New Delhi: Concerned over the plight of missing children who are victims of organised child trafficking, the Supreme Court of India recently sought a report from the government of India on such missing children in India since 2020.
A bench of Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice SVN Bhatti directed the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to coordinate with state governments and Union Territories to collate the data and file it with he court within six weeks.
What the apex court has sought to know?
The court in its order has sought to know as to
i) How many child missing cases have been registered in each District/State since 2020
(ii) From the registered cases, how many children have been recovered within the stipulated period of 4 months and how many are yet to be recovered?
(iii) Whether a functional Anti-Human Trafficking Units in each district is established and if so (number of cases entrusted to the respective Anti-Human Trafficking Units).
(iv) The powers conferred on the Anti-Human Trafficking Units under applicable laws.
(v) The number of pending prosecutions relating to child trafficking cases in each District/State.
(vi) Year-wise data be provided including the steps the respective States intend to take in delayed cases of investigation or non recovery of the missing child.
What did the petition say?
The order of the court comes on a petition which raises the problem of plight of children who are victims of organised child trafficking racket spread across multiple states in the country.
The petition says that young children from vulnerable families are kidnapped and sold to traffickers who work on a network basis. The petition also says that multiple FIRs filed in different states indicate a well-entrenched inter-state network of child trafficking and there are people who are tasked to identify vulnerable children and to arrange for their trafficking and eventual exploitation.
Government of India earlier filed an affidavit in the case
Earlier, the government of India had filed an affidavit in the case saying that to combat child trafficking Ministry of Home Affairs has been issuing advisories to the state governments to address the three specific aspects of trafficking i.e., prevention, protection and prosecution. Government of India has also set up a a national level communication platform called the Crime Multi Agency Centre (Cri-MAC) in 2020 which facilitates dissemination of information, about child trafficking crimes, on real time basis.
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