Child Abduction/Kidnapping

Child abduction is one of the worst things that can happen to parents. In this post, I will give some insight on abductions from around the world, effects, and some solutions. Real stories of child abductions that will shake you to the core and some statistics about child kidnapping in the world.

Kidnapping means to take someone against their will and hold them captive. The kidnappers would demand a ransom from family members or the government. Kidnapping in some states is under law a punishable offense. The term kidnapping and abductions seldom require the use of violence. Kidnappers will sometimes torture the victim to obtain money or information. The kidnappers can use rape as a form of torture and will sometimes rape just for fun.

What happens to children that are kidnapped?

1. Kidnappers abduct children to sell for money. Human trafficking has a high number of children that are homeless that gets abducted.
2. Illegal adoption is another reason for child abduction.
3. Something many of us would not think of is that children are used for forced labor and in some extreme cases, children die from slavery in extreme conditions.
4. Another reason for child abduction is illegal organ trading. Organs of children are valuable on the black market.
5. Extortion in child abduction is not that common but, it does happen in high profile cases.

There are seven leading causes for kidnapping:

Unemployment, Poverty, Illiteracy, Religion, Greed, Politics and Corruption. Let us take a closer look at how all of these reasons for abduction.

Source

Unemployment

Abductions made for easy money. A lot of people who are unemployed and struggle to find work, see abductions especially children, easy targets. By kidnapping the rich children, they believe the rich people must share their riches with them. Normally by kidnapping children, they have a big success rate in receiving their money as most parents will give everything they have for the safe return of their children. Unemployment kidnapping usually involves only negotiations and rarely involves torture. The kidnappers will mostly just scare their victims.

Poverty

To live in poverty is hard and a lot of places in the world struggle with this problem and getting out of poverty is no easy task. Poverty drives ordinary people to crime, something that they would use only as a last resort.

I am not condoning poverty abductions or any crime for that matter because of this reason or any other. I know from personal experience how it feels to be without any money or food. To live on the street is not something that I would wish on my worst enemy. Poverty kidnapping involves people who are not happy with their current situation.

They often believe one kidnapping will be enough money that they can start over and clean. The only problem with that is that it is a felony to kidnap anyone let alone children and they will always be on the run and looking over their shoulders.

Illiteracy

It is the inability where people cannot read or write. Illiteracy kidnappers get false information from their leaders. They will go as far as suicide bombing, killing, and kidnapping.

Their leaders tell them by kidnapping children they will rule the world. Illiteracy kidnappers have a difficult time with reading emotion and people in general. Boko Haram is an example of illiteracy kidnapping they are also involved with bombings. Illiterate people are easy to manipulate, and when you tell them they will matter if they kidnapped children, they will stop at nothing to complete the given task.

Religion

There are so many debates in the world over religion; It is no surprise that this is one of the causes of kidnapping. Some people believe so much in their religion that if the religion says kidnap children, that is what they will do.

Usually, it is people that know what is wrong or right, so even though they know it is wrong, they will still do it. Interestingly enough a lot of child kidnappings found their roots in religion. More often than not it is one person with authority that says their god has spoken to them and teach his disciples what they should do. We should be vigilant that our religion does not comprise our principals.

Greed

Greed is the root of all evil. Greed is when you have all you can have in life but, feel you want to own the whole world. To kidnapped your business rival’s children to take his money from him and become richer.

We have to be careful that greed does not consume our lives. Be thankful for what you have and what you have accomplished in life; nobody can have everything and anything. You can certainly not own anyone. You can overcome greed, and there is no need that crime has to be appealing. This section applies a lot of times to people who have already accomplished a lot in life and have money. It is just another way to say that they are bored with their lives and want some excitement.

Politics

How many friendships, marriages, and work relationships have suffered under politics? Politicians would use low life criminals to kidnap their opponents or opponent’s children to change their votes on certain issues.

I do not think that these Politicians have the slightest idea what the person that gets kidnapped goes through and what they have to deal with after the kidnapping. Usually, politics abduction are swept under the rug. I wonder what a government without the abduction, bribery, and adultery would be.

Corruption

In a country where corruption runs rampant, high levels of kidnapping is not unheard of. A lot of governments embezzle public money. Governments officials are so protected, and it ‘s hard for the public to get near them that it sometimes leads to extreme lash back. With any chance, the public will sometimes kidnap children of politicians to regain some of the embezzled money. While these types of kidnappers think that they have a noble cause it does not make it less of a crime to abduct a child. These criminals usually end up in prison and in some cases a hero to some.

The adverse effects of kidnapping in children can have psychological trauma. They can develop depression, anxiety, and PTSD.  It can and usually does have a lifetime effect on them.

Fear can cause them to always look over their shoulder no matter where they are. Rich business men have security guards. What does the normal kidnapped child have? They need a good support structure to get them through the difficult time. If kidnapped children are homeless, some states provide help centers, where somebody can assist them through the hard aftermath.

Love is what these kids need. Love can overcome the darkest problem and situation. With more job creation the kidnapping rate would go down. Better and longer punishment for kidnapping should serve as a reminder to the kidnappers that it is a serious felony.

8 Interesting Facts about Child Abduction

1. John and Reve Walsh with a few other advocates for children founded the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children in 1984. It is a private and non-profit organization to help the national clearing house and resource center for information about missing children.

2. Since a lot of missing children are never reported missing, there is no way in which can be determined how many children go missing in the US.

3. Children that get reported missing to law enforcement, federal law requires that the child be put in the FBI’s National Crime Information Centre. It is also known as NCIC.

4. The National Crime Information Centre had 465,676 entries for missing children in 2016 that is numbers according to the FBI.

5. If children ran away several times a year, every instance would be a new entry into the database.

6. In 33 years of the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children were open their hotline received 4.4 million calls. In 33 years they have circulated billions of missing children’s photos. They helped in the recovery of 243 000 missing children and trained more than 333 000 law enforcement professionals. They have a team that works with families of missing and exploited children. So far they have supported 60,000 families.

7. The unusual thing is that as many as 800 cases a day are not even real cases and it was just a misunderstanding and a lack of communication between multiple parties.

8. The statistics show that strangers kidnap about 33 children a day and that most of them are sexually assaulted before they are released or manage to escape.

Countries with the highest rates of kidnapping

We all want to explore the world, and be safe, The reality of this is these days you need to make sure of where you go, all the negatives and positives about the place you want to visit. We all make provisions where we live. We rarely think that something will happen to our children and anybody you love while you are on holiday. In the past year’s murder, kidnapping and other crimes has sky rocketed in holiday makers. I think one of the reasons might be you are relaxed and your guard is not as high when you are on holiday.

India

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In India, children make up the majority of kidnappings. 60 Thousand Children go missing every year, and ranks on the list of the most child kidnappings. The province in Assam has seen 4,000 abductions in 2013 and is increasing every year. With so much poverty in India it comes as no surprise that kidnapping for ransom is the most common. When you visit India you may not be a direct target but, I would advise to keep your expensive items at home. The poverty is at a stage in India that kidnappers will kill their victims if they are not satisfied with the ransom.

Mexico

When you go to Mexico be careful when you withdraw money from the ATM, it makes you an instant target.  Most of the targeted abductions in Mexico are locals and oil workers. Oil companies pay for their employee’s return. In Mexico, the abductions are planned, and they watch you for a few days. Interestingly a lot of times family members are in cahoots with the abductors.

War is brewing in Mexico, between the drug cartels and the smuggling of businesses. Abductions are at a very high rate with 12 kidnappings an hour.If you think you can trust your local police officer in Mexico you are making a big mistake, many times they are involved in the kidnappings.

Venezuela

Not one of the countries that I would go to. Venezuela is now one of the most unsafe countries in South America. The statistics in 2008 to 2009 showed that there were more than 46 kidnappings a day. Corruption and an ineffective government are getting the blame for the high crime rate. The targets of the kidnappings are middle and upper-class adults and children. Gangs are using technology more and more for kidnapping, contacting relatives through phones and computers. So sad when people turn against each other, what happened to love thy neighbor. Today it’s abduct thy neighbor.

Colombia

Colombia was not always a safe place, and they have come a long way since. The capital was seen as the kidnap capital in 2009. The armed forces of Colombia were partly to blame for the kidnappings, as 30% of the kidnappings came from them.

Colombia has seen dark times with 30 000 kidnappings in 40 years. Rates in the last 10 years has dropped significantly, and the government and rebels are coming together to fight together. Be careful of the rural areas, mountains roads and rivers, there are still kidnappings in these areas. People in the country that worked together were very happy to hear that in 2013 the kidnapping rate dropped and there were only 219 reported incidents.

Haiti

When traveling to Haiti make sure that you stay in one of the big chain hotels and stick to tours they have available. In Haiti, you are not safe when it comes to kidnapping, and it does not matter what you do for a living or how much money you have.

Although trip advisor has warned holiday makers of Haiti, it is mostly the Haitians that got kidnapped. Haiti is known for kidnapping rings, and it involved political and business rivals. A lot of Americans were kidnapped in Haiti, and the US government decided to declare Haiti a hotspot for abduction. After the rating the US government gave Haiti, they shot back and said that the kidnapping has been radically reduced.

Although there is an improvement, the kidnappings are now less predictable and more widespread than before. It seems that Haiti still has some problems to work through, and they are not giving up.

Here are examples of some of the most Publicised Child abduction cases

Baby snatching is not uncommon even in the safest of neighborhoods. Sabrina disappeared from her crib in Valrico, Florida; she was only five months old.

It is estimated that she was taken between 12: 00 am and 6:42 am on the 24^th of November 1997. Sabrina’s parents Marlene and Steve were the main suspects from the beginning of the investigation, they still proclaim their innocence till this day. The case is now nearly 20 years old, and there is still no sign of Sabrina.

Steve and Marlene still believe that Sabrina is out there somewhere with a loving family, they think someone that wanted to have a child took her. It is not far fetched but, there were a few holes in the story. Some of the evidence the police investigators collected did not make sense either.

A lot of people think that Sabrina is dead as we all know the likelihood of finding her alive is slim. At that stage, it was one of the largest searches that the local police had ever undertaken. Another thing that strikes me as odd is most of the time when people abduct they have a reason ,when Steve and Marlene went in front of the cameras on television and said that they would pay the ransom whatever it would be they just want their little girl back they got no response.

At the time  it was a very safe neighborhood, and it is said that Steve and Marlene were people that left their house open all the time. Whether they are just a forgetful pair is up for debate, you would think as a parent; safety is your number one priority.

It could be that someone in the area knew that Steve and Marlene were famous for leaving the doors open at night, and they either wanted to mess with their lives or wanted a child.

They also had a dog called Brownie. The neighbors said that the dog was friendly towards everyone and when a stranger walked into their house he would lick them and want attention. Brownie was a lazy dog, not the kind of dog to protect the family.

The more I read about the case it became apparent that the parents must have something to hide. Most parents would not believe their children is dead but, after years they start to entertain the idea that one day their child’s body would show up somewhere. Steve and Marlene kept on saying that someone that wanted a child took Sabrina. I started thinking that maybe Steve and Marlene gave Sabrina to someone else. You can read more about it here.

Sources:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/top-five-countries-highest-rates-kidnapping-1441648
http://www.perfectinsider.com/top-ten-countries-with-highest-kidnapping-rate/