International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children
You may or may not have noticed - there have been no comments or emails - but I have removed the picture of Madeleine McCann which has been prominently on the sidebar for nearly nine months.
Madeleine McCannI did so with sadness. I still desperately hope that she is found but after this length of time the outlook is grim. From the beginning, there was criticism of the publicity surrounding Madeleine’s disappearance. Whatever may have happened on that night in Portugal, however imperfect the baby-sitting arrangements may have been, Gerry and Kate McCann are decent, caring parents who did everything within their power to help the search for their missing daughter. I would have done the same myself, and it is beyond understanding why they were subjected to so much criticism. The lack of compassion from certain sources was appalling.
Madeleine McCann has not been found. As I write this, Shannon Matthews has been missing for over a week.
There are new cases occurring all the time. However grim the outlook, we must never give up. These children are sometimes found and, whatever may have happened to them, then can recover and regain a normal life.
Lisa Hoodless and Charlene LunnonLisa Hoodless and Charlene Lunnon were abducted and raped nine years ago, aged 10. They found strength in each other to survive the four-day ordeal and, remarkably, to rebuild their lives. (see Abducted, abused, survived)
Gerry and Kate McCann will never stop looking for Madeleine but they too are moving on. Have you visited the Find Madeleine website recently?
Since Madeleine’s abduction, we have learned a lot about missing children and child exploitation. The scale of the problem is massive and worldwide. Although finding Madeleine will always remain our priority, we feel it is our duty to highlight these problems as well as areas where legislation can be improved, in order to make the world a little safer for all children. To achieve these aims we are working closely with the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Centre for Child Exploitation and Online Protection and other non-governmental agencies throughout Europe (Investigation page). The Find Madeleine Campaign launched a new YouTube channel for missing children in August 2007 called ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ in conjunction with ICMEC and Google.
It is such a heartbreaking subject. Do please visit the "Don't you Forget About Me" website which features videos not just of Madeleine McCann but of many other children currently missing.
11 Comments:
Among my other vices, I served for several years as a reserve deputy in a major metropolitan sheriff's department.
I never had anything to do with cases of this sort, but I do well recall the watchword that applies among police officers in all matters having to do with violence and foul play within the family. It goes
'Always check out the in-laws, before looking for outlaws.'
That watchword grew up because it's true - in the majority of cases (and often, in the vast majority of cases) violence and foul play within the family are perpetrated by other family members. Yes, Mr Stranger Danger does exist - but he is a rara avis indeed.
I always get mad and boot-throwing when I see some unfortunate case of missing-child reported on the TV and one of the family enighbours is interviewed and says She's a mother, and no mother could ever hurt her own child!' I know that the unfortunate truth is most-likely the exact opposite.
You may well be convinced that the McCanns had nothing to do with the disappearance of their daughter - a conclusion which is really not based on any evidence. Unfortunately, experience tells us that you are more-likely-than-not to be mistaken, so perhaps it would be better to reserve such a confident judgement until more actual evidence comes along.
llater,
llamas
You may well be convinced that the McCanns had nothing to do with the disappearance of their daughter - a conclusion which is really not based on any evidence.
+++++
That is wrong.
And in any case, in the UK people are innocent until proved guilty. There is not one jot of evidence to support you innuendo.
John
I made no innuendo whatsoever, and I take exception to your suggestion that I did. I stated the facts, unfortunate as they are, but known to me from personal experience and easily-verfied with just a little research.
As you say, there is no evidence to support any conclusion, and certainly not your blanket assertions that 'Gerry and Kate McCann are decent, caring parents who did everything within their power to help the search for their missing daughter. I would have done the same myself, and it is beyond understanding why they were subjected to so much criticism. The lack of compassion from certain sources was appalling.'
They are indeed 'innocent until proven guilty', but I remind you that 'innocent' does not mean the same thing as 'above suspicion'. The truth is that they should be considered as suspects in the disappearance of their child until compelling evidence to the contrary is found - and not simply given a free pass from suspicion because they seem like nice people.
Susan Smith cried for the loss of her children, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Smith
and she is but an example of the unfortunate truth that the majority of children who are the victims of foul play are the victims of their own family members.
Tchah! (sound of exasperation)
llater,
llamas
You're being unfair to llamas, John. The British police would have looked at the McCanns immediately -- something the Portugese police failed to do -- for the very reasons llamas gives.
Jayann
You are very "acid" today.
I am not being unfair to anyone. I am sure the UK police would have done a better job than the Portuguese police have done.
What is objectionable about all this is the witch hunt that has been mounted against the McCanns
John
John, yes I am. (I'm in pain, and I'm coping with vandalism -- a smashed stained glass window that can't be replaced.) But I do think you misread llamas -- who is hardly my ideological best friend...
I am sure the UK police would have done a better job than the Portuguese police have done.
so am I. But immediately focussing on the McCanns would have been part of that better job. (Another part would have been an obscuring of the fact that they were doing it.) I
What is objectionable about all this is the witch hunt that has been mounted against the McCanns
there was also something of a witch-hunt against people who didn't like the wall-to-wall McCann coverage (coverage that pushed other cases out of the headlines), people who pointed out other children were missing.
The day Diana died, I walked into an eerily silent city centre, to be summoned by a concerned and angry sales assistant I knew well; she told me her closest colleague's mother was dying (cancer), that her grief was terrible, that, of course, no one offered her any sympathy that day. Something about the way we were talking -- probably our faces; no one could have overheard -- alerted the shop to our heresy; angry frozen faces met us; so, for the sake of her job, we said farewell.
jayann wrote:
'But I do think you misread llamas -- who is hardly my ideological best friend..."
Heh. Strange bedfellows, indeed . . . but I appeciate the support.
However:
'I am sure the UK police would have done a better job than the Portuguese police have done.
I am quite sure that they would not. Because police forces the world around have a long and storied history of totally botching investigations of this kind.
As a friend of mine, who spent 15 years working as a sex-crimes investigator, would often say - 'to be good at this sort of investigation, you need to be a little bit of a sociopath - you have to learn to disconnect normal human emotions and reactions - and police forces work very hard not to employ sociopaths'.
All police forces do a very bad job of missing-and-abducted chidren cases, unless they are quite clear - parental abduction, Romeo & Juliet, ASF - and this has nothing to do with nationality. It's even worse when they truly are Mr Stranger-Danger cases - which are fortunately very rare - because in those cases police forces have an almost-uncanny ability to go haring off after the wrong suspect while the actual offender is staring them in the face. In the UK, for example, see the Soham murders - in the US, for example, see the Oakland County child killer.
So let's not succumb to the Daily Mail's siren call to blame the failure to find this little girl on the bungling ineptitude of Johnny Foreigner.
As for the 'witch hunt' - if we're speaking about the media, I quite agree. But if we're speaking about the actions of the police - that's not a 'witch hunt', that's an investigation - of the prime suspects.
"...there was also something of a witch-hunt against people who didn't like the wall-to-wall McCann coverage (coverage that pushed other cases out of the headlines), people who pointed out other children were missing."
A great deal of the so-called 'backlash' against the McCanns was down to the response of the media. The rush to excuse their actions, have journalists claim 'we've all done it..' in columns and the (at first) immediate censorship on their talkboards of any criticism drew immediate condemnation and a hardening of attitudes.
In this case, the media were so out of step with the view of 'the man in the street', and so clumsy in their attempts to blame (as llamas puts it) 'Johnny Foreigner', or perhaps that should be 'PC Foreigner', that they have almost certainly helped to muddy the waters.
i suspect that in journalism courses everywhere, this case will be held up as a case study of 'getting it wrong from the very start'.
Also to add that this case, unfortunate as it is, is the perfect example of the 'pretty white girl' syndrome. Cases like this, involving heartbreakingly-pretty. idyllically-Caucasian children, will always lead, because they tug at the heartstrings of the majorities of readers and viewers. The fact that this took place in a foreign land, which allowed endless, laughable speculations about international crime rings and sinister foreigners and their motives was, of course, merely icing on an already-delectable cake as far as the UK media were concerned.
juliam wrote:
'i suspect that in journalism courses everywhere, this case will be held up as a case study of 'getting it wrong from the very start'.'
I suspect not. Well, it may be held up in J-schools as that - but in newsrooms and editor's offices, it will be held up as a case study in getting it right - because this story has sold more newspapers, and more airtime, than anyone could possibly imagine it would.
llater,
llamas
So let's not succumb to the Daily Mail's siren call to blame the failure to find this little girl on the bungling ineptitude of Johnny Foreigner.
I don't. But I believe the Portugese police involved in the investigation (at the beginning, anyway) had very little experience of this kind of work (which is no reflection on them).
(Yes it is 'pretty white girl' syndrome, I'm afraid.)
I don't think that the Portuguese police deserved the bad press they received from the British media. After all, their scenes of crime officers quickly established that the apartment had not been broken into by force as initially reported but had been left unlocked. This fact alone makes me suspicious about the circumstances of Madeleine's disappearance.
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