«Tplans to kidnap a little girl in front of a supermarket”: the story that was told by newspapers and TV 15 days ago dispels the belief that these news are in reality urban legends. Because in the case that occurred in Bergamo there were cameras documenting the crazy act of a man who tried to take a little girl away while he was hand in hand with his mother. And that was enough to bring back current events a real emergency, actually underestimated. That of missing minorsoften kidnapped.
It is the data that provides the picture, confirming that there is no longer any news of thousands of them, and that in addition to unaccompanied foreigners there are many Italians. The numbers on the general phenomenon are provided by the National Observatory for Children and Adolescents.
It turns out that in the first seven months of 2025, 11,411 reports of missing children were filedamong them 8,059 foreigners and 3,352 Italians: 799 concern minors under the age of 13 while 10,612 are between 14 and 17 years old; There were 5,375 discoveries, including 450 of minors under the age of 13 and 4,925 of minors between 14 and 17 years of age.
Fiorenza Sarzanini (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
But the most important thing concerns what happens before the disappearance. Because it is true that violent picking up on the street is not frequent, but it is also true that the phenomenon of solicitation, both personal and online, now appears rampant. And this is what we need to focus our attention on. This is why experts warn especially about contacts on the web.
It is worth focusing on what is recommended by Ernesto Caffo, the president of Blue Telephone: «The groomer creates a situation to start relating to. For example, a funny or kind comment on a photo posted on a social profile. After a positive response at the first contact, he begins to gather information and try to gain the minor’s trust by inventing common interests, until he addresses topics of an intimate nature and, finally, exchanges photos that are not necessarily of a sexual nature. When he feels confident, the exclusivity phase begins, in which the first contacts usually take place via webcam (often of a sexual nature) which can subsequently be used to blackmail the victim.” Sometimes the minor is unaware that there could be an adult on the other side of the chat, other times he knows it but accepts the risk and often also the encounter.
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All articles by Fiorenza Sarzanini.
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