In a shocking revelation, it has been known that nearly half the total of missing children in Nepal go untraced.Citing records at Nepal Police, police spokesman Deputy Inspector General Keshav Adhikari said that 788 children went missing between mid-July 2012 to Jan 31 of this year throughout the country. Among them, according to police records, 397 were boys and 391 girls. 

According to DIG Adhikari, 398 of the missing were found and reunited with parents. He said one third of those found were boys. “More girls go missing for good in comparison to boys.”

He said that there is no factual data on missing children as the parents and other kin don´t come to complain even after the children are found.

Many missing children are assumed to be used as child laborers inside the country or trafficked to foreign countries mainly India, but there is no exact statistics in this regard, he said. According to police, more children are found missing from midwestern and mid-eastern Nepal. 

On an average of 2,000-3,000 children went missing in the past few years, according to police. However, Bishnu Timalsina, team leader at CWISH, an NGO working in children and women sector, said more children go missing or go untraced due to lack of proper mechanism to track the missing children and due to political instability. 

Metropolitan Police Range Office at Hanuman Dhoka, Kathmandu itself registered three complaints about three missing children -- two girls and a boy -- on Friday alone. 

According to the MPRO Kathmandu, those missing are Maya Pariyar, Pratikchhya Marahatta and Man Singh Nepali. During the past nine months, authorities in Kathmandu Valley registered complaints about more than 300 missing persons including 213 females and 106 male. 

Among the 300, over 100 are children, according to police. Out of the total missing from the Katmandu District, a total of 67 were found in different parts of the country and also from India, police said.

Published on: 2 February 2013 | Republica