Imphal, July 23: Taking serious note of the recent unabated reports of child kidnapping for making them child soldiers as well as for the purpose of child trafficking which has gained alarming proportion in the State, the Core Committee members representing all the District Juvenile Justice Boards and Child Welfare Committees operating in the State have jointly submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister with suggestions for preventive and reconstructive steps.

To ensure checking and prevention of this undesirable trend, the memorandum enumerated four suggestions.

The first suggestion is initiation of prompt intervention and adequate action for preventing the recent spate of child abduction cases in the State.

The second is appointment of First Class principal Magistrate in all the districts under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act, 2006.The third is establishment of special Juvenile Police Units in all the districts of the State and lastly, the fourth point suggested to make functional all the Observation Homes for adequately providing care and protection of juveniles in conflict with law.

The memorandum pointed out that the statistics of child abductions are increasing day after day.

Even in the newspaper edition of today, i.e.July 23, there are various reports of attempted abductions besides the startling report where four female children of the State who were bound for Bangkok for trafficking were rescued from the clutches of their traffickers at Dimapur due to the timely intervention of the officials concerned.

As responsible citizens rendering services in the field of the rights and welfare of the children, the Core committee members observed that the current trend of child abductions is a cause of great concern.

In the memorandum signed by convenor of Core Committee N Jeevanmala, on behalf of all other members further pointed out that due to lack of proper implementation and non-utilisation of the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 and its Amendment Act, 2006, the functioning of the various JJBs and CWCs established in all the districts in the State have been severely hampered.

Moreover, non-establishment of Special Juvenile Police Units in all districts and Observation Homes is a great impediment.