Lessons from Kathal: Tracking India’s missing girls

Source: The post is based on the article “Lessons from Kathal: Tracking India’s missing girls” published in the Indian Express on 12th June 2023

Syllabus: GS 2 – Mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of vulnerable sections.

Relevance: About India’s missing girls.

News: The recent movie Kathal has spurred the debate about India’s missing girls.

About data on India’s missing girls

In 2021, 69,014 cases were registered across the country, of which 55,120 pertained to girls aged 12-18. Marriage, sexual abuse, domestic servitude, and forced labour/slavery remain the main motives behind the kidnapping and abduction of children.

What are the reasons behind India’s missing girls?

Bride crisis: The abysmal sex ratio in several states of the Hindi heartland has resulted in a “bride crisis”, and the sale of girls, as young as 12 years old, for marriage to elderly men in their forties or fifties.

False promises: Seemingly trustworthy extended family members or neighbours might be the culprits who would lure a girl away with the promise of a city life, a plush job or a husband of choice.

The common initial assumption of the police: Police generally believe that an adolescent girl has voluntarily eloped with a boy. This presumption delays an immediate response by the police, leading to a critical loss of the “golden hours” to trace the victim.

What are the steps taken to identify India’s missing girls?

Prompt filing of FIR: The activism of the courts, women, child commissions and political leadership led to a trend of prompt registering FIRs at least in cases of missing minor children, both boys and girls.

The strict supervision of the courts and of senior police leadership has now made it difficult for the police force to “close” unsolved cases of missing children.

Section 366 of the IPC (kidnapping, abducting or inducing a woman to compel her marriage): In the case of an adolescent girl, where the parents admit to the girl having a possible romantic liaison with a boy, Section 366 is invoked.

Anti-human Trafficking Units (AHTU): These are established under the aegis of the Ministry of Home Affairs and are now functional in every district of the country. It plays a  remarkable role in helping trace missing children from faraway places. Their technique helped trace the families of over 200 missing children from all corners of the country within a short span of 12 months.

Promotion incentives: Providing promotion incentives for tracing missing children has yielded positive results. For example, in 2021, the Delhi police announced an out-of-turn promotion incentive for constables and head constables, who would trace more than 50 children below the age of 14 in a year. As a result, for the first time in decades, the number of children recovered by the Delhi police that year was more than the number reported missing in the year.

What more should be done?

Improve mobile surveillance: Mobile surveillance services are now amply used in every district for crime detection. This must repeatedly keep scanning the locations of relevant mobile numbers and social media accounts of the victim or her abductor for their possible location.

Focus on prevention of abduction: A gazetted police officer may be designated as a nodal supervisor to oversee and ensure that mobile surveillance exercise is carried out for all missing children not just after the commission of the crime.

Install CCTVs: All the important bus stations, railway stations, taxi stands, and toll booths should be equipped with high-resolution CCTV cameras providing exhaustive coverage for faster tracking and tracing the escape method of the accused.

Link child records: Children are too young to explain where their home is or who can be contacted. So, the government should link the records of all the orphanages, child shelter homes, and Nari Niketans in the country. The District Probation Officers or the District Social Welfare Officers should be made overall supervisors and custodians of such data centres.