Seven years ago, Kusum formed an organization to help find missing children. The numbers of missing children in India are astonishing, and the reality of what happens to them is spine chilling. She has been able to make her concerns heard in the parliament and continues with her campaign in hopes that more people will join her.
Delhi: Imagine the pain of those parents whose children are abducted, and they never get to experience life the same way again. They live in constant sorrow looming over their heads. The separation from one’s kids is unbearable in every form and to feel completely helpless at the loss of your children gives such insufferable pain.
Kusum Kandwal Bhatt understands their sorrows and runs a campaign to find missing children and to reunite them with their parents.
Story of Kusum Bhatt
Kusum grew up in Maharashtra and relocated to Delhi after her marriage. Her husband manages family business, and the couple has two children. Kusum’s organization is called ‘Search My Child’. An incident near her neighbourhood led her to form this organization. Let’s read about that.
Leaving the engineering job
In the year 2016, a young girl went missing in Noida. She had known that girl personally, so she helped the police in the investigation. However, the police could not find the child. Kusum shares that the same day, a woman noticed her and came up to her to ask for help. She learned about the woman’s missing son and told her that she was not a social worker. The woman was extremely emotional and Kusum felt empathetic for her. At first, she did not know what to do. But when the woman fell at her feet and started pleading, Kusum could not resist herself from helping her.
Unable to sleep that night, Kusum decided to dedicate all her time in the search of missing children. She searched for that woman’s son but found him dead. The mother was devastated to receive the news.
Discussions in the parliament
Post that incident, Kusum started a full-fledged campaign. She gave up her engineering job and started pursuing a master’s degree in social work. Soon, Kusum began with her research. She made an appeal to the government that the police department must diligently carry out their duties to find these children and protect them from harm. Her concerns reached Parliament when the then Chief Minister of Uttarakhand raised the issue in the Lok Sabha.
Abducted children are forced to beg
As per the Union Ministry of India, more than one lakh children go missing every year. Kusum shares that some groups operate in big cities that abduct poor children and make them their slaves. The kids are pushed into the forbidden work of human trafficking and are made to beg on the streets. There are cases, when the vital organs of these kids are removed and smuggled in black market. These groups often amputate an arm or a leg of these innocent children, to make them look pitiful for begging.
These heinous crimes occur under the presence of strong police forces. And still, the latter don’t put in enough effort to save these children from this monstrosity.
Awareness campaign in schools
Kusum organizes awareness camps in schools of Delhi. So far, 350 of these camps have been organized in schools. She mentions she doesn’t have enough funds to run a large-scale campaign across the country but hopes that more people will join her to help her in this cause.
She does not feel dejected at leaving her stable job instead the joy she manages to bring to a family after reuniting a child with his parents, is most invaluable and worth every effort.
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