The Case of Missing Children: What You Can Do
Movies like Taken and The Call revolve around missing children in what can still be considered as very lucky circumstances. While they had to go through traumatizing events, they had the help of their CIA operative fathers or a very concerned emergency service agent.
While stories about child abduction make for good cinematic experience, the reality is less action-packed. In fact, according to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Missing Person File, there are 88,040 active missing persons on record as of December 2016, and out of all these, 33,706 (38.3%) are children under the age of 18.
Interestingly enough, stranger danger is not the main reason for such disappearances. In fact, most children who are reported missing are usually abducted by family members. Others were abducted by people they know but are non-relatives, and only a minor percentage classified being taken by strangers.
What could be taken as a learning point in movies, however, is that there is a time-frame for locating missing children, which is why every second counts in trying to locate them. As a parent or guardian who is not well-versed with CIA operations, how can you help the police find your missing child? Here are some things you can do to increase child security:
1) Always remember what your child is wearing. Parents today are also engulfed in social media networks. Your child’s daily OOTD (outfit of the day) photo could actually help you: police will need the most recent photo you have of your child, and you can provide them exactly that from your phone’s camera roll. This way, you can give them the information that they are looking for.
2) Fit your children with GPS trackers so that you will always have a way of locating them. Today, GPS trackers are small and can be hidden in children’s garbs. Many are even wearable, which is why it is a good way of keeping track of your child’s safety. However, it is important for parents to talk to older children regarding the use of a GPS tracker and let them understand that these are to be used for their security and not as a means to impede upon their privacy.
3) Use the AMBER Alert Program to find your child. The AMBER Alert stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response Alert Program, and it is a voluntary partnership to help find missing children in the United States. The decision to declare an AMBER alert usually lies in the police investigating the case; however, there are ways for parents to help as well. The goal of the program is to put an entire community together to assist in searching, monitoring, and recovering a lost child via information dissemination. This program actually helped solve many urgent cases and has helped parents retrieve their children.
The socio-economic climate today cannot guarantee child safety. However, as a parent, there are things you can do to make it easier for authorities to identify missing children, and these are only a few of the things you can do to help—not only for your own child, but for the safety of other children as well.
