A little girl (7 years old) was *almost* abducted from Walmart in the US this week. The clever little poppet screamed and kicked and got away unscathed. Brilliant! My initial reaction? What a great job that little girl's parents did, she knew just what to do! And she seems pretty chuffed with herself as well. Good for her! The 'world according to the internet' reaction? Well, on the websites I frequent, same thing. Elsewhere? The mother (only the mother for some reason, I'm not sure where the Dad comes into it) is being vilified for letting her 7 year old daughter out of her sight while at the shops. This is one of the comments left on a news site:
NEVER leave your child out of your sight in ANY store. NEVER be in one aisle and your child in another, NEVER leave your child in the car while you run in to pay for your gas, NEVER leave your grocery cart with your kid in it, always have at least one hand on the cart. It's very unfortunate, but you just can't be too careful these days, as this story so clearly shows. And yes, I have a kid. He is now 21 and still thinks I was paranoid, but as I said -- he reached the age of 21 and no, I never did leave him out of my sight when he was little.
And another:
At this age I walked to the bus stop and home from school and many other places alone. Many kids still do, but they shouldn't. Crime against children is so rampant that we must revise our expectations of what they can or should do without supervision. This, however, is an amazingly blatant, brazen abduction attempt. Walmart is obviously rife with cameras inside and out. She should have been safe, but she wasn't. We are basically all sitting ducks for these creeps.
Right. Shall we spoil this with some common sense, maybe even some facts? Shall we start with the obvious? If it was really so dangerous to let your primary school age child into a different aisle in the shops, why is the the first reported incidence of an abduction attempt? Given how much the media LOVES sensationalist stories, especially ones involving children, wouldn't we be hearing about it a whole heap more? Remember Daniel Morecombe? Of course you do. This was a truly tragic case and my heart goes out to his family. Do you remember the name of the little girl whose whole family was killed in a car accident, leaving her in state care? No, you don't. Mainly because I made that case up. But I can guarantee that little girl is out there, just one of the many tragic stories we don't hear because they aren't exciting or unusual enough to capture the media's attention.
It is really hard to find statistics on how many children are abducted in Australia by sexual predators. Most of the sites I come to have alarming stories about attempted abductions, Anywhere! Anytime! And it must be absolutely heart breaking for those people who do lose a child under any circumstances, most especially violence. But the thing is, most of these appear to be unsuccessful attempts. I did find some US sites that had some interesting information. Did you know that according to a national study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, between 1,131,000 and 1,500,000 children went missing during 1999 (a rate of about 18.8 children per 1,000). Half of these youths were runaways or were forced out of their homes by a parent or guardian. The second largest group was made up of children who were missing for benign reasons, such as a communication mix-up with a caregiver. Fewer than 200,000 children were actually abducted, lost, or injured. (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fy867). In 1999 117, 220 children were involved in familial abducation, and 33 000 victims on non family abduction. That is a tragic number, and worse is that 74% of these children were dead within three hours. HOWEVER, the rate of abduction is 0.47 per 1000 people. Cause for sadness? Yes. Cause for alarm? No. Not for me.
This is just one example of increasing misperceptions of crime in Australia (http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/381-400/tandi396.aspx). When something bad happens, even on the other side of the world, people tend to catastrophise, immediately imagining the worst case scenario and applying it to their own circumstances. This little girl was attacked! At the shops! I have a little girl! We go to the shops! I will never let her out of my sight again!
See how that goes?
We love our kids. We want the best for them. We want them to stay safe. But I am making a stand against fear mongering. Crime is less than it was 30 years ago, not more. You are FAR more likely to be abused by someone you know than by a stranger. And you are more likely to die in a car accident or from the effects of an inactive lifestyle than be abducted and killed by a stranger.
My daughter knows the rules. She knows that she can talk to or play with anyone she likes, but never go somewhere with them. She knows that if someone tries to take her away, she is to kick and scream and bite. She knows the world is a beautiful and mainly safe place, and she is not afraid. She will go to a different part of the shops without me. She will run ahead on the way home from school and turn the corner. She will (soon) stay at home BY HERSELF for 5 or 10 minutes while I go outside and count (baby steps). And if by some horrible chance someone does try to take her away from me, I will deal with whatever is left after she's done.
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