“So, what happens to her? I mean, after we leave?”
Missing & Abducted Children.
In the United States it is estimated that 460,000 children go missing every year. The National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children categorizes missing children’s cases under five separate umbrellas: Familial abductions; Stranger abduction; Ran/Thrown away; Lost, stranded, or injured; and Benign reasons (such as misunderstandings).
Familial abductions occur when someone other than a legal guardian takes a child from their custody and refuses to return them. Familial abductions are mostly done by a non-custodial parent, however any person in a child’s family who removes them without theirs or their guardian’s consent qualifies as a familial abductor.
Stranger abductions involve a child being transported 50ft or more from where they were taken, detained for more than hour, held for ransom, and/or with the intent to keep the child permanently; kidnappings involve a use of threat or force. These instances are rare, however they are considered much more dangerous than familial abductions.
Children who have run away from home leave the home of their caretakers without permission, but whose caretakers make consistent efforts to recover them and return them home. There are many risk factors involved for children who have or who attempt to run away from home. Many include abuse, continual conflict with guardians, mental illness (whether diagnosed, treated, or neither), gang activity, pregnancy, or desire to be with someone from outside the home. Children who have been thrown away from home are those who have been forcibly removed from their home by their caretakers, and whose caretakers have made no effort to recover them; or whose guardians abandon them and have made no effort to recover them. Many of the risk factors for children who run away overlap with those who are deserted.
In benign cases, of the estimated 2,000 children reported missing each day, 800 of these cases were misunderstandings (such as a false alarm).
Though both the thought and statistics can seem grim when talking about missing and abducted children, there is still hope. Thanks to global efforts and the determination law enforcement, parents/guardians, and loved ones, 99% of children who are missing are returned home alive.
