No child belonging to Tamil Nadu trafficked abroad, government tells HC

No children from Tamil Nadu were trafficked abroad from Mumbai, the state government submitted in the Madras High Court Monday, citing a special team's visit to various shelters in Maharashtra's capital city. The government, filing its status report in connection with a batch of petitions on child trafficking before a division bench, comprising justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee, refuted claims in a section of the media that 300 children of Tamil Nadu were trafficked.

Months ago, a boy hailing from a village near Tirutani in Tiruvallur district had gone to Mumbai and he was traced to a children's home in that city and handed over to his parents, the report said. Subsequently, this month when he came to Mumbai on his own, he was rescued again and handed over to his parents, it added. Citing a special team's visit to Mumbai with the assistance of the Versova police station personnel, the report said an inquiry revealed that children from Gujarat were trafficked to America.

From Gujarat, in April 2017, one boy and two girls, and in November that year, another boy and a girl were trafficked to California and New York respectively, it said. However, no children from Tamil Nadu were trafficked abroad, the report said. Replying to queries raised by the bench in the last hearing, the government submitted that a total of 4,824 accused were arrested for offences under the POCSO Act. The court questioned Public Prosecutor Emilias whether any investigation was conducted on unregistered child care homes and orphanages in Tamil Nadu.

It impleaded the Social Welfare Department as well as the Director of Social Welfare, Tamil Nadu, as respondents on the batch of petitions related to child trafficking. Expressing dissatisfaction with the status report, the bench said more information could be accessed by tapping on the search engine Google. The court posted the matter for further hearing to October 25 after directing the public prosecutor to file a report on unregistered child care homes.

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