A recent data tabled at the Lok Sabha has made an appalling revelation that in the past three years, over 22,000 children went missing in Delhi and about 9,000 children are yet to be traced.

The data also revealed that more than 7,000 children go missing in Delhi every year and 1,500 of them remain untraceable. These figures are second highest in the country after Maharashtra. The worst part of the story is that many of them are never found.

In a special report carried by Hindustan Times, it found that most of the missing children are sent to big cities or in Gulf countries as bonded labour by some organised gang. On the other hand, girls are forced into prostitution and many of them are sent to villages, where they are sent to married off to men twice their age.

According to NGOs like Bachpan Bachao Andalon that is runned by Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, Delhi is emerging as one of the biggest hub of trafficking children. The gangs mainly target children from lower income group where both parents go out for work leaving their children alone in home.

Activists say Delhi police’s apathy for the missing children is leading to the rising number of untraced children. However, police claim that if the children are above the 12, there are chances of them running away from their homes, as reported by Hindustan Times.

Delhi Police have rescued and reunited some 1,680 children with their family since January 2015 and they often visit observation homes to reunite the children. Beside trafficking, the rate of crimes against children (incident per lakh population) is also the highest in Delhi. Most of these cases are of rape and abduction.

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