America: We Are Losing Our Children

We are losing our children in this country. We are losing them and never finding them again. Natalee Holloway is only one of hundreds of thousands of children in this county missing, missing and never to be found. Every forty seconds a child is reported missing or abducted according to the Vanished Children?s Alliance.

The statistics are alarming. In California alone, over 109,000 children are missing (2004), believed to be runaways. In the United States 2001, figures indicate that there was an average of over 2000 reported cases per day. Nearly 90% of missing person cases are juveniles. Are these statistics constant over time?

According to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the past 5 years shows an overall decrease in the amount of reported missing persons, which is promising?maybe. NCIC figures include adults and children, not just children Perhaps the most alarming figure is that over 100,000 abductions or attempted abductions occurred in the year 2000. People are stealing or trying to steal our children. Where are they taking them?

Well, I think we all can remember the Elizabeth Smart bizarre abduction. Her captor, Brian Mitchell (Emmanuel) and his wife supposedly brainwashed Elizabeth into believing she would be Mitchell?s second wife. However, that was just one case. There are thousands of cases unsolved. Many have been abducted for sexual exploitation, others possibly taken out of the country and sold to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, many are believed to be dead.

Is it time for us to consider a better way of keeping track of our children? There has been much discussion about computer chipping our newborns. Some hospitals are experimenting with the idea of ?chipping? newborns in an effort to prevent giving the wrong child to the wrong parents. Can this be applied to all newborns? Why not? We can have the Blue Star Tracking System for our vehicles. Why not a similar program for our children? Let technology work for us. It can be done.

There may be those who will say we should make parents be more responsible for the location and activities of their children, but the Elizabeth Smart case is excellent proof that no matter how proactive parents are about their children?s activities, wrong things can happen. A ?chip? would be an excellent alternative. Perhaps a ?chip? placed in the bodies of every known child molester, but there are many such deviants unknown to the legal system. It would be a nearly impossible task trying to locate all of them.

Our culture of family appears to be falling apart before our very eyes. I say that with reservation because I speak anecdotally. I do not have all the facts and figures. If I researched all those numbers, I would have to quit my real job. In an age when no family can survive on one paycheck and both parents must contribute to survival, new technology must be explored. Stricter enforcement of our laws against sexual predators and child molesters is an absolute must. Community involvement is a key solution suggested by most agencies that deal with missing children.

That old adage ?it takes a community to raise a child? has never been truer than today. Our over-worked law enforcement agencies cannot do all the work. Grass roots action groups must take a more active role in taking back our children. We lose our children and we lose our future.