We may never know Kabir’s story. But for now, he is part of a staggering statistic of missing children in India. An estimated 111,569 children were reported missing in 2016.

Missing Children

According to the latest data from National Crime Records Bureau, which translates to an average of 174 children going missing every day in India .Ministry of Home Affairs, National Crime Records Bureau, Crime in India: Statistics 2016, at  http://ncrb.gov.in/StatPublications/CII/CII2016/pdfs/Crime%20Statistics%20%202016.pdf

Child Labourers

The 2011 national census of India found the total no. of child labourers, aged 5–14, to be at 10.1 million and the total child population to be 259.64 million in that age group. (https://www.indiastat.com/table/labour-andworkforcedata/380987/childlabour/60/969060/data.aspx)

Sex Trafficking

The issue of sex trafficking has received increasing attention in India and around the world across the last fifteen years, yet efforts to combat the crime remain woefully inadequate. It is estimated that 16 million women are victims of sex trafficking in India a year; 40% of them are adolescents and children, some as young as nine years old.

Trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation continues to be a significant issue in India, a crime that denies millions of women and girls their basic rights to liberty and education, and causes serious physical as well as mental health problems

They are treated like expendable slaves, chewed up by pimps and traffickers until there is nothing left.

Forced Labour

Forced labour is defined in the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 29, one of the most ratified ILO Conventions, as work that is performed involuntarily and under coercion. It can take place in any industry, including in the informal economy. Many victims, in particular women and girls, are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation, 25 million men, women and children today are in forced labour – trafficked, held in debt bondage or working in slavery-like conditions.

Violence against women and children

Violence against women and girls affects 1 in 3 women globally. Women living in informal urban settlements are particularly vulnerable to violence.

The stigma rising from social and cultural norms is the prime reason most of the cases of violence against women and children – especially against girls – and cases of sexual violence go unreported. Due to these norms, women and girls have little or no value and respect and have a lower socioeconomic status. At the same time, the same norms also make it difficult for women and girls to report violence.

RDF MEASURES TO PREVENT THIS IN INDIA – program seeks to reduce the vulnerability of women and children who are at risk of being trafficked. It includes programmes that mobilise communities and create awareness of trafficking and women’s rights, proactively reduces all crimes against women. Under the community engagement programme, we address the various social problems of the community be it rural or urban.

• Community Participation, Campaigns, workshops and Events
• • Participation of the community as a whole to be an integral part for the programme to be sustainable.
  • By empowering community we sustain the programmes with people’s ownership and bring impact on large number of people.
  • We focus on people’s participation and decision making which matters related to their lives, slums/villages and society at large.
  • Creates Inclusive Learner Friendly Environments’ in intervention schools in slums and villages
  • Maps of out-of-school children and works for their movement into schools.
  • Made it possible for families with limited means to send their children to school and provide admissions assistance
  • Promoting use of child-friendly and interactive teaching-learning methods
  • Forming Children Groups wherein children are empowered to speak and stand up for their rights

• Access Information
  • We work closely with communities and other stakeholders to help them become resilient to human trafficking. Communities need to have access to information to make the right choices that save lives and prevent children from being exploited. Children are trafficked from one community to another and to major cities in India.
  • RDF supports communities become high risk and low profit environments for traffickers. Through this we brings together the diverse stakeholders of a community, including law enforcement agencies, legal aid ,financial institutions, NGOs, CBO’s, faith networks and business , to work together by collecting and sharing information to stop and prevent Human Trafficking.
  • Hot Spots -Due to the complexity of this crime, the model relies on intelligence to identify hotspots and trends across the ever adapting trafficking environment.

• Address Demand and Supply Factor

We want to ensure that all communities have the opportunity to thrive with real results for vulnerable people. Our Community team is versatile. To decrease the demand for paid sex are also important. It is noteworthy that 83 per cent of traffickers said they procured women and children directly in response to the demand of destination areas.

• • RDF to intervene at different levels to help bring about a socio-economic change in the communities where we work. It adopts a bottom up approach to finding viable solutions by the community for the various issues plaguing it.
  • Programmes to reduce this demand would include educating boys through school-based gender sensitisation programmes and community programmes promoting women’s rights.
  • We work with a wide range of organisations, through these collaborative, co-created partnerships; we support individuals and organisations to provide real results for vulnerable children, their families and communities.

• Grass Root Legal Empowerment

Citizens around the world are demanding that governments fulfil their promise to provide access to justice for all people by 2030, in accordance with the 2030 agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Most of our basic human rights are guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. This includes Article 14 (equality before the law and equal protection by the law) and Article 39A (right to free legal aid).

• • RDF facilitates legal support to most vulnerable in communities through the Legal Aid Agency
  • Community awareness & access to legal aid
  • Conduct research and advocacy for legislative change
  • Create/strengthen legal awareness
  • Facilitate access to legal entitlements
  • Provide legal aid (legal counselling and legal representation) Train paralegals to improve quality of legal aid provided

Donate to RDF today to contribute your bit in making India’s vulnerable children safe.