more children in schools who are found on streets,” said Samrah Mirza, member, DCPCR.

DCPCR chairperson Ramesh Negi said the compendium will help investigation officers (IO) in probing and follow up on such cases for effective handling.