THEThe phenomenon of missing children is a dramatic scourge of our society: over 17,000 reports of disappearance in our country in 2021, of which almost 9,000 are still to be found. A plague that has deepened and widened in recent months, due to the war.
“What happened during the first hours of this crisis we pay as a wound of conscience,” said Ernesto Caffo, founder and president of SOS Il Telephone Azzurro Onlus on the occasion of the presentation of the dossier It is not a question of children The invisible disappearance that makes noise.
The numbers of missing children
Thanks to Single European Number for Missing Children 116000, activated on 25 May 2009, the first International Day of Missing Children, it was possible to get a picture of the current situation. There are over 6 million refugees fleeing Ukraine, half of them children. On the other hand, internally displaced people are more than 8 million with peaks in flows towards two destinations: Poland and Romania. Our country has seen it almost arrive 120,000 people fleeing the conflict, including almost 40,000 children, according to the latest updates from the Interior Ministry. And again, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Education, more than 22 thousand Ukrainian children are today at our school desks.
From the climate of confusion to the risks of trafficking
But already in March, according to the estimates of Telefono Azzurro, of the children who arrived between Poland, Hungary and Romania, 200,000 were abandoned children and many of these, almost half, disabled. Some accompanied by adults, many times strangers who have taken advantage of the situation of extreme confusion, of great welcome, yes, but without a control.
And without control, without identification, children easily become victims of trafficking. “The passage of children from the borders of Ukraine to Europe has thus led to the entry into the Schengen area of many situations of great fragility and suffering,” said Caffo.
The importance of networking in Europe
Urge, is the request, which follows the complaint, by Telefono Azzurro, “a national and European strategy to tackle this phenomenon ”, says the president. “Reason why on May 27, Telefono Azzurro will be present in Warsaw, under the aegis of the World Society of Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry, as well as various international organizations, to build together in a coordinated European way a path of help for these children “. That is, we need a coordinated European network that promotes listening and the mental well-being of children and adolescents and guarantees them psychological support.. A goal that is possible at an international level through the network of Missing Children Europe e Internationa Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
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