In Australia, an estimated 20,000 children are reported missing every year. Australian Federal Police, National Coordination Centre.
In 2021, more than 34,000 missing persons reports in Australia related to children under age 18.
Another review prepared for the Australian federal police in 2021 found that at least 25.6% of children under 12 and 18% of those aged between 13 and 17 who go missing while in care are Indigenous, despite First Nations children making up just 5.9% of the total population under 18.
About 1 per cent of Australia's missing persons are never found. Some disappear and are quietly forgotten.
The Australian State with no kidnappings for 2021 was the Northern Territory. Out of a total of 453 kidnappings, 27 were children under the age of 9 years. Just over one third (153) were Family Domestic Violence related.
The disappearance of Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont on Australia Day in 1966 became one of the country's enduring mysteries and remains unsolved. The children — aged 9, 7 and 4 — left their Somerton Park home for a day at Glenelg beach, but never came home.
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Each year, around 30,000 people are reported missing in Australia—one person every 18 minutes.
A four-year-old girl missing for 18 days in a remote part of Western Australia has been found alive and well in a locked house, police have said. Cleo Smith disappeared from her family's tent at a campsite near the town of Carnarvon on 16 October, triggering a massive search.
Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont lived with their parents, Grant "Jim" Beaumont, a former serviceman and taxi driver, and Nancy Beaumont (née Ellis), who had married in December 1955. Their house was at 109 Harding Street, Somerton Park, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide.
California is the state with the most missing persons, with 2,133 cases reported. Many factors could contribute to California's high number of missing persons, including its high population, large geographic area, and diverse communities.
The Bringing Them Home report (produced by the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families in 1987), says that "at least 100,000" children were removed from their parents.
In Victoria, the term 'Forgotten Australians' refers to people who spent time as children in institutions, orphanages and other forms of out-of-home 'care', prior to 1990, many of whom had physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse perpetrated against them.
In 2021, female Indigenous students had higher apparent retention rates than male Indigenous students across all school year groups and in all jurisdictions. Nationally, the apparent retention rate for female Indigenous students was 63% from Year 7/8 to Year 12, compared with 55% of male Indigenous students.
Attempted abductions most often occur on the street while children are playing, walking, or riding bikes. Younger children are more likely to be playing or walking with a parent or an adult whereas school-age children are more likely to be walking alone or with peers.
According to research by Child Recovery Australia, 250+ children are abducted into or out of Australia by a parent every year.
From 1947 to 1965, eight approved organisations migrated a total of 3,170 children to Australia. The peak years for child migration to Australia were 1947 and 1950 to 1955. Around 400 children in total were sent by local authorities, a small percentage of the total number of children in local authority care.
The United States has what may be the world's highest number of missing persons. According to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Missing Person and Unidentified Person Files for the 2021 operational year, 521,705 people were reported missing in 2021.
Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a British missing person who disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal on the evening of 3 May 2007, at the age of 3. The Daily Telegraph described the disappearance as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".
Cleo's disappearance from a campsite on Oct. 16 set off an 18-day search for the toddler that grabbed headlines around the world. On Nov. 3, she was discovered by police in a locked room of Kelly's house, about 62 miles from the campsite where she went missing, Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch said in a video statement.
Melissa Highsmith, 53, was abducted by a babysitter from her home in Fort Worth in 1971 when she was just 22 months old. Years of searching by the family yielded nothing - until DNA samples sent to an ancestry website produced a match.
'Baby Holly' found alive over 40 years after parents turned up dead in Houston : NPR. 'Baby Holly' found alive over 40 years after parents turned up dead in Houston Two bodies were discovered in the woods in Houston in 1981. They were later identified as a couple. But their baby, who is now 42, was not found with them.
A Missing Person is defined as anyone whose whereabouts are unknown and there are genuine fears for the safely or concerns for the welfare of that person. It is important to remember that going missing is NOT a crime.
1. The Beaumont Children. The disappearance of the Beaumont children is one of Australia's most notable missing person cases. Jane aged nine, Arnna, seven, and Grant, four, disappeared on Australia Day in 1966 after visiting Glenelg Beach near Adelaide.
There are approximately 2,600 long-term missing persons in Australia.