As we gear up to celebrate the Children’s Day on November 14, the grim fact remains that thousands of children are missing in the country. It’s time we sit up and ask their whereabouts. by Humra Quraishi
I do realize that November 14, Children’s Day, is a fortnight away from now but let’s begin the search for our children. India’s missing children. The grim fact is that thousands of children are missing in the country yet we sit a bit too quiet!
Sure enough, even on this upcoming Children’s Day one would get to hear speech after speech from the political rulers of the day, but beyond those typical speeches nothing very substantial in terms of the much-needed search for the missing children.
Today’s rulers might claim this or that achievement in their shrilly synthetic speeches but cannot overlook the fact that hundreds and thousands of children and women and men of the country are in the missing slot! Where are they? Who will find them? And when? In what condition, if ever found?
Another disturbing reality is that a substantial percentage of our children are malnourished, facing severe health related issues. The school dropout rate is high and many don’t reach the college stage. Financial, social and health hurdles come in the way. Many become victims to the political poisoning spreading around. Grabbed and kidnapped and picked up by the political mafia on the prowl; on the lookout for fresh recruits and foot soldiers, to unleash hate poisoning amongst the masses!
Many teenage boys face severe crises when picked up by the cops. Even as and when released, their names in those police records and registers. Next time even if there’s a cracker burst, they are the first ones to be rounded up for questioning and much more.
And now with bulldozers destroying homes, the poverty graph is sure to peak, affecting the very well-being and survival of our children. Isn’t it time that the concerned citizens of this country play a role to halt the blatant destruction of homes and with that of entire families? Once a home is bulldozed it’s akin to demolishing an entire family or a clan. Gone not just their dwelling but their very vital base for day-to-day survival. With bulldozed homes, gone are the children’s school books and uniforms and clothes and the very kitchen… also hit the very wish to carry on, to take on challenges. Entire families and clans ruined!
Many more children will be destroyed, if homes get bulldozed and destroyed, so very steadily and systematically. And yet we sit like mute spectators to the destruction spreading out so very blatantly, right in front of our eyes.
It is time we sit up and ask the whereabouts of the country’s missing children.One doesn’t have to be an investigative reporter to grasp the exact facts about the missing kids. All up there – online. Even the government released data, the so-called official data.
Putting these shocking figures on the missing children in the country, from the news reports to our missing children.
A matter of grave concern is that girls constitute a significantly higher proportion of missing and kidnapped children in India. In 2022, of the total 83,350 missing children 62,946 were girls. That means more than 75% of missing children were girls. The proportion of girl children in total missing children has been rising from about 65% in 2016 to 75% in 2022 at the all-India level. This has been the trend for all the states mentioned above.
NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) figures for the five years up to 2022 also show a mostly rising trend in the figures of missing children — a spike of 7.5 per cent in 2022 in comparison to 2021, a significant surge of 30.8 per cent in 2021 against 2020, a drop of 19.8 per cent in 2020 against 2019 and again an increase of 8.9 per cent in 2019 against 2018 and of 5.6 per cent in 2018 against 2017.
174 Children Go Missing In India Every Day, Half of them remain untraced!
Palestinian Child!
On this upcoming Children’s Day we cannot bypass focus on the children of Palestine. They are facing the most traumatic childhood: each day dripping with sorrow in the backdrop of hunger and thirst and injuries and deaths. And of course, the ongoing bombardments and targeted attacks on them and on their homes, tents, schools and hospitals by the Israeli forces.
Leaving you readers with this verse of Faiz Ahmed Faiz – ‘Song for a Palestinian Child’. This verse is tucked in the volume – ‘A Song For This Day – 52 poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’ (Sang-e-Meel Publications). Translated from Urdu to English by Shoaib Hashmi, accompanying images from the works of Faiz’s daughter Salima Hashmi, the verse stands out, along a diverse range,
This volume was published around December 2009, but holds out to this day. Here goes this verse by Faiz Ahmed Faiz:
‘Song for a Palestinian Child/
Be still child!
For your mother too is still, in sleep/
Having poured out all her pain in tears/
Be still child!/
For it is but a moment since/
Your father laid down his burden of woe/
Be still child!/
For your loving brother/
Has left the home of his fathers/
To go seeking the beautiful butterfly of his dreams/
And your sister too has left the hearth/
To set up home in an unknown land/
Be still child!/
For here, in your little courtyard/
They have bathed the lifeless sun of days/
And interred the lifeless moon of the night/
Be still child!/
For your mother and father/
And brother and sister/
And the sun and the moon/
If they hear you weeping/
They will weep with you, and you with them/
And if you smile, then perhaps/
One day, transfigured/
They will all come back, to be with you.’
