A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed multiple usage of social media at Facebook headquarters in the USA, a group of citizens launched a social media campaign for missing children in Jaipur on Monday.
‘No more missing children campaign’ (www.facebook.com/NoMoreMissing1), aims at creating a database on missing children through click-and-post participation of the people, said Delhi-based campaign leader and social activist Vandana Guliya, while launching the drive in Jaipur.
The campaign holds special significance as the incidents of abduction and children going missing have risen during the past few years. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, at least 3.5 lakh children were reported missing between 2011 and 14. But more than this is the agony such incidents cause to their parents and hence the social media drive, said Guliya.
She said ‘No More Missing Children’ had already been launched this month in New Delhi and Bangalore by social activists and working professionals and it was catching up fast.
All the people need to do is that click pictures of children begging on the streets, selling items at traffic signals, working as labourers in factories or at eateries and post them on the Facebook wall, she said. This would not only help parents locate their missing ones but also the police too as the pictures would be extensively shared on the social media, she said.
{{/usCountry}}All the people need to do is that click pictures of children begging on the streets, selling items at traffic signals, working as labourers in factories or at eateries and post them on the Facebook wall, she said. This would not only help parents locate their missing ones but also the police too as the pictures would be extensively shared on the social media, she said.
{{/usCountry}}Sharing a personal experience, Guliya said she once saw an old man sitting at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi to seek government help to trace his granddaughter who had gone missing three years ago. The man sold all his business and property to use the money to track her down but in vain. “I decided at that moment to help that old man in whatever way possible. Maybe through this campaign, we can unite the girl with her family”, she said.
Jaipur’s campaign leader Prahlad Jat appealed to the people to click the pictures of the begging children and post them on the wall instead of giving them money. Money would end up in pimps’ or child traffickers’ pockets but their pictures could help unite them with their family members, he said.