India is a fun place but if your child is kidnapped all the fizz would just disappear from your life forever. If you happen to travel to India, you need to be careful with your children and keep an eye on them.
As a parent myself, I need to tell you about the child kidnapping industry in India. Tourists and Indian residents alike are venerable to child kidnapping. Although something like this can happen anywhere in the world as in the case of Madeleine Mccann. Madeleine Mccann was abducted by an unknown person on the evening of 3 May 2007 while holidaying with her parents in the Algarve of Portugal and has still not been found. Similarly, as a parent you too need to take utmost care of your child when holidaying in India.
Child kidnapping industry in India
About 11 children are kidnapped in India every hour of the day of which half of them are never found. Child trafficking is the third largest profitable industry of the world and India seems to be in the thick of it. India is not only the source, but a destination and transit point for this heinous crime.
Your guess to what happens to these abducted children is as good as mine. Please read them to understand why kidnapping of children takes place.
Why children are abducted
To be used as prostitutes; the biggest reasons for child abduction,
Child abuse and sexual exploitation,
Used as light weight camel jockeys in Arabic nations,
Organ trade and harvesting,
Ransom, as the Indian economy booms so does rise in child abduction,
A case of cannibalism has also been reported,
Human sacrifice to please the gods,
Used as forced labour, domestic servants, work in factories
Used as beggers by gangs after hands and legs are chopped off (read about beggars in India),
Child trafficking to international borders,
Forced into marriages,
Illegal adoption,
Medical trials; yes it does happen
Shipped and used as child soldiers in other countries to fight.
Kidnapping of your child is something that you must be careful of when travelling in India. The worst places for child kidnapping include;
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have the largest number of people trafficked. Trafficking is also high in Rajasthan, Assam, Meghalaya, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
Some child safety tips while in holidaying in India
Tell your children not to wander off,
Ask them not to talk to strangers,
Carry your child’s hair for DNA identification,
Don’t make them wear provocative clothing that may appear attractive older men,
Make sure your child knows their name and address, contacts in India,
Always keep an eye on your child,
If you are on the Indian Railways, make sure you don’t completely go to sleep. Many children are
kidnapped while both parents are sleeping. Watch the video below.
Instruct your child to “yell” when they think that they are being abducted. The Indian general public is very respondent in such matters. A crowd will quickly accumulate and might even beat the abductor.
Child abduction – Real story with English subtitles
A personal story
When I was a child of three years, me and my parents had gone to Kathmandu in neighbouring country of Nepal. Nepal is a beautiful country with identical culture and language. Indians often travel to Nepal for shopping and site seeing.
While my mum was shopping in a “saree shop”, I wandered out of the shop several meters away. I quickly realised that I was lost and did not know where my mum was. I started crying and some Nepalese students took me and started to take me to the police station. En route, I saw my dad in a road side garage getting his car fixed. I shouted out to him and came immediately. He asked the boys to give his child to him which they refused and took us all to the police station. There the matter was sorted and I was returned.
Now if I had been in the wrong hands of child kidnappers, I would have been easily been kidnapped and god knows what would have happened.
Moral of the story is, keep an eye on your child, and instruct them not to walk away from you, hold their hands all the time. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
A child being abducted on CCTV of Mumbai station
A man was caught abducting a small girl seen in a series of CCTV footages. You can see in this video that a man sits close to a sleeping family on the railway platform and then in a flash gets up and walks away with the child. It’s that easy. That is why you need to alert and cautious when travelling in India.
Beware of child abduction in India
This article is not to frighten or scare you away from India but to alert you that kidnapping and abduction of children do happen. Just be safe, child abduction does happen.