Portugal joins International Day of Missing Children campaign
Authorities in Portugal recorded the disappearance of 1,010 children and teens in Portugal last year – almost a hundred less than the record of 1,102 in 2022 – all of whom have been found.
Miguel Gonçalves, chief inspector at the PJ’s Criminal Investigation Unit, tells Lusa that statistics available reflect national communications made directly to the PJ or which have been disseminated by other criminal police bodies (PSP and GNR).
He stressed that registering a missing person is very different from opening an investigation. Investigations only take place if there is ‘a suspicion of a situation of criminal origin’.
“As a rule, the vast majority of the situations we have are just situations in which a missing person’s report is made and, as a rule, in a short space of time the children (up to the age of 18) are located”, he said.
“As far as I’m aware, we don’t have any specific situation in 2023 of a child who hasn’t actually been located and who has subsequently given rise to an inquiry”.
According to the figures, of the 1,010 missing children in 2023, 179 were under the age of 14, while the remaining 831 were between the ages of 14 and 17, although the number may be somewhat inflated for different reasons, adds Lusa.
There are situations of duplication, because there are many institutionalised children who go missing several times during the year, said Gonçalves, who also pointed out that among children under the age of 14 it isn’t always a case of an institutionalised child going missing, but rather of a late arrival at an institution. If, for example, children living ‘in case’ “don’t follow the rules and if they don’t arrive (on time), the institution automatically reports them missing”.
With regard to previous years, Miguel Gonçalves said that in 2022 there were a total of 1,102 records of missing children, 178 of them up to the age of 14 and 924 in the 14-17 age group.
In 2021, the lowest number of missing children and young people in the last three years was recorded, with a total of 976 (129 up to the age of 14 and 847 between the ages of 14 and 17), “most likely still influenced by the pandemic”.
For Gonçalves, the Portuguese reality ‘is not worrying’ when compared to other countries, citing the examples of the United Kingdom or Spain, emphasising that situations involving children under 14 tend to ‘be resolved in the shortest possible time’, while for young people between 14 and 17 the situation can become ‘more complicated’ due to the greater autonomy of that age group.
“It’s usually at the age of 15-16 that there is the highest incidence of missing children. Then there are also those who are very close to reaching adulthood, where in a few months they will turn 18”, he adds.
The PJ announced that it is joining the International Day of Missing Children campaign , promoted by the European Centre for Missing Children in 16 countries, with the motto “Check. Think. Communicate”, providing a manual for parents and carers on what to do if a child goes missing.
According to the press release, around 300,000 children go missing in Europe every year.
International Day of Missing Children is commemorated every year on May 25.
Source material: LUSA
