Vijayawada: Around 939 girls have gone missing or got kidnapped in Andhra Pradesh in 2017 as per the records till June 9.
In 2017, the higher officials concerned in the Police Department had stated that 800 girls have been traced but the fate of the rest 139 is yet to be known.
The figures collected from Jan to June 9, 2017 for ‘minor girl missing’ cases are shocking. Police conducted this study after a minor girl from Guntur was freed from the clutches of a BSF Jawan.
Anantapur district tops the list with 115 cases being reported of which 105 were traced. The high number is attributed to drought led poverty, illiteracy and migration. Due to drought, the families are migrating to Kerala and Bengaluru for employment and are consequently leaving the minor girls with their grandparents.
Tribal minor girls of Kadiri are prone to trafficking. In Kalyanadurg-am, where child marriages are extremely prevalent, the minor girls are wilfully fleeing. Anantapur is followed by West Godavari and Vijayawada City which reported 89 and 85 cases respectively. Nellore reported the least number of missing cases- 10 cases out of which 9 were traced.
In the Telugu states, the number of children who have gone missing in the last one year is 2,283, out of which only 1,371 children have been rescued from kidnap gangs.
Between 2010-16, more than 6,000 women went missing in TS and AP. According to Police sources, more than 100 gangs are working with the help of around 5,000 agents in cities such as Hyderabad and Vijayawada.
The gangs try to woo women by promising to provide them with employment and education. Women would soon be trapped into the racket, in the name of working abroad, before forcing them into prostitution.
Viewing the increase in number of child trafficking cases in the other Telugu state, Telangana police began Operation Muskan. In the last three years, 25,834 victims have been rescued in the Operation. Of them, 12,483 children have been sent back to their homes.
