2023-05-25 09:09:20
About 140 cases are processed in Austria every year via the hotline for missing children, which has the same telephone number 116000 throughout Europe. Most of these are outliers. “Parents often ask what they can do to find out where their child is,” reported Birgit Satke from Rat auf Draht, the local operator of the hotline. Today Thursday is International Missing Children’s Day.
Around 250,000 children are reported missing in Europe every year. This means that a child goes missing in Europe every two minutes, according to Missing Children Europe (MCE), the Europe-wide umbrella organization for national missing persons facilities. In 2022 alone, the 116,000 hotlines operating in 32 European countries received 70,855 inquiries about 6,668 cases. Most of these Europe-wide cases are child runaways (66 percent), 24 percent were abductions by a parent, and a small but significant 3 percent involved missing children due to migration.
“In addition to practical information that we pass on, we try to find out more about the background to the escape and to find solutions so that it doesn’t happen again. According to the parents, family conflicts are often behind it because young people don’t agree Rules like curfews or staying the night with a friend,” explained Satke.
Young people who have run away also contact the hotline, which is available around the clock, and seek support. “Together with the callers, we try to think about how to proceed without being forced and let them decide for themselves whether they want to take advantage of one of our suggestions,” emphasized Satke. Depending on the situation, these suggestions could include making contact with the family, the police or a social institution. It is also possible to help with writing a message to the parents or finding a safe place to sleep.
( SERVICE – Further information: www.rataufdraht.at/partner-netzwerke/hotline-fur-vermisste-kinder )
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