In Pictures

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In Pictures: India’s missing children

Families of missing children deal with despair and hope as the country continues to lose generation after generation.

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In India every hour eleven children go missing and seven are never found, according to reports published by Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a New Delhi-based child rights group.
By Bijoyeta Das
Published On 25 Jun 2014

Eleven children go missing every hour and seven are never found in India, according to a New Delhi-based child rights organisation, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement).

Radhika from the capital, New Delhi, has been looking for her lost son for the past seven years. She does not want to let go of her son’s clothes, toys and books.

“Let them gather dust but when I feel like hugging my son, I touch them and try to imagine him,” she told Al Jazeera.

“It is pain you cannot imagine,” Radhika, who is in her late 20s, said.

Like Radhika, thousands of other parents have been desperately looking for their sons and daughters.

“There is no closure,” Azhar Mohammad from east Delhi said after wiping tears. His daughter has been missing for five years.

According to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, more than 300,000 women and 64,000 girls have been abducted in the past nine years.

“Some reasons of child trafficking include forced labour, commercial sexual exploitation, illegal adoption, and organ trade among others,” Bachpan Bachao Andolan said in its report.

Some children run away from home, abandoned by parents or separated because of natural calamities. Often children rescued in one state could be missing in another. And there is no centralised database to connect them.

From 2005 to 2012, every year there was a 23.2 percent increase in the rate of girl child kidnappings.

Pinky, 16, was rescued from the house of a middle class family in New Delhi where she was forcefully kept as a domestic servant, without pay. She came to Delhi from her village in eastern India to seek employment with a placement agency.
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A father showing the photo of his missing son and a box in which he collects money so that he can travel around India to look for him.
Often families of missing children hold onto things that belonged to their children. They are mementos of a lost happiness. Many parents of missing children have not changed houses and phone numbers, hoping someday their child will call home or come back.
Police take a child rescued in Delhi where he was forced to work as a car mechanic. He is being taken to a transit home in New Delhi.
This rescued child has been living in a transitional house for the past year, waiting to be reunited with his family.
Police and a child rights activist rescue a child from an auto repair shop in New Delhi. Often children who run away from homes are forced to work illegally in small factories and industries. 
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A young boy shows photos of his missing sister. The family distributes the photos to their relatives, friends, strangers and non-profit organisations. 
Arjun after being reunited with his mother. He was chained and forced to work on a farm for two years. His mother says she never gave up hope.
Children who are separated from their parents or rescued from brothels and child labour camps are kept in various shelter homes. Many are never united with their families because they cannot remember their addresses or personal details, or because their parents lived in slums and migrated.