Missing Children

Humra Quraishi

November 14. Children’s Day. Speech after speech from the political rulers of the day, but beyond those typical speeches nothing very substantial in terms of the much-needed search for the missing children of the country. India’s missing children. The grim fact is that thousands of children are missing yet we sit a bit too quiet! A large percentage of the missing are girls; their percentage is higher than that boys.

Today’s rulers might claim this or that achievement in their shrilly synthetic speeches but cannot overlook the fact that hundreds and thousands of our children are in the missing slot! Where are they? Who will find them? And when? Have these children been kidnapped or stolen and sold? Who are the masterminds? Who operates this entire nexus of stealing kids and then using them for various deals and deeds?

Some of the missing kids are said to be traced and found. In what condition, even if found? One is not sure in what condition. What happens if they are unable to live with their parents or grandparents? What happens to their general upkeep? Are the government ‘homes’ where they get lodged, safe in the actual sense of the term? Why are senior citizens not involved with the day -to- day interactions with these kids? How transparent is the system? Above all, who is accountable for the checks and balances and to ensure that these hapless children are not abused, inside and outside the shelter homes?

And if one were to confront the bigger and broader picture of the general condition of our children, then once again a dismal picture emerges. A disturbing reality emerges even of those kids who are not missing! Tragically, missing is their very childhood!

Not sure how many even manage to reach adulthood. Yes, that’s the case as a substantial percentage of our children are malnourished, facing severe health related issues. Their survival at stake. Compounded by the fact that their parents cannot afford to pay for the required medical treatment nor give them adequate diet to battle the various ailments.

The school dropout rate is high and many don’t reach the college stage. Financial and social and health hurdles come in way. Many become victims to the political poisoning spreading around. Grabbed and kidnapped and picked up by the political mafia on the prowl; on the look-out for fresh recruits. Foot soldiers, to unleash hate poisoning amongst the masses!

Many teenage boys face severe crisis when picked up by the cops. Even as and when released, their names in those police records and registers. Next time even if there’s a cracker burst they are the first ones to be rounded up for questioning and much more. Communal biases compound the situation.

Not to overlook the fact that the young are attacked during rioting and civil strife. Goon brigades out to hound and pound them. After the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, I met mothers in Ahmedabad and they told me they’d shifted their children to relatives’ homes residing outside the State. Even during the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, children were sent off, away from their homes, so that they could survive … quite obviously, with that shift, the school dropout rate peaked. Ruined their childhood…leaving imprints on the lives of hundreds of innocents

And now with bulldozers destroying homes, the poverty graph is sure to peak, affecting the very well-being and survival of our children. Isn’t it time that the concerned citizens of this country play a role in halting the blatant destruction of homes and that of entire families? Once a home is bulldozed it’s akin to demolishing an entire family or a clan. Gone not just their dwelling but their very vital base for day to day survival. With bulldozed homes gone are the children’s school books and uniforms and clothes and the very kitchen… also hit the very wish to carry on, to take on challenges. Entire families and clans were ruined! Many more children and their childhood will be destroyed, if homes get destroyed.

On this Children’s Day let’s focus on the stark reality. It is time we sit up and ask the whereabouts to the country’s missing children.

o    A matter of grave concern is that girls constitute a significantly higher proportion of missing and kidnapped children in India. In 2022, of the total 83,350 missing children, 62,946 were girls. That means more than 75% of missing children were girls. The proportion of girl children in total missing children has been rising from about 65% in 2016 to 75% in 2022 at the all-India level. This has been the trend for all the states mentioned above.

o    NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) figures for the five years up to 2022 also show a mostly rising trend in the figures of missing children — a spike of 7.5 percent in 2022 in comparison to 2021, a significant surge of 30.8 percent in 2021 against 2020, a drop of 19.8 percent in 2020 against 2019 and again an increase of 8.9 percent in 2019 against 2018 and of 5.6 percent in 2018 against 2017.

o    174 Children Go Missing In India Every Day, Half Of Them Remain Untraced!

o    CHILDREN OF PALESTINE!

o    Facing the most traumatic childhood; each day dripping with sorrow in the backdrop of killings and more killings. The ongoing bombardments and targeted attacks on them and on their homes, tents, shelters, schools, mosques and hospitals, by the Israeli forces.

o    Leaving you readers with this verse of Faiz Ahmed Faiz–‘Song for a Palestinian Child’. This verse is tucked in the volume–‘A Song For This Day–52 Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’ (Sang-E-Meel Publications). Translated from Urdu to English by Shoaib Hashmi, accompanying images from the works of Faiz’s daughter Salima Hashmi, the verse stands out, along a diverse range…This volume was published around December 2009, but holds out to this day. Here goes this verse by Faiz Ahmed Faiz:

‘Song For A Palestinian Child
Be still child!
For your mother too is still, in sleep/
Having poured out all her pain in tears/
Be still child! /
For it is but a moment since/
Your father laid down his burden of woe/
Be still child! /
For your loving brother/
Has left the home of his father’s/
To go seeking the beautiful butterfly of his dreams/
And your sister too has left the hearth/
To set up home in an unknown land/
B still child!/
For here, in your little courtyard/
They have bathed the lifeless sun of days/
And interred the lifeless moon of the night/
Be still child!/
For your mother and father/
And brother and sister/
And the sun and the moon/
If they hear you weeping/
They will weep with you, and you with them/
And if you smile, then perhaps/
One day, transfigured/
They will all come back, to be with you.’

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 22, Nov 24 - 30, 2024