Uttar Pradesh has shown significant progress in its response to crimes against children.
This was disclosed by Just Rights for Children JRC, the country’s largest child protection network. Operating with over 250 NGO partners across the country, including 29 partners in the state, JRC works closely with various government departments and law enforcement agencies to combat child marriage, child labour, child trafficking and child sexual abuse.
According to the JRC report released here on Friday, a total of 3,805 operations to rescue children from trafficking and labour were carried out by the JRC network with the help of the UP government in 2025-26, compared to 1,904 operations in 2023-24. Over 5,000 children were rescued through these direct interventions, and 919 FIRs were registered against the perpetrators during this period. This marks a huge leap from 2023-24, when only 261 FIRs were registered. During the year 2025-26, the Labour Department issued challans in over 2,552 such cases.
Similarly, a total of 17,303 child marriages were stopped by the Just Rights for Children network, which worked in close coordination with local administrations, Anganwadi workers, and grassroots police officials. While the majority of these marriages were prevented through written undertakings signed by the families of both the bride and groom, eight child marriages were stopped in the state through injunction orders, 30 through police interventions, and 19 cases resulted in the registration of an FIR. The network also provided critical support in 1,076 cases of child sexual abuse.
The significant improvement in the state’s urgency to combat such crimes coincides with extensive capacity-building workshops conducted for the Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) officials in recent years. A total of 1,585 LEA officials were trained by JRC across the state during 2025-26. Alongside enforcement, the network strengthened prevention measures by assisting the state government in linking 6,05,585 vulnerable families to various social welfare schemes.
Talking about the way the state has been actively and urgently combating crimes against children and its mission to make Uttar Pradesh child labour-free by 2027, Bhuwan Ribhu, Founder of Just Rights for Children, said, “I congratulate the Uttar Pradesh government for its commitment to making the state child labour-free by 2027. A Viksit Bharat can only be built when every child is educated, protected and empowered. With the support of the state government, more than 20,000 Surakshit Bal Grams will demonstrate what can be achieved through a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach. These villages will become a model for India and the world, showing how communities can come together to keep every child in school, free from labour and able to realise their full potential. Child trafficking for labour is fast emerging as an organised crime, and this decisive action by the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led government is the organised response needed to prevent it.”