Missing children

Missing children are "children whose whereabouts cannot be established and where the circumstances are out of character, or the context suggests the child may be subject of crime or at risk of harm to themselves or another". A child can be separated from parents or custodian either accidentally, when they run away, or when they are abducted, abandoned, injured, trapped or deceased.

In contrast to the plight of missing persons in general whose primary vulnerability is the lack of support from their close social groups, the vulnerability of a missing child is at once social, biological and cognitive. A child gone missing is an emergency as their tender age predisposes them to unexpected and serious harm. The plight of parents who have missed a child is often among the most agonising of the human conditions, as they do not know whether the child is safe or unsafe, dead or alive.

Instances of missing children are among the most evocative issues in society and the cases have attracted much attention in media as well as popular culture. The failure of agencies to rescue missing children in time has often witnessed massive reprisals from people, and this has precipitated grave political situations such as what followed the Kidnapping of Alexandra Măceșanu and Luiza Melencu when the death of the child led to massive public protest and extracted a heavy political toll on the government. In the United States, the disappearance of Etan Patz led to a series decisions at the national level including the declaration of the National Missing Children's Day. Nobel Committee underlined the importance of addressing the issue of missing children when it awarded Nobel Peace Prize to Kailash Satyarthi.