Status of 8305 missing children still unknown
According to the Balbalika Khojtalas Samanwaya Kendra, a centre for searching for missing kids and rehabilitating them, 13,931 children went missing in the past seven years and of them, the centre rescued 8,305 whereas status of 8,305 is still unknown.
The centre which was established with a view to fighting against child trafficking, finding the missing children and rehabilitating them is in a sorry state due to scarcity of resources and budget.
The centre is unable to manage a shelter for those kids who are yet to be rehabilitated in their families. Due to this, it has to take help from the private organisations for their protection, centre programme officer Bhim Bikram Shahi said.
During the seven-year history since its establishment, the centre recovered 2,678 children in an unattended condition and 2,335 have already been reinstated in the family. Remaining 238 are being provided shelter at a private child home.
Besides, it has been facing more difficulty to take care of the disabled children. It does not own sufficient vehicles to transport children from one place to another and take them hospitals during illness, centre police inspector Keshabraj Bhandari said.
Disabled and mentally-retarded children need regular checkups and but we have to go through a tough situation while taking them to respective health
institute in the unavailability of transport service, Central Child Welfare Committee Chairman Dilliram Giri shared the problem resulted from budgetary constraint. We are holding discussions with the government bodies about the matter of solving this problem, he added.
The center was established at initiatives of Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare and Central Child Welfare Committee.
