Child Abduction 700 a day or 100 a year?

I am writing this in response not only to a post, which I have commented on four times today, but also to the response of so many "Security Professionals" and others who have either commented in agreement or puts Likes, celebrations and supports, on what is at best erroneous and misleading and at worst deliberate mis-information. Yes it's all in a good cause...But, Is it?

It was posted by a prevalent LinkedIn influencer/poster with over 33 thousand followers who specializes in; Behavioural Analyst and Forensic Interviewing, Personal and Organizational Protection, Fighting Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking. All very honourable professions and causes and for that reason I have been a follower for about a year. Transparency at it's best.

The post inspired me to write, in the first instance, because of it's obvious scaremongering appeal to the fear which is far too abundant in our society today. The video shown was not self generated content, but the personal comments from our expert were without doubt meant to instil fear at some level and obviously to generate comments and likes.

If that was not the case then they were at best ill informed and misleading, which from someone working in the fields mentioned above is, in my humble opinion is much worse.

The video is of a child abduction, prank/social experiment, itself based on another Youtubers thirst for 'likes' the only difference on this occasion, the hero of the video was a woman. Sublimely showing, yet again, how weak men in our society have become and how women and children can no longer look to them for support! An unsubstantiated bias, but never the less a prevalent misrepresentation today, agreed upon profusely in the comments section.

So, I posted in my comment another social experiment where child abduction was the theme. This time every man placed in a position to witness the 'faked' abduction stepped in to help the child, as did, by-the-way most of the women, (the women who did not intervene personally and physically did so by phoning for help or messaging a boyfriend/brother to come quickly). Giving a completely different view of the reactions of both males and females than the previous posters video.

Now we all know there are two sides to a coin, and biases run freely in all of us. For that reason a little investigation was needed.

Down the rabbit whole I have been for the last 12 hours!

Those who have followed me this last year will know this is a topic I have mentioned before and one that I feel very strongly about. My daughter aged 5, some 30 years ago was very nearly abducted from her mothers side, in a London street. So I am not unaware that the crime is real, it is just not as wide spread as some would like us to believe.

In the instance of my daughter, as in so many other child abduction cases, the abductor was known to her biological father and paid for by him to snatch our daughter. Most abductions are indeed committed by parents, family members or friends of a parent on their behalf, usually because of custody issues, or legally authorized family separations.

Less than 1% of child abductions are committed by strangers with the intention of permanently removing the child!

That number is not zero, and is therefor too high for me, but never-the-less it should be comforting for those who chose to read highly politicalised statistics presented in the media, on child kidnap and abduction. Whatever you read divide it by 100!

So why is the article 700 or 100?

It is easy to find social media influencers pronouncing such numbers as 700 and into the thousands, however, when they have been later interviewed they picked the numbers out of the air! No, studious investigation to find the facts just the first number Google or maybe a less reputable TV channel presented to them. Serious studies in a given region where the stated number was in the several thousands or at best very best 700, turned out to uncover an annual average of only 100 abductions! Again too many but a long way from the several thousands quoted publicly. What makes this worse still is one of those social media influences has spread this false information to over 20 million viewers of his videos and obviously earned a considerable revenue from that!

FEAR FOR PROFIT!

TV stations and newspapers have been doing it for years and they know that bad news, and along with it fear, is profitable. When examining statistics, what often increases is the number of crimes committed in any given field, but often not their ratio in level with the growing population, and that is annoying. One thing that most people understand is the per 100,000 ratio and by that marker almost all crime has stayed relatively equal to years gone by or has actually decreased. Methods of collecting and reporting incidents has changed considerably, different crimes have been put into different groups and so on, but the above statement is true. You would not know that by watching mainstream news or most social media feeds. Why because bad news is click bait.

Experts estimate that: 9 out of 10 reported stranger abductions are actually attempted abductions or at worst very short term abductions, 5-10 minutes for the purpose of sexual gratification by means of indecent exposure or groping, as apposed to the imagined, bundled into a car and kidnapped for the slave trade or worse. Again I am in no way diminishing the effect of these incidents on the children involved or their parents, just trying to put the truth into focus, for a change; 90% plus are inter-familiar disputes and 99% of abductees come home; the yearly average is a almost constant 8.5 per 100,000 children (under 16) since records began (0.085%). No different for your kids, than for you, than your parents and probably grandparents!

And yet whole generations of children have not been allowed to play out alone, in the dark etc for over 40 years. The odds against an abduction of your children are so extreme you couldn't get a bookie to take your money and they take bets on asteroids hitting earth, nuclear wars, discovery of alien life form, and what animal will next contaminate your 'beef' burgers!

That's not to say it doesn't happen, it does, but look at the facts before making decisions that will effect your child's mental and physical health, possibly forever.

Whole generations of youngsters have stayed in their bedrooms, based solely on scaremongering tactics. Be those, politically motivated, and with a deeper darker hidden agenda, social engineering of the parents and children, economically motivated by TV mogul millionaires searching for ever increasing margins, failed social intervention by well meaning do-gooders getting it wrong, playing ever increasingly morbid, grotesque and blood thirsty video games, alone, with only cyber friends. Interactions with others of a similar age (or not):

And that my friends has proved to be a failed experiment, which has made no one safer from evil! They abuse each other, and are abused, from a hidden place of safety, with little real life repercussions for the majority, or even the ability to learn to read the facial expressions necessary to be able to visualize the imminent threats that may be in their midst.

So when in a school or at a fast food joint they speak out of turn with someone from outside their protected world, with different social norms, they get introduced to real-life social aggression and have no mechanisms in place to deal with, emotionally, verbally or physically, the slightest bit of physical, previously normal behaviour and everyone enters into video game hero survival mode. Then we wonder about knife crime?

Scaremongering has no beneficial effect on the safety of our children, their parents or any other member of society. Does our world contain dangers? Yes it does. Are they manageable? Yes they are. Before you go off blaming the bogey man for everything remember this.

Your child is considerably more likely to be killed in a car you are driving! Your child is considerably more likely to be killed in a household accident. In the States your child is almost as likely to be killed by your gun at home than Thane they are to be taken by a serial child predator!

Yet even with all the studies all the facts and all the training in prevention available, the vast majority still prefer to read, to watch and to believe the hype, the lies propagated for who knows whose benefit, but definitely not for the benefit of your children, of our children, of the children!

And if that wasn't enough, the experts out there, the professionals who fill the pages of LinkedIn and every other social media platform are so interested in boosting their ratings, or showing the world their 'superficial' expert knowledge, they just can't bring themselves to go down the rabbit hole and do the work themselves.

NO, instead they regurgitate other peoples posts, they use AI to write 'ALL' their content and they join the bandwagon, to beat the drums of misinformed, if good intentioned, 'influencers' in the hope that they may have some 'fame rub off on them. Please, inform yourselves first, seek the information, do the work, before you deem yourselves fit to inform the rest of us.

Our children are our most precious asset. We should protect them above all else. We should teach them all they need to know to protect themselves. We should let them play, so-as-to learn the skills they will later in life need to survive healthily and happily in a social acceptable manner, so they will be able to teach their children to live without fear of every shadow, every new person and every new experience.

Let them fall occasionally and pick themselves up, let them scrape the occasional knee and climb the occasional tree. But above all give them and their parents the truth and let them decide for themselves which risks are worth taking and which are not.

I you would like less bias and opinion and more of the truth feel free to contact me here in the comment, a DM or at my website which you will find at the end of this post.

Protect the young and the vulnerable.

We provide Governmental, professional, and civilian security services and training in Spain and Latin America. Options are available to those who wish to increase their personal safety, the safety of their loved ones or clients, or who wish to advance their careers in Close protection with professional no-nonsense skillsets.

I teach private online classes, and I teach in-person; private, family, and group classes in Cádiz province in Spain. The subject matter I cover includes but is not limited to: My D.A.D.A. program. Detect, Avoid, Distract, Attack (CQC). Situational awareness and avoiding problematic situations; People profiling for your personal safety; Situational control and tactical conversation; Physical solutions for violent situations; Home security and protection solutions.

In-person classes can include in-depth physical combative training in the use of physical violence for your safety and security.

If you would like information on any of the above subjects feel free to DM me and we can have an informal "chat" old school style!

Alternatively contact me at: www.insafehands.net

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