India’s National Panel to Take Up Child Trafficking Issue

New Delhi, Jan 29 : The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is rushing a team to Chennai to take up the issue of trafficked children from Assam and Manipur. The decision to dispatch a team to Tamil Nadu came following pressure from NGOs to institute a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry on the large-scale trafficking from Assam and Northeastern States.

Chairperson of the NCPCR, Shanta Sinha told newsmen that a team has been assigned to visit Tamil Nadu to take up the issue with the State Government.

The Commission is also going to convene a meeting of the Northeastern States and the destination States to work out a coordination plan for State to State mechanism. “We are concerned about the Northeastern States,” said the chairperson.

Meanwhile, a delegation of Shakti Vahini and Bikalpa Dhara also met the chairperson with a demand to institute an inquiry and take necessary action.

In a memorandum to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the two NGOs called for a CBI probe into the whole issue of trafficking.

Trafficking from the Northeast India and Eastern Himalaya region is continuously on the rise and needs a detailed investigation. There are all the possibilities that organized gangs have started operating in the area to traffic women and children.

Since these crimes are spread over different States it would be beneficial that this investigation is done by federal agency like the CBI, the NGOs said.

It was also pointed out that the Chennai incident is not an isolated case, in July last the Kolkata police had rescued 25 Northeast children who were going towards Andhra Pradesh.

Similarly, there was a media report about the plight of 1600 children who had been shifted to schools in Karnataka.

On August 5, 2008, Nagaland girls were rescued from traffickers in Malaysia. One trafficker was caught in Nagaland but nothing happened.
“These are very disturbing trends,” said Rishi Kant of Shakti Vahini.

At least 76 children hailing from Manipur and Assam were rescued by Child Welfare Committee, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu from a children’s home in Magappair, Tamil Nadu.

This is the second time that CWC had rescued trafficked children from Manipur in Tamil Nadu.

All the rescued children were rescued from an unregistered orphanage called Bethesda Blessing Home located at Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu.
Earlier, the CWC claimed to have rescued 17 from a Children Home in Magappair, Tamil Nadu few days back.

Reports have it that Bethesda Blessing Home lacked both infrastructure and enough food to feed the children and the crackdown was done by the members of CWC of Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu.

Out of the 76 children, 54 of them (all boys) belong to Manipur while the remaining hail from Assam, the source said adding the children were staying at BB Home since July, 2009.