The term missing does not only refer to those whose whereabouts are completely unknown. Sometimes, a person can be missing but where they are is not a mystery. Either way, when people are not in the country they call home due to reasons beyond their control, they are missing from their community, they are missing… Read More »Missing because of Deportation
In a recent interview, Metropolitan Police Superintendent Rob Shepherd, who is in charge of missing people, said: “There is a far higher proportion of people from the Afro-Caribbean being reported missing than are represented in the population of London.” Some such reports have garnered widespread attention in the media, such as that of Richard Okorogheye. Richard,… Read More »Are BAME people more likely to go missing, and are they less likely to get found?
Regardless of a person’s age, education, gender or ethnicity, anyone can go missing. The reasons for this could include domestic violence, mental illness, addiction, misadventure, being a victim of a crime and even choosing to go missing to avoid personal issues, such as a family conflict. Before 2018, more females went missing than males. In… Read More »Once, women were more likely to go missing. Now it’s men. Why?
In the United Kingdom, 85% of all people who go missing because of modern slavery are teenagers (individuals between the ages 12 and 17) and 81% of all people who go missing because of trafficking are also teenagers, according to data provided by the United Kingdom Missing Persons Unit (UKMPU). The UK government defines modern… Read More »Missing teenagers are at high risk of being enslaved and trafficked – what can be done?
Since 1970, the amount of people who go long-term missing in London has increased each decade and alarmingly, between 2010 and 2020, a record 46 people went long-term missing in the nation’s capital. But are these statistics reflective of a genuine crisis? “Long-term missing” is defined as anyone who has been missing for 12 months… Read More »Is there a missing persons crisis in London?
Some missing persons cases, like that of Madeleine McCann, were so extensively covered by the media that the story became almost impossible to avoid. However, not all missing persons cases were seen as such great fodder for stories, for a myriad of reasons, and subsequently never hit the press in a significant way or for… Read More »The missing children we don’t talk about who have never been found
Talking with Francisco Garcia felt familiar. Like the impression his writing gives, he is a friendly conversationalist – one that starts with a firm handshake. The 29-year-old’s first book, If You Were There, investigates missing people – those who have searched, those who still are searching, and those who have been found. All the while,… Read More »‘I’m one of the luckiest people in the world’: how one Londoner found his long-lost family
Ben Westwood was about nine when he first went missing from his family home in Rugeley, Staffordshire. It was a spur-in-the-moment decision to run off with the £10 note his mum had given him to go to the chip shop. Looking back, Westwood does not remember exactly what he was running from, whether it was… Read More »‘I was on auto-pilot, searching for peace’: the young runaway’s story
Mihrican Mustafa, also known as Jan, was 38 when she went missing from Canning Town, London. A drug addict, alcoholic and sex worker, Jan’s life had fallen apart after losing her job at T.K. Max and becoming homeless. Her sister Mel reported her missing in April 2018, but when she first rang the police, they… Read More »Missing twice: How police bias makes vulnerable people who go missing invisible
When a person goes missing several pieces of demographic information are collected; age, gender, and ethnicity. However, there can be large discrepancies between police forces regarding the methods they use to collect this information, leading to gaps in the statistics and our understanding of who goes missing. Currently police use the following categories when collecting… Read More »Missing and misidentified: why do so many people end up categorised as ‘ethnicity unknown’