I did some research about child abduction, hoping to find about the trauma victims of child abduction have. I thought I would find some solid, cruel facts. However, what I came up with was more than cruel-It was very twisted. Children who are abducted at a young age often suffer little to no psychological trauma at all. You'd think this was good, right? Well, think again.
The reason their abductions don't haunt them isn't that abductors who target children very young are kinder to them than people who abduct kids closer to their teens. It isn't that because their very young, they'll totally forget about all that has happened to them later.
Children who are abducted before they reach around 8 years old have no clue that what is happening to them is wrong. They often don't even know they're in danger. Because that's the tricky thing about abductors, they lull children into a false sense of security. I've heard way too many stories of kids who only get found when they are nearing adulthood; children who were repeatedly raped and otherwise violated, who were comfortable with their lives before they were saved. I distinctly remember hearing a story on the today show of a woman who was abducted when she was 7, and never tried to leave. She actually had 3 of her abductor's children.
That actually appalls me. It scares me. And the deep root is that these kids are too young to know what is right and what isn't yet. They can be persuaded easily. Kids believe abductors who tell them that their parents were just lying to him or her, to keep them from from having fun. Kids believe abductors when they say that the reason they're hurting them is because they love them. And kids are so easily impressionable that the beliefs of their abductors often stay their beliefs.
For instance, there is the case of David Goldman trying to retrieve his son Sean from Brazil.
Although it's true that Sean wasn't treated poorly in Brazil, how he was snatched is illegal and immoral. However, Sean didn't want to go back home to his father. No, he wanted to stay with the family he'd lived with his whole life; no matter the circumstances of how he got there. In Sean's perspective, a man he hadn't seen in over five years was trying to bring him back to a life he didn't want to go to. Although much of the reason it took so long to return Sean to David was the Brazilian government not acting; Sean also didn't want to return. The family he was living with had convinced him that they were who he really belonged with, and Sean is a child, impressionable.
This case and so many others show the cruelty of abduction. Not only does it take children from their parents, split apart families, leave physical marks on children and leave mental marks, children who were abducted and then rescued often hate their life after they get saved.
Really, it comes down to who we are as humans. Not just kids. As humans, we love the familiar. We believe what we are told and find it hard to question what we are told. And that one "insignificant" flaw can be the difference of a child who tries to escape and a child who is willing to stay in a dangerous situation.
OTHER FACTS:
-Girls between ages 10 and 14 are most at risk of attempted abduction. It scares me that I fit into this group.
-A large portion of children who are abducted are abducted by family. This happens often when parents divorce and one parent gets full custody of the kids while the other never gets to see them. This often makes the other parent do crazy things. Because the children are familiar with who has taken them, they often don't see it as an abduction. This happened to my 2nd cousin.
-In most cases of attempted abduction, kids' own pure strength and resistance help them get away. In only 16% of cases do adults step in to help.
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