One-third calls to child helpline since 2015 were muted; could be silent pleas for help, say officials

New Delhi: About one-third of the calls received by Childline Foundation since 2015 were muted where background sound was audible but the caller was quiet, which the national emergency helpline for children in distress believes might be silent call for help. [caption id=“attachment_3374228” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational photo. Image courtesy News18[/caption] A total of 3.4 crore calls have been received by the Childline Foundation since 2015, according to official data which showed that over one crore of those calls were silent. The muted calls could be a silent call for help where the child is not able to gather courage to talk or having second thoughts over reporting the incident, an official working with Childline said. According to the official data, there are a total of 450 childline contact centres across the country which received 6.6 lakh complaints. In 2017-18 alone, over 80,000 complaints of abuse were received through Childline and over 31,000 calls were related to missing children information. Official data showed that Childline received about 1.4 crore calls in 2017-18 (till 30 June) and on an average of around 10 lakh calls are received every month. According to activists, there are about 17 million victims of human trafficking in India and 40.3 million globally.