Almost 174 children go missing everyday and around 10 lakh children go missing every year in India and almost half of them remain untraced. Most of the children go missing from rural areas .Unfortunately, looking for a missing child requires time, manpower and resources, and India as a nation falls short on all of those especially in the absence of a National Missing Persons repository. Also interstate police co-ordination in India is extremely poor and hence many children remain untraced forever. ActionAid India wanted to help protect children in a non-intrusive manner. They wanted to look for a way to track the child through GPS such that it could also facilitate inter-state police co-ordination and thus help bring back missing children.

For the first time a deep rooted cultural superstition that was supposed to ward off evil was turned into a progressive cutting edge technology device that helps ward off evil for real. Naming the device "Kaala Teeka" helped in gaining acceptance from rural parents who are averse to technological products especially for children. Kaala Teeka is a compact portable longlasting GPS device that could be camouflaged on person of any child to ensure that he can be tracked in case of trafficking. The device, small and light-weight, can be concealed in tight spaces such as child’s school bag, pencil case, tiffin box…even the heel of a shoe and is securely linked to the parents’ phones, thereby allowing easy tracking of the exact location of the child via SMS. Keeping in mind children and their activities, the device is designed as highly durable, damage-proof, water-resistant, and has a long-lasting rechargeable battery.

In India great technology alone doesnt work unless it has societal and cultural acceptance. To ensure parents accepted and trusted the device , we strategically named it "Kaala Teeka" which is the name given to a black dot made using Kohl on a child to ward off evil. Thus, we leveraged a deep rooted cultural practice to ward off evil into a compact portable longlasting GPS device that helped ward off the evil of child trafficking. The device was designed to be cost-effective, highly durable and long-lasting and could be used by feature phones without the need for an app. To protect child’s location privacy and ensure battery life is saved, the device only works when pinged thereby having dual benefits of child location privacy and battery life which lasts for 6-7 days thereby working for rural parents where electricity is scarce.

Kaala Teeka is based on Machine-to-Machine SIM (or M2M SIM) technology that enables it to communicate with a mobile phone. The device is pre-programmed with a command which is set off when an SMS is received and enables detection of GPS co-ordinates. Post detection a reply SMS is sent withco-ordinates to the mobile phone which released the initial SMS. ActionAid India piloted this device in the remote village of Haryana by sensitizing and urging parents to use the device as a powerful tool of protection for their child. Schools were reached out to and through them the device was distributed to parents. The device was introduced and explained to village elders and leaders to gain their support in promoting and recommending the device across the village. Over 100 devices were piloted in 3 villages over three months. This is now being extended to other villages and cities across India.

Over 100 devices were piloted in 3 villages

Campaign attracted national TV coverage on NDTV; The Ex-Education and IT Minister of the state of Bihar pledged support to the campaign. The Deputy Superintendent of Police praised the campaign and acknowledged it as a much-needed initiative to stop child trafficking.

Due to the introduction of a campaign that not only provided a solution for a pressing issue but also incorporated an age-old belief within the solution, Kaala Teeka soon gained popularity and the support of young parents from remote and vulnerable areas. The smart, concealable design and sheer simplicity of the product garnered a positive response among parents and elders of the pilot villages. The village leaders (sarpanch) and school principals actively promoted the device heavily.

Government bodies from across the country are considering distributing the handy device to many schools in their districts.