By Sarah Mills

Every year hundreds of children go missing from India’s state-run care homes and are condemned to re-trafficking and abuse, found a recent Freedom of Information request ordered by local anti-trafficking organisation OdanadiSeva Trust.

The shocking figures revealed that between 2001-2011, 891 children went missing from homes in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, which works out at more than one child per week. Furthermore, four children died in “unexplained circumstances” while under the care of the government.

This recent revelation now presents some uncomfortable truths for the Indian Government, but this problem isn’t confined to India: the UK fares even worse in its care and protection of trafficked children. India and the UK – two countries vastly different in so many ways – and yet sadly similar when it comes to dealing the most vulnerable members of society: trafficked children.

Freedom of Information findings published last month in an investigation by the Guardian revealed that in 2009, 173 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children went missing from Kent social services alone. That amounts to more than three childrenper week. A 2009 report by the Home Affairs Committee found that up to 60% of ‘suspected child victims in local authority care go missing and are not subsequently found’.

Thousands of children are trafficked into the UK and are exploited in prostitution, domestic slavery, begging and cannabis factories. Rather than being offered protection and support by social services, they face a new battle due to their lack of asylum status, age disputes and being prosecuted for crimes they are forced to commit by their traffickers rather than recognised as a victim of trafficking.

The Governments of the UK and India are manifestly failing in their duty of care to protect vulnerable children and lack of resources or awareness must not be used as an excuse to condemn them to a cycle of exploitation and abuse.

To call the Government of India to account for the children going missing and dying under its watch, please sign our petition at http://www.change.org/petitions/ask-the-indian-government-who-is-the-responsible-fo
r-4-deaths-and-891-missing-children

OdanadiSeva Trust is a grassroots charity, working in both India and the UK, which for the past 21 years has been working against all forms of violence and discrimination against women and children in Karnataka, South India, with a special focus on human trafficking and domestic violence.