The Silent Exit: Why Young Women are going missing in Kathua and Samba

Sameer Rekhi

rekhi7sameer@gmail.com

Pick up a local newspaper in Jammu on any given morning, and you will see them. Small, black-and-white photographs of smiling young women. Below each face, a brief notice reads: Missing since Tuesday. Age 21. Height 5'2". Last seen leaving home for the market.

In the towns and villages of Kathua and Samba, this scene repeats itself with disturbing regularity. Police stations in Kathua receive roughly six to seven missing complaints involving women and girls every month, while Samba averages around five monthly reports, based on regional tracking data. Most are aged between 18 and 32.

A majority of the reported disappearances in Kathua emerge from the Billawar subdivision, with additional complaints registered at police stations across Kathua town, Basohli and Hiranagar. Many cases originate from rural and hilly terrain. In Samba district, disappearance reports are more frequently loged from areas like Samba, Ghagwal, Bari Brahmana and Vijaypur.

What is happening to them?

The answer is not a single mystery, but a mix of hard choices, broken promises and quiet desperation.

The Dream of a Better Life

In the remote hills of upper Kathua, life is quiet and job opportunities are few. A 20-year-old woman sitting in a small village sees the outside world through her phone screen. She wants a job, a salary and a future.

Sometimes, a stranger arrives with a promise. They offer a job in a big city or a place in a nursing college in another State. Desperate for a way out, the woman packs a small bag and leaves on an early morning bus. Days later, her phone goes switched off. Her family goes to the police, realising that the promise may have been a lie.

Not every such case necessarily turns out to be trafficking. But the possibility of deception or exploitation makes such disappearances particularly serious.

Choosing to Run Away

Other times, the escape is personal. In rural Jammu, family rules remain strict. Parents may decide whom a woman marries and how she lives her life.

When a young woman falls in love with someone from a different caste or religion, she may know that her family will never agree. Facing pressure for a marriage she does not want, or fearing anger and violence at home, she makes a choice. She packs her things in secret, meets her partner at a nearby bus stop and disappears into the crowd.

Her frantic family may file a kidnapping complaint. But the investigation may reveal that she left voluntarily to make her own choice about her future.

This distinction is important. A missing adult woman is not necessarily an abducted woman. The police have to establish what actually happened.

Trapped at Home

For married women in their twenties, the struggle often happens behind closed doors. Arguments over money, pressure from in-laws and domestic violence can push many to their breaking point.

Without access to counselling, legal support or money of their own, some women simply walk out of the door. They leave home, reach the main road and board a passing bus without telling anyone where they are going.

By the time the family approaches the police, the disappearance may look sudden. For the woman herself, it may have been the result of months of pressure.

Dangers on the Highway

Geography makes the problem more complex. Both Kathua and Samba lie along National Highway 44, the major road connecting Jammu with the rest of India. Traffic moves fast, and the Punjab border is less than an hour away from parts of the region.

Such connectivity can also make it easier for a person to move quickly from one place to another.

For those involved in human trafficking, vulnerable women and girls can become targets. Promises of employment, education or a better life can be used to lure them away from their homes.

But a missing-person report by itself does not establish trafficking. That has to emerge from investigation. Where did the woman go? Who contacted her? Who arranged her travel? Was she deceived or coerced? Was she taken for exploitation?

These are questions that have to be answered in each case.

A Problem Finally Seen

Years ago, families may have kept the disappearance of daughters a secret to protect their reputation. Today, that is changing. Families are more willing to approach the police, and the Jammu and Kashmir Police publish missing-person notices so that the public can help trace them.

The numbers may therefore tell more than one story. They may reflect actual disappearances, but they may also reflect a greater willingness of families to report them.

Either way, each number represents a person and a family waiting for an answer.

Mission Shakti

However, the response can be made more meaningful if the Social Welfare Department, under its Mission Shakti Programme, is made the nodal body to liaise with the police in matters concerning such missing women. The department could also conduct ground-level assessment surveys to determine and analyse the various factors behind this trend.

Such an exercise could look beyond the immediate question of where a woman has gone. It could examine why she left in the first place. Was it employment, education, a relationship, family pressure, domestic violence, economic dependence or the promise of a better life?

Once such knowledge is obtained, schemes and programmes for the safety, security, emancipation and empowerment of women in rural and remote areas can be designed more effectively.

Conclusion

The police can trace a missing woman. But tracing her is only the first step.

What happens afterwards matters too.

Does she need protection? Counselling? Legal assistance? A place to stay? Economic support? Or is she returning home by choice?

Each case can have a different answer.

Even though the police track down and bring back many of these women, finding them after they leave is only a temporary fix. Until young women in these villages get real job opportunities, the freedom to make their own choices, and safety at home, the notices in the morning paper will keep appearing.