Protecting Our Children Must Become a National Priority

We find it deeply concerning that thousands of children across the country are vanishing from our streets, neighbourhoods, and even their own homes every single year. The heartbreaking loss of thirteen-year-old Ishayat Shahriar Apratim - found dead in the Lalmai hills just hours after stepping out to take photos with friends - brings this nightmare right to our doorstep, reminding us just how fragile our children’s safety has become. This is no longer a scattered collection of distant family tragedies; it is a worsening human crisis that reveals deep, painful gaps in how we protect our young and enforce our laws. Against this backdrop, protecting our children must become an urgent national priority.

This alarming reality is starkly reflected in official records. Between January and July this year alone, Police Headquarters logged 15,717 missing children reports, an alarming rate of roughly 74 children lost every day, or one reported missing every 19 minutes. While law enforcement authorities eventually rescued or traced nearly 87 per cent of these youngsters, 2,038 boys and girls remain completely untraced. Consequently, nearly ten families every single day are left living through an agonising, endless nightmare, waiting for a key to turn in the door or a phone call that never comes.

Behind these tragic outcomes lies a dark, organised network of predatory traps that threaten our young people every time they step outside. Abduction rings demand steep ransom payments, human trafficking networks force children across international borders, and infants are stolen directly from hospital maternity wards. At the same time, even digital connectivity that once promised as a tool for progress has turned into dangerous bait, with expensive smartphones and social media apps drawing unsuspecting teenagers into deadly traps. Whether through direct abduction or grooming, predators operate with disturbing boldness across both physical and digital spaces.

While police efficiency in logging reports through digital portals has certainly improved, tracing children after they have fallen victim to syndicates can never substitute for proactive prevention. The question then our authorities must confront is clear: Why do predatory networks still find so much space to operate in our communities? Expanded reporting mechanisms and administrative updates mean very little if criminal rings continue to act with near-total impunity and sluggish judicial proceedings fail to hold perpetrators accountable.

To break this cycle, our government must step forward and treat this crisis as the absolute national emergency it is. We need seamless, real-time coordination among police personnel, border security guards, hospital staff and social service providers to dismantle child-theft rings, secure exit points and monitor online threats before harm occurs. Ultimately, child protection is not just a line item in a police routine; it is the ultimate test of our moral health as a society. A nation is judged not by the expansion of its infrastructure, but by the safety and dignity it affords its youngest citizens, and unless we act decisively today, no home will ever truly feel safe.