STOLEN (25 page)

Growing
up in the 1950’s
, when the sun came up, it meant little children went
out to play, unaccompanied, even at the tender age of two or three. Parents
thought nothing of leaving the stroller with their babies outside the
supermarket while they went inside to shop.

I was told once that my grandmother left her twin daughters
in their carriage outside a theatre in Brooklyn, N.Y. while she went in to
watch a full-length movie. If the babies started to cry, the usher would come
into the dark auditorium and let the mother know she was needed. Today, she
would be arrested and charged with multiple counts of child neglect and abuse.

I remember going outside my apartment at the tender age of
three and playing by myself in the playground behind my apartment, waiting for
my little friends to wake up and join me.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties was a time of
innocence, and ‘Stranger Danger’ was just something Robbie the Robot might say
in an episode of
Lost In Space
.

Today, the world has changed; and children no longer have
the freedom to explore their world without watching over their shoulders at all
times.

Even in their own homes, they are taught to be wary and even
to fear their own family members.

Every year, thousands of children disappear from their
families, some never to be seen again. Parents of kidnapped children are left
with broken hearts and empty dreams that no one but them will be able to
understand. Not knowing whether their child is dead or alive can be so
crushing, it can destroy the marriages and families left behind and some will
never recover from their loss.

The following information has been
copied verbatim from the following website that I encourage you to visit.
Please spend some time looking at the faces in the photographs. If you ever
suspect there is something wrong, if you see a child and feel something just
isn’t right, respect your intuition; and report it to the authorities.
Hopefully, you will be the one to save the life of an innocent child and bring
them home to where they belong.

THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR

MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN

http://www.missingkids.com/KeyFacts

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
gathers key facts regarding the issues of missing and sexually exploited
children and Internet safety and updates these facts and statistics frequently.

Missing children

The most recent, comprehensive national study for the number
of missing children estimated in 1999:
[1]

Approximately 800,000 children younger than 18 were reported
missing.

More than 200,000 children were abducted by family members.

More than 58,000 children were abducted by nonfamily
members.

An estimated 115 children were the victims of
“stereotypical” kidnapping. These “stereotypical” kidnappings involved someone
the child did not know or was an acquaintance. The child was held overnight,
transported 50 miles or more, killed, ransomed or held with the intent to keep
the child permanently.

To find the number of children missing from a specific state
or territory contact the state’s
Missing Child Clearinghouses
.

The first three hours are the most critical when trying to
locate a missing child. The murder of an abducted child is rare, and an
estimated 100 cases in which an abducted child is murdered occur in the U.S.
each year. A 2006 study indicated that 76.2 percent of abducted children who
are killed are dead within three hours of the abduction.
[2]

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children®
has assisted law enforcement in the recovery of more than 191,179 missing
children since it was founded in 1984. Our recovery rate for missing children
has grown from 62 percent in 1990 to 97 percent today.

The
AMBER Alert
program
was created in 1996 and is operated by the U.S. Department of Justice. As of
Jan. 3, 2014, 679 children have been successfully recovered as a result of the
program.
[3]

As of Oct. 2013, NCMEC’s toll free, 24 hour call center has
received more than 3,858,042 calls since it was created in 1984. Information
about missing or exploited children can be reported to the call center by
calling 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678)

[1] Finkelhor D., Hammer H., Doidge D., Sedlak A.
National Estimates of Missing Children: An
Overview
, U.S. Department of Justice, 2002.

[2] Brown K., Keppel R., McKenna R., Skeen M.,
Weis J.
Case Management for
Missing Children Homicides: Report II
, National Center
for Missing & Exploited Children and U.S. Department of Justice, 2006.

[3]
AMBER Alert
, U.S. Department
of Justice.