Govt to launch website to help trace missing children

NEW DELHI: With 11 children disappearing every hour in the country, the government will on June 2 roll out a web platform for people to directly report, track and upload information on missing children.

The first-of-its-kind web portal will be launched by the Women and Child Development Ministry. It will serve as a platform for people to not only report a missing child but also track the efforts towards his or her recovery.

The website, www.khoyapaya.gov.in, will answer all queries as to what action is to be taken when a child goes missing.

A joint initiative of the WCD Ministry and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, the website will have three sections, 'My child is missing', 'I have sighted a child' and 'Search a missing child'.

The website will also provide links to court orders wherein police have been mandated to register an FIR in the matter of a child gone missing and treat it as either abduction or trafficking unless it is proved otherwise in the investigation.

"There is always a lack of information as to what can be done when a person loses a child. Since police play a very important role, the website will assist them in taking better help of police," said a ministry official.

According to a report by Alliance for People's Rights, a non-governmental organisation, on an average 18 children go missing in the national capital every day and four of them are never traced. The report said that parents of missing children often allege that authorities are not doing enough to help them and check such cases.