Due to my laptop deciding it was time to pass on into the afterlife I have not been able to post in the most recent century. But I am here now, figuring out how to use Google docs on my phone. It isn't going well. ANYWAY. I've done a lot of thinking recently, like most people with brains do, and there are some things I can't get over. Most of them falling along the lines of death, abduction and rape.
That's right, I'm talking about it. All of it, because like most people I have a problem with it, but unlike most people I am willing to talk about it. What triggered these thoughts was something my mother said to me about a month ago.
I was preparing to go for a run and she asked me the following questions. How far, how long, and where? Easy enough to answer, and not strange of a parent to ask. What followed my response to these questions is what irritated me. “I just want to know where to look if you don't make it back.” seriously toned and blank faced, as if it was normal to think that in broad daylight a 15 year old girl could be abducted, murdered or sexually harassed. Well, the more I thought, the more I realised it is normal. We normalize the thought that there are people out there that prey on children. I always felt like I wouldn't have to worry about it. I am strong enough to take care of myself and smart enough to recognize danger. But that doesn't really matter does it. Over 2,000 children are abducted and reported missing every day in the U.S. and 81% of those missing persons are over the age of 12. When you add up the days the total comes up to 730,000 children a year. Abduction can be broken apart into three categories. Family abduction , acquaintance abduction, and stranger abduction. About 49 percent of all cases fall into the category of family abduction. Meaning that, in most cases the child in question has been taken by someone within their own family, these mainly pertaining to children under the age of six. Fifty-one percent of cases are made up of acquaintance and stranger kidnapping, involving people who the child may or may not have briefly encountered before. Seventy-four percent of the victims of non-family abduction are female.
Nearly all of which the victim receives physical and sexual abuse, and 20% are not found alive. In most cases of abduction (74%) the child is ultimately murdered within three hours of abduction. You must wait 24 hours to report a child missing. Let that sink in.
Sources: Federal Bureau of Investigation; National Crime Information Center; U.S. Justice Dept.; Vanished Children's Alliance; Redbook, February 1998; State of Washington's Office of the Attorney General; United States Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Juvenile Justice Bulletin, June 2000