“This new-form of employment thrown up by metros has led to the rise of missing children,” said RC Kaithal, Additional Director General of Police while speaking to the indian Express.

Though on January 25 this year he had directed the superintendents of police to furnish him with data on missing children in Jharkhand, he is yet to hear from them. Compilation of the complaints have, however, helped the police zero in on the fact that most of the missing girls were in the age group of 8 to 15 and they were either illiterate or school dropouts, employed by agencies to work as domestic help.

Our investigations revealed that Poonam was sent to New Delhi along with two other girls — Sangeeta and Ashok, by Sony, a resident of Piskanagri village (Ranchi district). She liasoned with a domestic help placement agency in the national capital. Though Sangeeta and Ashok returned home a few months later, Poonam is still untraceable.

“We lost touch with her,” said Sangeeita when we contacted her. Though we could not contact Sony, she has apparently told the missing girl’s parents that the New Delhi place ment agency was unreachable on the numbers with her.

Suresh Tiwari,a lecturer at Sanjay Gandhi College has written in his thesis on “Trafficking of Adivasi Girls in Jharkhand” — “Most agencies lured the parents by promising them a party of their children’s wages. But in quite a few cases they failed to keep track of the girls.”

... contd.