Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala is turning out to be a highly unsafe place to be for children as instances of horrendous crimes perpetrated on them rise alongside cases registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
As many as 214 children were killed in the state in the last seven years and at least 9,604 fell victims to sexual abuse — the latest being the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl allegedly by a labourer from her home state, Bihar.
There has been a huge spike in crimes against children, revealed police data. The number of crimes against children reported from 2016 to May 2023 stood at 31,364.
In 2021, 41 children were murdered in the state; over 20 cases were reported from 2016 to 2023.
159 migrant workers booked for murder
Meanwhile, in the last seven years, 159 migrant workers were named accused in 118 murder cases.
A survey conducted by the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation in 2013 found there were 25 lakh migrant workers in Kerala. The data of the Planning Board in 2021 put the number at 34 lakh migrant workers.
During the covid pandemic, migrant workers had returned to their home states en masse but a good majority had returned.
As scores of new workers have also arrived in the state, and their number is believed to have increased.
On Saturday, the body of the girl who had gone missing from her house at Garage Junction, near Aluva town, the previous evening was found. She was the child of a migrant couple from Bihar.
Medical examination confirmed the girl was raped and strangulated before she was brutally assaulted andf killed. Her suspected abductor and rapist was arrested. The latter, who is also from Bihar, was staying on the first floor of the building where the child's family was residing.
