Answer

Heightened Fears about the Problem of Missing Children in the Absence of Data

The problem of missing children can be one that is psychologically destabilising to most parents who find themselves on the end of having their children away from them for hours, weeks or years. This problem is exacerbated when there is limited or no data to help in tracing and finding the children after a long while. It is sensible that law enforcement agencies have a comprehensive register that can be used to accurately track the missing children. This data can be used by law enforcement or even be shared by the public so that both can play their part in ensuring that the missing children are found. In the absence of Data, there is little hope for finding the missing children and so there usually are heightened fears.

First of all, there is need to have all the data needed on missing children in a single register. The chances of finding a missing child greatly increase when the search efforts are directed and implemented from a single source (Hedges 2014). Having one registry maintain the data makes retrieval easy for various organisations, individuals or even law enforcement to get all the information they need from one source. Having this single register streamlines the search efforts and makes them systematic. Often, when the panic of missing children hit parents and relatives, information about the missing children is shared on various platforms by different people. This creates confusion because some tips even end up getting lost when they contact the wrong people with information that may be of help in these cases.

Having data available about missing children is vital because then, law enforcement and organisations involved in finding lost children can establish patterns and links about missing cases and use this information in their search efforts. Because of their vulnerability, children form the bulk of missing cases that are reported annually in the whole world. Sometimes, there are deliberate organised syndicates that are engaged in having these children taken against their will. The patterns that such missing children form can cause patterns to emerge. These patterns can only be identified and broken when there is enough data available.

Being in possession of data in one registry is not enough, the data availed has to be accurate. ICMEC (2016) asserts that the most important hours in trying to find missing children are the first 24-48 hours after the children go missing. It is when the activities that happened within these hours are analysed and understood quickly that a potential lead can be established. The parents then have to make sure that the data availed for what transpired before the children went missing is accurate and can be useful in helping find the missing ones. Accuracy is not only about the first few hours of a reported missing case; it is also about the detailed description of those who have gone missing. The missing children have to be described accurately and in considerable detail. Their physical attributes, clothing, birthmarks, scars, tattoos, locality, school have to be recorded accurately as part of the data to make sure that the process of finding them is not protracted.

As described above, the problem of missing children can often be extremely troublesome especially when there is no data that can be relied upon to find them. Law enforcement must have accurate, timely and centralised data management to make the process of finding missing children simpler.

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