PepperFritz
The Cosmic Force
Missing Children World Wide
At first I looked into the various non-governmental groups and agencies out there who keep databases and photos of currently missing children. An example would be the Missing Children Society of Canada, which currently has 53 children in its database. There is also the RCMP Missing Children Database*, which currently lists about a hundred kids. But that site carries the following proviso: "The only children appearing on this website are those which the respective law enforcement authorities request OMC to circulate. Therefore, out of all of the children who go missing yearly, only a few hundred appear here."
POSTSCRIPT:
I just found a 2007 CBC news article titled Missing Children, which includes a table provided by the "RCMP Missing Children Registry". It suggests that in 2005, once you subtract all the kids were subsequently found to have run away, wandered off, met an accident, or were taken by a parent, there were around 14,000 kids missing due to "kidnapping" and/or "unknown" or "other" reasons. Not clear if those kids were STILL missing at the time the table was compiled, or just "REPORTED missing". I suspect the latter; otherwise, the RCMP's Missing Children Database, and the Society of Canada's Database, would way larger than they are, or so I think....
* http://www.ourmissingchildren.gc.ca/omc/about/search_e.htm
I've done some research on the internet since then, and was not able to find ANY statistics on "children who are currently missing" and/or "children who went missing and were subsequently found to have met with foul play. The ONLY statistics relate to "children REPORTED missing". I really don't understand why that is. It certainly implies that law enforcement agencies really have NO IDEA how many children go missing due to foul play, in a given year -- or how many are currently missing under such circumstances.Vulcan59 said:Hi PepperFritz, I saw your comment in the original article at SOTT which made me want to look for more accurate numbers. Alas, I don't think it's going to be easy. I suspect that you might be right in stating that the figures are for, as you say, "children REPORTED missing".
.... how does one go about trying to get some accurate numbers?
At first I looked into the various non-governmental groups and agencies out there who keep databases and photos of currently missing children. An example would be the Missing Children Society of Canada, which currently has 53 children in its database. There is also the RCMP Missing Children Database*, which currently lists about a hundred kids. But that site carries the following proviso: "The only children appearing on this website are those which the respective law enforcement authorities request OMC to circulate. Therefore, out of all of the children who go missing yearly, only a few hundred appear here."
POSTSCRIPT:
I just found a 2007 CBC news article titled Missing Children, which includes a table provided by the "RCMP Missing Children Registry". It suggests that in 2005, once you subtract all the kids were subsequently found to have run away, wandered off, met an accident, or were taken by a parent, there were around 14,000 kids missing due to "kidnapping" and/or "unknown" or "other" reasons. Not clear if those kids were STILL missing at the time the table was compiled, or just "REPORTED missing". I suspect the latter; otherwise, the RCMP's Missing Children Database, and the Society of Canada's Database, would way larger than they are, or so I think....
* http://www.ourmissingchildren.gc.ca/omc/about/search_e.htm