Imphal, January 02 2010: At least 75 children including 24 girls were rescued from being transferred illegally and kept at unauthorised homes outside the State during 2009 .

Speaking to media persons today, Mala Lisham, Coordinator of Child Line Imphal, a unit constituted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development said that most of these children were intercepted from the way leading to different destinations of the country.

All these cases of illegal transfer or trafficking were initially detected by the unit after which the children were rescued by informing such units working in different States and other statesponsored agencies across the country, Mala said.

Citing the United Nations' protocol, Mala said that most of these cases amount to trafficking according to the definition of organized crime though these cases come under the nature of illegal transfer.

These children belonging to poor families were taken by the culprits on the false promise of giving free education outside Manipur.

She said that 25 children from the remote Kaibi village in Senapati district were rescued by Kolkata police from an Andhra Pradesh bound train in June.

These children were brought back to Manipur by Senapati Child Welfare Committee member LS Salony under the initiative of the Social Welfare Department.

Later the rescued children were handed over to their respective parents and guardians after giving proper counselling .

During the same month, six girls from Churachandpur district, who were about to leave Imphal for New Delhi in an inter-state bus, were rescued from a bus terminus at Imphal.

Another girl from Lamsang was also saved from being transferred to Madurai in November, she said.

"Recently a destitute girl from Assam's Hojai area was also rescued while being confined illegally at a house in Manipur and there is a serious allegation of sexual harassment against the girl," she said.

"Through our network , we managed to rescue 15 tribal girls from being illegally transferred to Chennai as another three children were also brought back from an illegal home at Bangalore last year," she said.

There might be a number of unreported cases of such child trafficking and illegal confinement.

Making a comparative study of past records, Mala observed that last year's figure showed heightened cases of organized crime against children.

She attributed this increasing trend of illegal transfer to poverty and unemployment of the victims' families.

Comment