As many as 10,61,648 women above the age of 18 and 2,51,430 girls below went missing across the country between 2019 and 2021, according to Union Home Ministry data tabled in Parliament last week. 1,60,180 women and 38,234 girls went missing in Madhya Pradesh between 2019 and 2021.
In the three years between 2019 and 2021, more than 13.13 lakh girls and women went missing in the country. Most of them were from Madhya Pradesh. whereas in this case West Bengal is in second place, where maximum number of girls and women have gone missing in these two years. In fact, the Central Bill presented in the Parliament last week according to Home Ministry data, 10,61,648 women above the age of 18 and 2,51,430 girls below went missing between 2019 and 2021 across the country.
In Odisha, 70,222 women and 16,649 girls went missing in the three years, while 49,116 women and 10,817 girls went missing from Chhattisgarh in the same period. Among Union Territories, Delhi recorded the highest number of missing girls and women. In the national capital, 61,054 women and 22,919 girls went missing between 2019 and 2021, while 8,617 women and 1,148 girls went missing in Jammu and Kashmir.
The government also informed Parliament that it has taken several initiatives for the safety of women across the country, including the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 for effective prevention against sexual offences. Further, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018 has been amended to deal with rape of girls below 12 years of age it was enacted to lay down even more stringent penal provisions, including the death penalty, for rape.
The Act also mandates completion of investigation and filing of charge sheets in rape cases in two months and completion of trial in the next two months.
The government has launched the Emergency Response Support System, a pan-India, single internationally recognized number for all emergencies (112) based system, in which field resources are sent to the distress location with computer assistance.
Using technology to aid smart policing and security management, in the first phase, safe city projects have been approved in eight cities – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Mumbai.
Ministry of Home Affairs launched a cyber crime reporting portal on September 20, 2018 for citizens to report obscene content. The Ministry of Home Affairs also launched the National Database on Sex Offenders on September 20, 2018 to facilitate investigation and tracking of sex offenders across the country by law enforcement agencies.
