Two days ago, I went to a local department store to buy groceries, and the poster of a child missing from 2002 caught my eye. I mused on how it must have been for the parents…it would, I thought, be easier to deal with the death of a child than the disappearance. To swing between hope and despair, endlessly…I thought about the boy, Shawn, missing when he was 10 years old.

Meanwhile, another young boy had been kidnapped from Kirkwood, a neighbouring community, 4 days ago. Another set of parents who had had their daughter kidnapped (she was later found dead) had sent up the “Amber Program” so that ANYONE could report any sighting of a child looking like a kidnapped child. Quite amazingly, someone DID phone in some information…and when police raided the suspect’s home, they found Shawn, the other child, as well.

To find a kidnapped child alive and well would be some kind of miracle, I feel. The news still does not say if the children were abused in any way…

So few of the children who go missing in India are found…would an “Amber Program” work in our country?