National Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairperson Stuti Kacker on Saturday called for a “multi-sector action plan” to combat child trafficking, stating that crimes against children rose 300% within six years from 2009, IANS reported.
“The National Crime Records Bureau suggests that there is a rise in crime against children since 2009,” Kacker said in a written statement read out in her absence, at an anti-human trafficking conference in Kolkata. “The number of incidents rose from 24,203 in 2009 to 92,172 in 2015.” She said that crimes that rose the most during the six-year period included marriage of minor girls, kidnapping and sale of minors into prostitution.
Kacker said that the problem of child trafficking has intensified in the last few years. “NCRB data suggests that 9,104 children were trafficked in 2015, which is a 27% increase over 2014,” she said. “This includes both trafficking within the country and cross-border trafficking. The estimate indicates that over 60% of human trafficking is of children.”
She said poverty, lack of opportunity, economic disparity, land demarcation, increased gender discrimination and discriminatory cultural practices were the main causes of child trafficking. “We need to protect our children from violence and crime to identify and close the gap that enables the traffickers a scope [for child trafficking], and formulate a multi-sector action plan to combat the practice,” she added.
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