Geographies of child disappearance: child trafficking and spatial vulnerability in Anita Nair’s Chain of Custody and Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line

The contemporary urban landscape of Indian metropolitan cities is marked by spatial marginalization and the persistent invisibility of vulnerable populations, resulting in mysterious disappearances and the trafficking of children. Existing literary scholarship on child trafficking largely centers on criminology, public policy, and legal studies; yet, they overlook the crucial role of space in enabling such crimes, producing vulnerability among economically disadvantaged children. This study examines Anita Nair’s Chain of Custody (2016) and Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (2020) through Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad to foreground how representations of space, spatial practices, and lived experiences construct precarious geographies in which crimes like child trafficking become everyday phenomena. It further draws on vulnerability theory to demonstrate how certain spaces render children susceptible to exploitation in the hands of traffickers, heightening their spatial vulnerability. Through close textual analysis of select novels, the paper argues that the urban spaces of metropolitan cities, such as slums, transit points, marketplaces, and religious sites, function not merely as backdrops but as the breeding grounds for trafficking networks. In doing so, the study underscores the imperative role of literary fiction in raising public awareness and narrative empathy for the countless missing children.