According to information tabled in the Parliament last week by the Union Home Ministry, more than 13 lakh girls and women have went missing in the country in the 3 years between 2019-2021. Most of them were from Madhya Pradesh followed by West Bengal. 10,61,648 women above 18 years and 2,51,430 girls below that age went missing in the 3 years across the country. The data was compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Out of which 1,60,180 women and 38,234 girls were from Madhya Pradesh and 1,56,905 women and 36,606 girls went missing from West Bengal.

During the same period, 1,78,400 women and 13,033 girls went missing from Maharashtra. In Odisha, 70,222 women and 16,649 girls went missing, while 49,116 women and 10,817 girls went missing from Chhattisgarh in these 3 years. Delhi has the highest number of missing girls and women among the Union Territories with the national capital having 61,054 women and 22,919 girls missing from 2019-2021 while in Jammu and Kashmir, 8,617 women and 1,148 girls went missing in the said period.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) website, 82,619 girls went missing in 2019 and 49,436 were recovered. In the same year, 3,29,504 women went missing, and 1,68,793 were recovered. In 2020, 79,233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing. Of these, 2,24,043 women were recovered while the number of girls recovered in 2019 was not given. “In 2021, 90,113 girls went missing and 58,980 were recovered. 3,75,058 women went missing and 2,02,298 were recovered,” the data shows.

The government also told the parliament that it has undertook multiple initiatives for the safety of women which includes enactment of The Criminal Law (Amendment), Act, 2013, for effective deterrence against sexual offences. The government also enacted laws that were more stringent and included the death penalty for the rape of girls below the age of 12. One of the law enacted also mandates completion of investigation and filing of charge sheets in rape cases in two months and trials to be completed in another two months.

The government launched the Emergency Response Support System which provides a pan-India, single internationally recognized number (112) based system for all emergencies, with computer-aided dispatch of field resources to the location of distress. Using technology to aid smart policing and safety management, Safe City Projects have been sanctioned in the first phase in eight cities: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Mumbai.

The home ministry also launched a cybercrime reporting portal on September 20, 2018, for citizens to report obscene content. The home ministry also launched the National Database on Sexual Offenders on September 20, 2018, to facilitate the investigation and tracking of sexual offenders across the country by law enforcement agencies.