More children go missing in Darjeeling every year: Report

PTI, Kolkata, Oct 23 2013: A State Crime Records Bureau-backed report has termed West Bengal the source point for child trafficking within the country, with Darjeeling topping the list of eight districts in state with most number of missing children. 

The report for the last three years, published by Child In Need Institute, says Darjeeling has shown the steepest rise in number of children missing in the state, with 924 cases recorded in 2012, a staggering jump from 430 reported in 2010. 

Even the National Crime Records Bureau has revealed that more than 19,000 children were missing in West Bengal during 2012. More than half of the missing children were girls, says the CINI report which sourced its data from the District Crime Records Bureau. 

"These figures are just tip of the iceberg as countless number of cases go unreported," the CINI report read. Rajib K Haldar, additional director of CINI, said due to the geographical location of Darjeeling, children are more vulnerable to cross-border trafficking via Nepal. 

"Cross-border districts are used as transit points by the traffickers with children, mostly from remote villages, becoming the target," he said. With majority coming from poor background, the missing children were trafficked for various reasons - to work as labourers in factories, farms or homes; for commercial sexual exploitation; or for marriage or forced beggary. 

As West Bengal shares porous borders with Nepal and Bangladesh, it serves as a transit point for maximum cross-border trafficking. 

The study finds poverty and lack of education as among the key factors. Early marriage is another reason. 

"Marriage is used as a significant ploy in trafficking children. Often, young girls are duped into romantic associations," it said. 

Shockingly, FIRs were lodged only in 4 per cent of such cases in Darjeeling, the report says, even though the Supreme Court, earlier this year, has made it mandatory for police stations across the country to compulsorily register missing complaints of any minor and appoint a special police officer to handle complaints of juveniles. 

Other vulnerable districts include South and North-24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Howrah and Birbhum.