Parents lost to Covid-19, young lives fall vulnerable to exploitation

The pandemic has exacerbated the crisis for the most vulnerable sections, and children who have lost a parent or have been orphaned are among the worst hit

As India reeled under a brutal second wave of the pandemic, appeals for adoption of children whose parents had succumbed to Covid-19 circulated widely on social media.

When an official of the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) called up a number, posing as an interested party, adoption was promised but in exchange for cash — the going rate was Rs 8 lakh for the custody of a boy and Rs 5 lakh for a girl. The child rights body alerted the police. And it passed on details of another suspected child trafficking racket to the West Bengal