As many as 932 children were reported missing between January and May 2026 in Keralam, according to the State’s Women and Child Development department (WCD).
Family issues/stress accounted for 343 of these cases, a submission made by the department at a zonal consultation for southern States convened by a committee constituted by the Supreme Court for preparation of a standard operating procedure (SOP) on missing children/child or human trafficking said.
Elopement with romantic partners or friends accounted for 161 cases, while kidnapping cases came to nine. Significantly, most of these missing children were traced within a week, according to officials.
In the year 2023, 2,401 children went missing. Of them, 2,397 were traced. In 2024, 2,665 of the 2,681 children reported missing were traced. In 2025, of the 2,600 children reported missing, all but 26 were traced.
When fertility falls
The WCD submission also pointed out that fertility had fallen to below replacement in Kerala. International experience has shown that where fertility fell while demand for children and cheap labour persisted, markets in human beings — infants at birth, children and women for sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced labour, organ removal and begging — expanded and established themselves unless systems were built in advance to check these.
According to the WCD, a total of 716 drives were conducted during 2025–26 for prevention of child trafficking and child labour. Of these, 168 were conducted jointly with the police.
Trafficking cases
The rescued children were either released to family or sent for institutional care or repatriated through child welfare committees (CWCs). Where trafficking with the involvement or connivance of the family was found, the children were not restored, and care and protection vested with the State authorities and the child welfare committees.
As many as 44 meetings of task forces for missing children that function in all districts through inter-departmental coordination (Labour, WCD, Kerala Police, Health, and local self-government institutions) had been held. The task forced had identified 150 hotspots relating to child trafficking and children in street situations, according to the WCD.
APL households
Interestingly, 61% of the children reported missing in the first five months of 2026 were from APL (above-the-poverty-line) households. “The emotional, social and economic vacuum around the child — not the stranger at the gate — drives most disappearances,” according to the WCD.
The State plans to implement ward-wise vulnerability mapping of families by the DCPUs; panchayat-level support committees to address underlying economic, social and mental-health problems of mapped families; a supervised cadre of trained social-work students and practitioners assigned to the children identified as vulnerable and provide them sustained emotional support.
Other measures that are planned include regular awareness classes for children, families and communities through schools and anganwadis — covering grooming, enticement, online risks, safe migration, and the lawful complaint channels; counselling-led repatriation that is institutionalised through DCPU counsellors; and continued interventions in the hotspots and continuation of Saranabalyam drives.
Published – August 25, 2026 07:00 am IST
