Setting the Problem of Missing Children in the Republic of Ireland against Contemporary International Research Perspectives

Abstract

Purpose

This paper sets a case study of missing children in the Republic of Ireland against a review of international research to explore broader understandings and responses to the problem.

Methodology/approach

The study begins by reviewing the literature on pioneering American initiatives dating back to the 1970s and more recent literature from Great Britain where a series of high-profile scandals involving sexual exploitation of teenage girls provoked a number of controversial inquiries into the police and social work professions. The present study was prompted by an evaluation of the 116 000 Missing Children Hotline which was introduced to Ireland in 2012 under the auspices of the European Union (EU) Daphne III Programme by the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC).

Findings

The central conclusion emerging from analysis of the evidence is that Missing Children Hotlines remain rooted in representations of ‘stranger danger’ and disconnected from repeat runaway children who feature prominently in police reports from formal care settings or family homes and who are actively targeted by sexual predators and criminal gangs. The implications are that systemic change requires grounding in research strategies which combine police data with anthropological studies to give legitimacy to the voices of runway and sexually exploited children.

Originality/value

The study offers original international perspectives on missing children to epistemological research communities in the fields of social work, criminology and policing with recommendations that Missing Children and Runaway Safe-lines are targeted systemically at keeping runaway children, homeless children and at-risk-youth safe and off the streets.

Citation

Rush, M. (2015), "Setting the Problem of Missing Children in the Republic of Ireland against Contemporary International Research Perspectives", Violence and Crime in the Family: Patterns, Causes, and Consequences (Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 407-433. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1530-353520150000009017