This is the concluding column in a three-part series on child trafficking in India. Also read parts one and two.
“What is to be done? It makes us feel very sad that children are treated only as numbers. They too have a soul, they too have heart. How long can we continue like this? It is very disturbing,” Justice Madan Lokur observed during a Supreme Court hearing in August 2018. “If the provisions of the law were being implemented in letter and spirit, then child abuse incidents like those in Muzaffarpur and Deoria would not have happened,” he observed.
Justice Lokar was responding to information presented by amicus curiae Aparna Bhat on discrepancies between two government-commissioned surveys conducted a year apart, which indicated that over two lakh children residing in child care homes were now “missing”.
A 2016-17 survey, commissioned by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, indicated that 4.73 lakh children resided in care homes nationwide. However, the number came down to 2.61 lakh children in the data submitted by the Centre before the Supreme Court in March 2018.
The survey also pointed out that of the 9,589 childcare institutions across the country, 1,596 were overcrowded. The children who lived in these homes were subjected to corporal punishment and other kinds of abuse. The court then asked Ministry officials present how many more children were missing in the country, “besides these two lakh”.