In 2022, 43,202 disappearances of minors were reported in France to the police and gendarmes, according to the Ministry of the Interior: a child reported missing every 12 minutes. On the occasion of the International Day of Missing Children, the 116,000 Disappeared Children, emergency number managed by the Children’s Rights Foundation, publishes its first report. There are three categories of disappearances of minors: runaways, parental abductions and disturbing disappearances. 95% of these reports concern runaways.
In the photo, a teenage girl with green eyes and red hair in big curls, she smiles. The portrait is captioned Charlotte, aged 16, who disappeared on May 9, 2023. This is a wanted notice posted on the website of the 116,000 Missing Children emergency number.
There are just over 43,000 reports of disappearances of minors in 2022. Julien Landureau, advocacy manager, distinguishes runaways from kidnappings or disturbing disappearances: “ We always tend to think of the criminal act, the kidnapping, the kidnapping alert. However, these are cases that are extremely specific. An abduction alert, to be triggered, must really meet a number of very strict criteria, while we are going to publish wanted notices on the 116 website. 000. It is at the request of the parents and only with the authorization of the police and gendarmerie forces. »
Runaways largely in the majority
95% of reports of missing minors are runaways. The mission of 116,000 Disappeared Children is precise, it is to listen to worried parents and help them through the intervention of psychologists, lawyers or educators.
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Headphones and microphone, Suzanne Caton collects all the clues that will allow her to estimate the seriousness of the situation. Young runaway girls are more vulnerable, because there is a fear of sexual assault, the young lawyer evokes this specific case: ” We direct the parents to file a complaint against X if we do not identify the person, if for example a girl is staying with people and we suspect a risk of sexual exploitation. We encourage criminal prosecution. »
” A runaway is something serious »
Runaways are getting younger and younger. The reason for running away that comes up the most is the conflict with the parents, half of them have already run away for the first time. ” A runaway is never trivial. A runaway is always a space of danger for the child in which he exposes himself to any type of risk, whether it is obviously physical violence, but also addiction problems. A runaway is something serious that also means a lot of things, it does not happen on a whim, it is often motivated by much deeper reasons in the child. This is something that is really important to us and on which we want to insist. explains Julien Landureau.
The follow-up does not stop at the disappearance, the 116 000 teams also accompany the parents when the child returns to identify the causes of the runaway and prevent it from happening again.
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