23/06/2013 Reporters


23/06/2013

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Welcome to Reporters. From here at reporters to bring you the best

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missing children, we had a special issue on looking at the issue

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around the world. Coming up - every parent's worst nightmare. We meet

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the parents of Katrice Lee who has been missing for 30 years. We had

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no support. Do you believe that the system failed you and your family?

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Yes. They failed my it two-year-old child. Sold into the sex trade. We

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visit the Thai capital Bangkok where thousands of children are

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traffic each year. Paedophiles come to party here. Why is this going

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on? The children they are using did not have papers. The children they

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use cannot be tracked. What we have here is that we are looking for

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victims but we did not know who they are. We report from Mexico on

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the thousands of children who go missing two drug gains every year.

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TRANSLATION: It is under scramble to lose a child. It is a pain like

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they have to on a heart out. It is like your life does not have

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meaning any more. -- like they have to warn your heart out.

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It is the worst nightmare for every parent. The child who goes missing.

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It affects at least 8 million children around the world every

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year according to the Centre for Missing and exploited children. In

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many cases, the child is found within hours but in the rarest of

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situations, the ordeal can last months or even years. We have a

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series of stories from families from different parts of the world.

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In the first of these reports, I go to the south of England did to meet

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Sharon Lee whose daughter Katrice Lee has been missing for 30 years.

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This is her story. She was a delightful, happy and

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little girl. She absolutely adored her older sister. They were quite

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happy, and it has she was happy to let her play with her and her

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friends. They idolise one another. -- Natasha. They had been naughty

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moments that most T Roberts do that she was a happy child. This is in

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West Germany, 1981. Home to a British army base. In November that

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year, their lives changed for ever. Until 20th November, 1981 we were a

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normal and happy family. After that time, our normal wife stopped, if

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you like, and the only way I can explain it is that we have been

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living a nightmare ever since then. -- normal life. Katrice Lee

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disappeared from a supermarket on her second birthday. It is a day

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that her mother will never forget. I went to the checkout and I

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realised I had forgotten some crisps from a Tea Party a was

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having that afternoon. I put them down by the checkout and asked my

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sister to keep an eye on her as they go back and get some crisps. I

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went back to the Isle, pick them up and got back to the checkout and

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asked my sister where Katrice Lee had gone and she said that she had

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gone after me, back up the aisle and that was the last time that my

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daughter was ever seen. In 1981, the British Royal Military Police

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led the investigation into her disappearance but have since

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admitted that mistakes were made at the time. My current chief officer

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has openly admitted that there were flaws in that original

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investigation. However, it was investigation of its time and

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policing has developed and devolved over 30 years. I think that if you

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were to look at any police investigation 30 years ago, you

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would find flaws in it. I do accept, as my chief officer has said, that

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the family were not treated as well as they should have been. We had no

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support as a family. Do you believe that the system failed he? Failed

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you and your family? Yes, they failed my two-year-old child.

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If they had listened to last them as far as I'm concerned, I may not

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have to be doing this interview now. My daughter could have been found.

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In the case of a missing child, what happens in the hours and days

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after a disappearance is crucial. think that how police responded the

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first few days is so important and a risk assessment at that stage to

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work out why the child has gone missing, where they may be, what

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risks they are facing - is this an abduction? It is so important in

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those first few hours and first few days that everything is done to

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find the missing child. It is estimated that around 140,000

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missing children go missing each year in the UK and 99% of all

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reported missing cases are solved within one year. This is the

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central focus of all the information comes into. Last year,

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the Royal Military Police decided to reopen the investigation into

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Katrice Lee's disappearance. A dedicated team are reviewing case

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files, interviews and the new lines of inquiry. Eight progression

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photos had been commissioned of how she would have looked at key times

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in her life. It is hoped that by using the latest surge techniques,

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the investigation can move forward. We got a profile of their DNA that

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we managed to obtain from one of her family members. We have

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equalised that Rafal to search the national DNA database in the UK and

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I have taken that one step further and gone to my colleagues in

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Interpol and said -- and had that DNA profiles admitted to the

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international DNA databases. They stretch from Ireland to Russia.

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They were taken in the July before Katrice Lee disappeared. -- Katrice

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Lee. She says that she will never finished the campaign it to raise

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awareness about the disappearance of her daughter and believes that

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they will one day be reunited. I have never not had hoped. If the

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day ever came when I had no hope that my daughter would be found, it

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would be the day that I stopped doing media and press releases. I

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have always had hoped that there would be an Indian tour our story,

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to Katrice Lee's story. -- and Indian to our story.

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In Thailand, it is difficult to gauge how serious the problem of

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missing children is but a agencies believe that thousands of children

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are traffic each year with most of them ending up as beggars or sex

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workers. We have travelled to Bangkok, the centre of Thailand's

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sex industry. We met Manee Thongchum his daughter was abducted

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to make his ago. Their search for her daughter, Jiji has been long

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and lonely. Preparing heard children for school

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is on the Manee Thongchum has come to dread. Each time her little

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girls are out of sight, the memories come back of the awful

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moment, 2.5 years ago, but her second child Jiji disappeared.

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Every day after school, the nine- year-old would come to these petrol

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station to work alongside her mother selling flowers. It was

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impossible for Manee Thongchum to keep an eye on Jiji all of the time.

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TRANSLATION: I went into the back of the car to feed the baby while

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Jiji was selling flowers with her older sister. When I came back, she

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had disappeared. We look for her everywhere but all we found was one

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of her flip-flops on the footpath. CCTV footage shows a Jiji looking

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for customers and then apparently distracted, walking out of the shot.

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Her family had travelled all over Thailand looking for her and on one

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occasion they came here where they received false information that she

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had been found. This sleazy tourist town is one of the main

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destinations for trafficked children in South East Asia. There

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are hundreds of children working in streets and bars here. As beggars

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and as child prostitutes. This woman spends her time searching for

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exploited children. Many are from neighbouring Cambodia and are not

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abducted but sold to traffickers by family members. Paedophiles come to

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party here. Why is this going on? The children that they are using

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did not have papers. The children that they are using cannot be

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tracked. So what we have here is that we are looking for victims but

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we do not know who they are. Thai children who were rescued and

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cannot return home gate put into shelters like this one. Cambodians

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are less fortunate and a sense back to the border where they may well

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be abused and traffic again. Those responsible, if they can be found,

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often escape prosecution. TRANSLATION: In Thailand, we have

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laws regarding human trafficking which look very good on paper but

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the people who have to enforce it has sometimes do not understand the

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entire process and because it is so complicated and involves a so many

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different agencies, it is easy for them not to pursue it. The Mirror

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Foundation tries to keep records of Thailand's missing children. It is

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a small operation, funded by donations. They have just five

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permit staff and received several desperate phone calls every day.

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TRANSLATION: The police know how many cars go missing each month.

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They know what type of cars and what had been done with the stolen

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cars. But for missing children, they have no answer. They cannot

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even tell us how many children are missing, how many have been rescued,

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and what has happened to were abducted children. Jiji's family

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have had to search on their own with money given by family and

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friends. TRANSLATION: Everything has

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completely changed. We used to go everywhere as a family. The songs

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which we listened to, the food which we listened -- used to eat.

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All the things we used do together, we have stopped. For a long time,

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it was too painful for Jiji's Perez to return to the petrol station

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from which she was taken. They now work there again, hoping that

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whoever took their little girl made The war on drugs in Mexico hits the

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headlines on a daily basis but little is known about the thousands

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of children who go missing two drug gains every year. The government

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there has set up a new unit dedicated to finding missing people

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but the problem of child abduction by drug cartels is good -- is

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growing. Many are forced to work for gains in the opium and narrow

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one of fields. Some are groomed to be killers. Will grudge travelled

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to Mexico to speak to one family about their missing son. This is

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From the outside they look like a normal family, but the reality is

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that they are in anguish. Before every meal, they prayed for the

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same thing, the return of a teenage son who disappear to last year.

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This day was particularly poignant. TRANSLATION: You do not know how

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much I miss my son. Yet in some way, I am grateful to God that this

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happened, because this has brought us closer to God. The day after he

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disappeared, his father received a call telling him to pay a ransom of

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tens of thousands of dollars. He negotiated the price down to

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something he could afford, but the group took the money and never

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return the boy. TRANSLATION: I am pretty sure that he is working for

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organised crime against his will. He had plans to continue his

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studies. He wanted to be an orthodontist. He never threatened

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to leave all say, I'm going to disappear from home and leave my

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parents and brother. The authorities asked that, but no.

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Should he make it home, his bedroom will be waiting for him as he left

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it. His parents' fears are growing by the day. Meanwhile, at the

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Mexican Association of stolen and disappear children in Mexico City,

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there is a steady stream of families coming through the door.

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One wall at the association is plastered with the missing posters

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of some of the almost 1,300 cases they had seen since 2009. While the

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drug cartels often target adolescents do work for them, they

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also got a babies and toddlers to sell them on all for ransom. She

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founded the organisation 20 years ago when her own granddaughter was

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snatched by a woman posing as a nanny. Luckily, they manage to

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track her down, but many others are not so fortunate. TRANSLATION: It

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is indescribable to lose a child. It is a pain like they have torn

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your heart out. It is like your life does not have any meaning any

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more. The West pain a human being can experience is the loss of a

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child. For all the therapy you may have, the pain is lacerating. There

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are not words to describe it. the face of what they see as the

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indifference, sometimes even the involvement of the authorities in

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their children's disappearances, one group of mothers has decided to

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take matters into their own hands. Outside the Attorney General's

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offers, a handful of parents staged a Honda's -- a hunger strike to

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demand an audience with the President. The Interior Ministry

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says it is taking the problem seriously and has announced the

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creation of a new unit to find missing persons and the national

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database of human remains. But she says it is not just the

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government's responsibility to tackle the problem. TRANSLATION:

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This is everyone's worked as we are human beings. The children are not

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just stolen children but the children of all abuzz, and we see

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something happening against a chart and a young person, we must report

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it because we are all involved and can all be affected by this. At his

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home, she is getting through her first Mother's Day meal without him.

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Despite the time, she that -- has not lost hope for having him back

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before next year's celebration. But she has little hope that it will be

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the authorities that will bring him back.

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All the research took place in the world's newsroom, the first

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international conference for missing children and adults took

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place last week at the University of Portsmouth and the UK, and one

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of the event's organisers joins me now. Good of you to join us. Nice

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to see you. Tell us what the point of the conference was for you and

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why you felt it necessary to hold it. It was aimed to bring people

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together from all types of professions, anyone who is dealing

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with a missing person, so we did not had just an academic conference,

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we thought why not combine that with a policing conference, and

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that grew into something much bigger than we anticipated, because

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the response from the academic world was overwhelming. We have

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over 30 academic presenters, on a wide variety of topics, the

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research, the most up-to-date research in all elements relevant

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to missing people. What are you hoping that the conference would

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have achieved? What we would like to achieve by the conference is to

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bring people together, people from across a variety of professions,

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and to be able to talk to, understand each other's ideas,

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culture clashes, to share knowledge and to highlight gaps in what we

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know, what we don't know, what we need to know, and take it from

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there. We may influence policy, we may understand that more research

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needs to be done in certain areas. There are certain patterns of

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behaviour, if you understand a particular type of characteristic

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involved in a particular type of offender, for example, they knew no

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way to target your resources as a policing operation, or even in

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terms of child abduction, there is a study that has been done on

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child-stranger abduction. How do we teach parents to teach their

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children, who do they need to avoid? We know from the research

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that it is not a complete stranger in most cases. Not somebody that

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comes out of the bushes. It is somebody that they are familiar

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with. The idea of the stranger danger is not true. In that sense,

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we can influence the discussion and influence the policy publicly as

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well. It is clearly very difficult to gauge the true extent of the

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problem. But from what you understand, how serious is it?

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is an extremely important issue to know, because children are

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vulnerable. Because they are not know -- not where they are supposed

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to be, they are probably coming to harm. Do you know how widespread

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the problem is? It is difficult to tell. There is a variation in the

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way that different countries record or even report the problem. Between

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countries, in some countries, the value of a child is not consider it

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as high as we may consider them. Simply because they are not earning

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money. So they are not a valued member of society, as such. If

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anything happens to them, if they run away, people may not take

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notice. Whereas for Russ, they will. In some societies, they are costing

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the parents and that is a burden to them. Yes, in terms of society,

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every parent, we would assume that parents across the world kept for

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their children, but in terms of society, the police... they may not

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spend the time and effort to search for them. Explain to us what a

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missing child can do to the family. It is heartbreaking. Not even a

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child, any one that you love, you do not know where they are, they go

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for a minute, you have that fear, they go for an hour, think of a day,

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a week, a month. Their life stops. They cannot move on. They have no

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ending. The what if, it is not need telling, it just eats away. We know

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that they struggle to cope. We know they have to move on to some extent

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because of other children, that they possibly have to raise, but

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they can't move on and they are stuck at that particular moment,

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where that particular child went missing and they cannot let it go.

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