43,515 children reported missing last year: WCD

Responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Union Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani Thursday said that 2,34,839 children have gone missing in the last five years — 43,515 of these in 2020 — and 2,07,880 of them have been found so far, as per the TrackChild portal created by the ministry.

The portal was created by the ministry to track missing children, with police stations, Juvenile Justice Boards and Child Care Institutions being asked to update information regularly.

There are 66,778 children in institutional care across the country, with another 6,087 children living in open shelters and 3,716 children at specialised adoption agencies, according to the minister’s statement.