Citation

Mehta MN, Bhatt SS, Gore MG. Child Abuse Negl. 1979; 3(2): 615-621.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1979, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Kidnapping has become an important social and judicial problem over the years. Parents usually get worried about a child's sickness and seek advice or help even for minor ailments. However adequate attention is not being paid to his day to day needs. Such a child starts feeling deprived, insecure, unwanted and craves for attention and love outside his home and thus becomes an easy prey for kidnapping. This paper includes study of 100 kidnapped children between the ages of 3 to 16 years, over a period of 3 years in the city of Bombay. Of these children, 96% were girls and majority of them were hindus. Surprisingly 46% of the cases were willing victims. The motives for kidnapping were prostitution (3.4%), selling (4.5%), for the purpose of begging (4.5%), employment and bootlegging (51.6%), vengence (3.5%), sexual gratification (29.1%) and domestic servant (3.4%). Extreme poverty, broken homes, antisocial surrounding, illiteracy and lack of interest on the part of parents were conspiciously observed, which created a background suitable for kidnapping. These 100 kidnapped children were rescued, rehabilitated and restored to their parents.