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230 Children go missing in Nagaland in just over 2 yrs |
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Dimapur, Sept 02 (EMN): The total number of people reported missing in Nagaland in between the period January 2007 to July 2009 has gone up to 315.
Out of these, 230 are below 18 years as recorded on the reported date of missing.
These statistics have been brought out by Prodigals’ Home, Dimapur, which is conducting a study on ‘missing children’ under the aegis of Foundation for Social Transformation - Enabling NEI. The data from the said timeframe have been collected as per missing reports appearing in the local dailies.
According to the initial findings of the study, 68% of the missing reports are from Dimapur, 27% from Kohima and the rest from other districts of Nagaland. 74% of the reported missing children are non-Naga while 26% are Naga children. 35% of the missing children are yet to be traced.
Stating that the statistics raise some disturbing questions on who these children are, why they go missing and where the untraced children are, the organisation said it underlines the need for society to take a serious look at the plight of children and the angle of trafficking of children. It said the matter is grave as the almost daily reports of missing children reveal that ‘in varied and often subtle way, trafficking, especially of children, is taking place right within our society’.
As per the organisation’s observation, it felt the Dimapur Police and Women Cell in particular are active on the issue. However, it stressed that Police Department and awareness by some NGOs alone are not enough. Unless various stakeholders, law enforcing agency and general public are sensitised on the issue and in the process make strategies collectively to combat this evil, our ignorance and silence is paving ways for traffickers to operate without fear or hindrances, it said.
Dimapur being the only district in Nagaland connected by rail and air with other parts of our country, it plays host to a high number of people coming from outside the State with different purposes. But the organisation pointed out that there is no system to check and monitor them while also stating that Dimapur has become a source from where women and girls are trafficked to other states, a transit where traffickers lodge and a destination where victims, both from within and outside our state, are brought in.
Giving instances of two evident cases of trafficking, the organisation referred to the case of two Naga women rescued by Women Cell Dimapur from a Pune brothel in the month of May 2008. They were lured on the pretext of free treatment at Guwahati but were taken to Pune and sold at the rate of Rs two lakhs for a contract of 5 years. In the second case, two minor girls from outside the State were rescued by Dimapur Women Cell in 2008. They were trafficked by a lady who brought them on the pretext of sight seeing to Dimapur and forced into sex work. One of the victims was niece of the trafficker.
It also said the legal actions meted out to the apprehended perpetrators and rehabilitation support provided to the victims is a grey area.
Lamenting that Nagaland has no organisation comprehensively working on the trafficking menace, Prodigals’ Home has urged the concerned government department to select competent organisations at vulnerable districts across the State to work towards tackling the issue.
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