Every eight minutes, a child goes missing in India- between 2012 and 2017, 250,000 children were reported as missing by the Indian government. The number is probably much higher- many families don’t report their missing kids because they believe that their children have been sent away for schooling. Known as the “lost generation”, they are exploited for labor by gangs. It is incredibly dangerous to try and rescue them because of revenge by gang members, and many rescuers die in raids on sweatshops or factories where these kids are being exploited. 64 year old Kailish Satyarthi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner (along with Malala Yousafzai), has dedicated his life to rescuing these children, some of whom never see the light of day and work for up to sixteen hours a day. Satyarthi leads several NGOs, such as Bachpan Bacho Andolan, which are dedicated to rescue missions and rehabilitation. After being rescued, the Indian authorities try to relocate the children with their parents, which can be a lengthy process due to the fact that many families, particularly poor ones, don’t have identity papers or even photographs of their children. The development of new facial recognition technology has already helped 3,000 kids find their families. However, some families are too poor to continue taking care of their kids, therefore Satyarthi and his wife opened a center called Bal Ashram as a new home for these children.
I was shocked to read about such a high number of missing kids in India as well as the lack of effort of the Indian authorities to try to relocate them. It’s heartbreaking that some of their families will not take them back, but I admire the fact that Satyarthi has created these NGOs so that the kids can be rescued and find a new life. The conditions of these sweatshops are shocking, and the fact that many volunteers die trying to rescue these kids from gangs is also really heartbreaking. It reminds me of the collective goods problem- it is a humanitarian crisis, yet no one is coming in internationally to solve this problem, probably partially due to the fact that India probably would not welcome intervention, considering the lack of effort by the authorities and that many families cannot “take back” their own kids.