According to the report of National Crime Records Bureau of the Union ministry of home affairs-- Crime in India 2009-- Varanasi reports only 15 incident of crime committed against children while Kanpur records the maximum 162 cases, Lucknow 93 cases and Allahabad 26 cases in 2009. Besides, the incident of crime against children also decreased in Varanasi while a rise was seen in other mega cities. 

However, the activists working for child right protection say that the magnitude of crime against children may be many times more if all cases are recorded properly. Interestingly the NCRB reports no case of buying or selling of girls in Varanasi as claimed by people working in this field, who say many trafficked girls have been rescued in 2009-10. "We have rescued 10 victims, including eight minor girls in Varanasi district," claims Ajit Singh of Guria, an NGO working against human traffickers. According to him, his organisation has been fighting case against over 400 human traffickers in over 100 cases. He has also been included in the team constituted by the National Commission for Women ( NCW) to investigate trafficking channels from Azamgarh to the Middle East. 

Two poor minor girls were brought to Sarnath by a Tibetan couple and kept in captivity for 27 months. They were allegedly raped repeatedly by the man during that period. They somehow managed to flee from the captivity and took shelter of police in August 2009. The police arrested the couple and sent it to jail. According to the report of the Ministry of Women and Child Development on Child Protection in the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-2012), poverty is the root cause of trafficking of children for various purposes. 

According to report, India is home to more than one billion people, of who one-third are children under 18 years of age. The world's tenth largest economy unfortunately ranks 127 on the human development index (HDI). If all child rights indicators were to become a critical measure for HDI, India would fare even worse, especially because of its poor performance on child protection. India has the world's largest number of sexually abused children, with a child below 16 years raped every 155th minute, a child below 10 every 13th hour, and one in every 10 children sexually abused at any point of time. The girl children are especially at risk of violation of their protection rights simply because they are girls. It is estimated that 90% of trafficking for sexual exploitation is within the country. Many of those trafficked are children, sometimes as young as eight years old, or even younger. Trafficking is an organised crime. The nexus between traffickers, law enforcement officials and politicians allows very little scope for protecting children from being trafficked. Victims who are able to return to their communities often find themselves stigmatised or ostracised, and therefore are re-trafficked. 

But, the NCRB records show that the graph of crime against children is decreasing in Varanasi. The incidents of crime against children reduced from 20 in 2005 to 15 in 2009. However, an increase in such cases was recorded in other mega cities of the state. The records also reveal that Kanpur reports 18 cases of child rape followed by Lucknow (17), Varanasi (4) and Allahabad (2). Kanpur also leads in children kidnapping with 97 cases followed by Lucknow (39), Allahabad (11) and Varanasi (5) in 2009.

  The Times of India