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How To Protect Your Child From Strangers

How To Protect Your Child From Strangers  
by Camilla Dessing

50 balloons were released last week by the British parents of missing girl Madeleine Mccain, marking the 50th day of their daughter’s disappearance after she was abducted from a hotel apartment in Portugal on May 3rd. On this day too, people from all over the world prayed for the safe return of Madeleine, yet with each passing day, the chances of her safe recovery grows slimmer.

77,000 UK children reported missing every year
The moment your child comes into this world your heart fills with an immeasurable joy, yet at the same time you begin to fear that something can go wrong, that there is something out there you wont be able to protect your baby from. Or someone. Perhaps the danger we fear the most is the one luring in the streets, the strangers who could take our child away the split second we’re not watching over them. In the UK around 77,000 children are reported missing every year. Some are found and returned, others return home on their own. Some children are never found.

What defines an abduction?
“Missing” is a term that is widely used in law enforcement and refers to a child missing under virtually any conditions, even if its just a case of a simple misunderstanding of the child’s whereabouts, the incident will be recorded as a “missing child”. Out of the thousands of children that go missing in the UK - most of them runaways - the vast majority turn up again safe and sound within 72 hours, yet there are still children in the hundreds that never return home. When we hear about child abduction in the media it is usually a non-parental abduction. That is because this type of abductions is much less frequent and much more dangerous, it is estimated that over 40 percent of these incidents ends with the child’s death.

The police recorded 846 attempted child abductions in 2002/2003. Over half of these were abductions attempted by strangers, fortunately no more than nine percent of these were successful, still a devastating total of 68 successful abductions. Parents are behind the majority of most successful abductions, usually committed where there is a situation of custodial fight with the other parent. According to Reunite, the leading UK charity specializing in international child abduction, parental abductions have been on the rise in the UK by a 79% increase since 1995. This could be due to an increase in marriages across nationalities. When parents split up, one parent might try to flee and bring the child to his or hers native country.

With the knowledge that most successful abductions are committed by parents, and with the Home office (2002) reporting the number of homicide by strangers involving children to be an average of seven each year for the last twenty year, parents can be lulled into a false sense of security believing the threat of stranger abductions is insignificant. But it is dangerous to assume that children are not in danger for being abducted, abused or exploited. The number of abduction and homicide by stranger involving children every year may not be a large, but it’s vital to remember, that before an abduction or a homicide can be recorded, there has to be evidence of such, and many children who go missing every year are unaccounted for. The Police National Missing Persons Bureau (PNMPB) holds statistics on missing children, and based on an average on the last four years, they recorded 115 children under the age of fourteen and 66 children from the age 14-17 missing - in total a number of 181 children that had been missing for 14 days or longer. Add to this that not all forces submit all of their reports to PNMPB.

The Stranger Danger Myth
Sadly many children involved in non-parental abductions are abducted at the hands of pedophiles, and disturbingly many of these offenders are already familiar with the victim. Even if it’s just a case of a single brief previous encounter, the law no longer considers the offender as a stranger. And neither do the children.

For years parents have been rehearsing their children about the “Stranger Danger” but unfortunately children have a different perception of what a stranger is, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Recent research by the non-profit international organization found, that in case of long-term kidnapping, in which the child was found alive, 85 percent of the victims did not consider the offender to be a stranger. And in at least 65 percent of the cases where the child was found dead, and the offender identified, it became clear that the child had not considered the person a stranger. It is therefore vital that children realize that a stranger is any adult they don’t know well, including adults they might encounter every day, such as a bus driver or a neighbor.

How to spot an offender
Pedophiles are common offenders of abduction. A pedophile is an adult with a sexual preference towards children, and the common victim profile of a pedophile are children in vulnerable situations such as mentally and physically disabled children, children who have been abused before, children whose parents are drug abusers, children of single parent families, or children from otherwise troubled and underprivileged homes.

Disturbingly, at first glance a pedophile will look like any other person, be it rich or poor, educated or uneducated, attractive or unattractive. However a pedophile will usually be looking for any opportunity to be near and around children. A pedophile will also be on the look out for children who are easy targets walking home alone and playing alone.

The internet can provide a real danger to children, as the World Wide Web has become the modern hunting ground for the deranged child molester. Parents need to be aware of and take precautions of a danger that can be entrapping their child in their own homes and under their surveillance. In online chat rooms pedophiles seeks to groom children and lure them into outside meetings, often fake their identity online. Chat rooms are most commonly frequented by teenagers, but children as young as seven years old have been reported to visit chat rooms.

What you can do:

• Always know where your child is at all times.

• Never leave your child unattended (at home, shopping malls, cars, etc.).

• Keep a recent photograph of your child and keep track of weight and height.

• Develop an identification file on your child including fingerprint, footprints, dental records and medical information.

• If you’re divorced or separated inform any caregiver of your spouse’ visitation rights.

• Know your child’s’ friends and their contact details.

• Post all emergency numbers by the phone. These should include police, fire, ambulance, your work number and the number of a trusted friend or relative.

• Listen to everything your child tells you. Encourage your child to tell you about any suspicious events, and believe if he or she has a bad feeling about someone. Tell your child he or she will never be punished for telling.

What you can teach your child:

• Teach your child early on about the facts of child abduction.

• Make sure your child knows your full names, full address and phone number. Explain the importance of this information.

• Teach your child how to use a phone and how to dial 999 or 112 and inform what to do if he or she is lost.

• Encourage your child to play in groups and in areas surrounded by people.

• If your child for some reason has to be home alone, make sure that all windows and doors are locked and remain that way. Tell you child to never ever open the door for anyone, and to tell people calling on the phone that you are in the house but unable to come to the phone at the moment.

• Teach your child to walk toward oncoming traffic; this way they will not be jumped from behind.

• Discuss and rehearse different scenarios with your child. This practice is vital to show your child the dangers of different scenarios such as strangers asking for directions in cars, offering gifts and making conversations. Tell you child to always back away and seek groups of adults. Always stress that adults should seek other adults for help.

• Teach your children to forget about being polite and scream if they are in a threatening situation. The NO! GO! YELL! TELL! program can teach your children valuable skills in self dense.

• sAssure your children that if anything ever happens you will never give up looking for them and that you will always love them.

If it happens
If your child goes missing you must instantly call 999 and report your child missing and contact your local police force. You should also enquire if your child can be put on the MissingKids website.

If you see a child that you recognize as missing or you believe to be abducted you should not approach and try to “rescue” the child but contact the police for the area in which you saw the child immediately. The first 24-48 hours of a child missing are crucial. Give details of time, date and place you saw the child, and try to take note to describe any other person (adult or child) that is with the child. If you perceive the child to be in immediate danger you should dial 999 and report the matter. Since you are a witness to a possible crime, you may be asked to provide evidence for the police and/or courts later on.

You can learn more about how to protect your child from abduction and the NO GO YELL TELL programe through http://www.childfind.com/ and http://www.missingkids.co.uk/

 

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