Are our children safe?

Child trafficking cases have increased by at least 55% in 2019 across Assam. This statement has come from none other than Sunita Changkakati, Chairperson of the Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (ASCPCR), and that too just two days before the country is celebrating Children's Day. According to the ASCPCR, altogether 125 cases of different crimes against children were registered with the organisation till November 10 this year. The Commission has, in the first ten months of the current year, registered 17 cases of child trafficking. This figure was 11 for the whole year of 2018, she has said. Going by her revelation, the Commission has registered 43 cases of child sexual abuse in the same period this year, as against 53 in 2018. There were five cases of child marriage, too, compared to six last year.

Similarly, instances of violation of the right to education for children have also risen, from 9 in 2018 with 13 cases so far. The ASCPCR Chairperson has claimed that incidents of violation of child rights have gone down to 13 from 20, while cases of child labour, too, dropped from 10 to 5. But then what the ASCPCR Chairperson is trying to project is not the whole or entire picture. The actual picture of child rights protection in Assam is far from satisfactory. This has been very clearly revealed in the trends that became evident in the Crimes in India Report 2017 which the National Crime Records Bureau of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs had only recently released.

While there has been a nation-wide increase in the number of crimes against children in the past few years, the NCRB report has revealed that crimes against children has gone up in India from 94,172 in 2015 to 10,6958 in 2016 to 12,9032 in 2017. The figures for Assam are even more alarming. These have gone up from 2,835 in 2015 to 3,964 in 2016 to 4,951 in 2017. Out of these, as many as 308 are POCSO cases. Believe it or not, the share of Assam in the national crimes against children stands at 3.8%. Meanwhile Railway Childline Guwahati, a central government initiative run by an NGO, has revealed that 254 stranded children were rescued by them in Assam between April and September this year. Similarly, last year, the Indian Council for Child Welfare Assam state branch, had rescued 430 children from Guwahati and Kamakhya railway stations.

Railway Childline Guwahati has also revealed that according to Census 2011, nearly 4.5 per cent children in Assam are engaged in labour, and that Guwahati has the maximum number of domestic child labourers in the State. A total of 1,591 kids have been rescued from June 2015 till September this year. Railway Childline Guwahati has rescued 190 boys and 64 girls this year. These children were brought mainly for trafficking and labour. While such dangerous and alarming figures are coming from official agencies like Assam State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (ASCPCR) and Railway Childline, it is high time Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal takes a call on this matter as early as possible. What is visible is probably only the tip of the iceberg.