Atleast 9,453 cases of missing children were reported in Delhi and four neighbouring States of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana between January-July 2020, according to data compiled from RTIs by NGO CRY.
Nearly 75%, or 7,065, of the total missing children in these five States were girls, according to an analysis of the data.
Madhya Pradesh led the five States with the maximum number of children missing at 5,446, followed by Delhi (1,828), Rajasthan (1,016), Uttar Pradesh (804) and Haryana (359).
Limited data
The data was available only for 19 districts of U.P. out of the total 72. For Delhi, too, numbers for all police districts were not provided in the RTI.
There was a nationwide lockdown in the country from March 25 to May 31, but children continued to go missing even though the numbers fell.
“Our report shows that the numbers came down between March-April 2020 when lockdown was strictly imposed but a surge in numbers was seen immediately after relaxation in lockdown,” says Soha Moitra, the Regional Director, CRY (North).
Another worrying trend is that the highest number of children who went missing belonged to the age group of 12-18 years. Out of 9,453 cases of missing children, 7,386 belonged to this category.
