Keralam moots prevention-led SOP for missing children

What Happened

The Kerala state government has put forward a proposal to embed a prevention component within a standard operating procedure (SOP) on missing children and child or human trafficking. The scope of the proposal includes identifying vulnerable families and children, providing community-level emotional and social support, sensitising teachers and anganwadi workers, conducting awareness education, and offering counseled repatriation. The案 argues that enforcement alone will not address disappearances because emotional, social, and economic voids surrounding the child contribute to vanishings. The proposal also allows states to tailor the prevention approach to local conditions, noting that what fits Kerala’s largely institutional framework may not suit other states. The WCD department additionally suggested that the SOP should explicitly outline the various purposes behind trafficking, so that investigation, rescue, and rehabilitation protocols can be attached to each case. These purposes include: trafficking of infants at birth for illegal adoption; sexual exploitation; domestic servitude; forced or cheap labour; organ removal; and begging. For each purpose, enforcement should follow the complete chain—from recruiter and transporter to source, and forward to placement agencies, employers, brothels, institutions, or buyers—rather than stopping at rescue. Awareness efforts in schools, source communities, migrant families, and transit points, along with victim-centered rehabilitation, should be integrated into the SOP. The department also urged building traceability, demand-side liability, and reunification infrastructure ahead of the infant trafficking market’s entrenchment. On a national level, the proposals floated a possible uniform framework for anonymous pregnancy care centres attached to government hospitals or women welfare institutions. They also recommended a mother-linked record for every institutional live birth within one hour of delivery, with automatic auditing provisions for stillbirths or neonatal deaths certified by a second, independent doctor. Additional suggestions included reconciling newborn exits from private facilities against registered births, declaring abandoned or surrendered children as legally free for adoption within statutory periods, and prosecuting intermediaries and buyers. Other ideas advocated by the WCD department include: recognizing domestic work as an organized sector with registration for workers and employers; registering every adolescent worker with verified identity, employer, and wages; mandating registration and monitoring of placement agencies and recruiters with verifiable records; and treating unregistered agencies as trafficking offences—then shutting them down and potentially using their assets to compensate victims. The proposals were presented during a zonal consultation for southern states convened by a Supreme Court‑appointed committee following court directives.