Where do the missing children go?

Abducted by two men and forced into child prostitution when she was just eight years old, a homeless Dabeerpura street teen was finally reunited with her family. But the traumas of the past may have scarred her for life. Sharmila (name changed) was walking to school when her neighbours Yadgiri and Pentiah asked her to help them find their missing dog. After scouring the neighbourhood with the young girl to no avail, the men offer Sharmila a ride so she won't be late for school. Along the way, the men tell Sharmila that they work for her father. After school, Sharmila is surprised to find the two men waiting to drive her home. Claiming that her parents are away on business, Yadgiri and Pentiah ask her to step into the car and give her a drink. Later, after dozing off in the backseat, she finds herself in a tiny dark room. Sharmila is told that her parents want nothing to do with her anymore.

Children like Sharmila are kidnapped who go missing for days and one day are trained and left to beg.

As many as 6,019 children have gone missing in the city since 2008, of which only 2,109 have been found. Girls in 12-15 age group that form a chunk of the missing children. The Hyderabad Police has recorded 974 missing girls in 2008-11 period and the Cyberabad Police has registered 511 cases of missing girls. While the city's crime rate is lower than that of Bengaluru and Chennai, the number of children missing from the city is higher than these two cities. Children are kidnapped for many reasons including family rivalries and land disputes. But the police seem to be able to do the least to get them back.

But what observers and also the police are worried about is the rising number of missing girls.

"There are many cases of girl children in the 12 to 16 age group who are being enticed by adults to leave their homes. While this cannot be considered as kidnapping for ransom, it involves a more serious crime of sexual abuse. Many girls are sent home after a short period of time and many of them claim that they are married. However 1 per cent of the kidnaps are done for flesh trade," said DCP Kamalasan Reddy.

Girls are bought and sold for sex trade, marriage organ trade, drug mules, bonded labour in the unorganised sector and for begging syndicates across the country. According to unconfirmed reports, there are close to 800 organised child trafficking gangs across the country.

Traffickers target children from the lower income groups, where the families do not have the financial strength or the political connections to pursue their cases with the authorities. They pick up children who aren’t watched over too carefully from slums and congested areas. Merely a handful of children who get kidnapped are taken for ransom. Sometimes, if the parents pay up, or the police locate the kidnapped child, the child is reunited with its family. Sometimes, despite paying up, some kidnapped children are brutalised and killed. In a recent survey by ISS, some parents confirmed that they sell their children for a little sum of Rs 2,000 to 5,000.

“The police department is insensitive to these grieving parents and there should be a support system for them," said Achyuta Rao who was earlier with the child rights NGO Balala Hakkula Sangham.

The shrines have always been a magnet for beggars, especially children, as many of the pilgrims believe giving money to the poor will increase the chance of their prayers being heard.

“The result? Children are being kidnapped and traded between begging gangs and young girls to prostitution and many are sold to other countries,” says Satyavathi of the Roshni Helpline Charity.

Many of these children will be moved around shrines in the city and they will have their heads shaved. They will be tattooed.

"The culture of begging at shrines is so prevalent that the police will rarely intervene or ask children how they got to a shrine."

A few hours spent at any shrine will reveal that the beggars with the most disabilities attract the most attention and in turn the most money.

“In some cases, if a child isn't disabled, a disability can be inflicted upon them,” says Rafi from an NGO.

But children with existing disabilities are also sought after by kidnappers.

The stories from Rasoolpura slums and the incidents of lost children are painful and touchy. Taxi driver Shankar lives there with his wife and three children.

“My eldest son, Uday, recently went missing. He is disabled. He went on his wheelchair just down the road but then we couldn't find him," says Shankar.

Roshni Helpline workers are circulating Uday’s photograph at shrines and the police are looking for him. But the scale of the problem and the sheer number of shrines across the city means that many missing children will never be found.

The problem is that many of these children are being used by criminals to beg for profit. They are victims of the international scourge of human trafficking. The children are usually malnourished so as to appear more sympathetic. Some are maimed by their captors to increase their profitability.

NGO s working in the field estimate that barely 10 per cent of all missing children cases are registered with the police. An overwhelming 90 per cent disappear into the great morass of the never seen never heard of again. The way missing children are investigated by our authorities is another reason why recovery rates are so low. Hardly are FIRs registered by the police.

The fact remains that we, citizens, are not concerned about our missing children. They disappear into files, remain photographs on posters and morph into mere statistics. The parents live through the nightmare every single day, not knowing whether their child is alive or dead, or if alive, living under what unimaginable conditions. We need to hang our heads in shame at our collective apathy to this terrifying issue of missing children. It’s time to raise our voice.