India's Maharashtra state claims most success in finding missing children

The western Indian state of Maharashtra has traced the largest number of missing children in the country as part of a national campaign to find them, kindling hopes that new measures put in place will

also help check trafficking in the state.  The state is one of the largest destinations for trafficked children in the country.  State Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said this week it has traced more than 12,000 children as part of the national Operation Smile and Muskaan (smile), launched first in January last year to find and reunite children with their families.

A child goes missing every eight minutes in India, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. Almost 40 percent of them remain untraced.  While some are kidnapped or trafficked and forced to work, some are abandoned by families who cannot afford to care for them. Older boys may be runaways seeking better opportunities. "Maharashtra has shown good results in bringing back the children and connecting to their families," Fadnavis told the state assembly.  The state's efforts have also boosted the conviction rate for perpetrators to 52 percent from 9 percent before the campaign, he said.

Few cases of missing children in the country were even filed with the police until the Supreme Court, in response to a petition by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi's Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement), made it mandatory in 2013 to register all cases of missing children.  Nationwide, almost 29,000 children were rescued in two month-long operations last year, according to the home ministry. National data for this year's January campaign are not yet available.

Maharashtra’s Inspector General of Police Brijesh Singh said 4,244 children were rescued in January in the state, of whom only 665 had been recorded as missing.  Last July, 4,296 children were traced in the state, of whom about 1,400 were girls, he said. A similar number were rescued in January 2015. Some children were found begging on the streets, and others had been forced to work. Some had been trafficked from the eastern states of Bihar and Orissa, Singh said. As part of the campaign, police stations in the state appointed child welfare officers, and the state's 12 anti-human trafficking units worked closely with child welfare centres. Police also tapped NGOs for help with rehabilitation.   (Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation)