As an education Master's graduate, I am always interested in questions of human development. Lately, I was thinking, there's adults missing in action, for example in Iraq, but then there are also missing children. I already referred to the plight of children in Iraq in a previous post, but how about the USA itself ?
Well, following the National Incidence Studies of Missing Abducted Runaway and Thrownaway Children or "NISMART 1" for short (see Finkelhor, Hotaling and Sedlak, 1990), the American 1997-1999 study NISMART 2, based on the National Household Survey of Adult Caretakers, the National Household Survey of Youth, the Law Enforcement Study, and the Juvenile Facilities Study, estimated the number of missing children in the USA more precisely. The "broad" definition of a missing child adopted was a child under 18, who went missing from their caretaker, with the whereabouts of the child unknown, causing the caretaker to be alarmed for at least one hour, and to make an attempt to locate the child. The "narrow" definition of a missing child adopted was a child under 18, who went missing from their caretakers, whereabouts unknown, and reported to an agency exclusively for the purpose of help in locating them. NISMART 2 concluded that in 1999, the total number of missing children, reported to the police or not reported, was 1.3 million, or 18.8 per 1,000 children under 18 (or half a percent of the total population). Out of that 1.3 million, 47.8 percent ran away or were thrownaway; 60.4 percent of the missing children were reported to the police or a missing children's agency for the purpose of locating a child; and some 57 percent were 11 years old or younger. So how can they fight a war, if they don't even know where their own child is ? Source: http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=e n_US&PageId=242#0 I am a child, I'll last a while. You can't conceive of the pleasure in my smile. You hold my hand, rough up my hair, It's lots of fun to have you there. God gave to you, now, you give to me, I'd like to know what you learnt The sky is blue and so is the sea What is the color, when black is burned? What is the color? You are a man, you understand. You pick me up and you lay me down again. You make the rules, you say what's fair, It's lots of fun to have you there. God gave to you, now, you give to me, I'd like to know what you learned. The sky is blue and so is the sea. What is the color, when black is burned? What is the color? I am a child, I'll last a while. You can't conceive of the pleasure in my smile. - "I am a child", Neil Young
