Why do so many boys, girls and young people disappear in Bogotá? Experts analyze the causes of this problem

According to Forensic Medicine data, Young people aged 15 to 17 disappear the most, with a report of 129 cases between January 1 of this year and April 30, followed by children aged 10 to 14, with 101 records, and adults aged 25 to 29 years old, with a record of 85 missing this year.

But the data is not new. During 2023, when the number of missing people in Bogotá reached 2,372 cases, 33 percent of those corresponded to children under 18 years of age and in more than 70 cases they were children between 1 and 10 years of age.

One of the first to put the magnifying glass on this issue was Councilor Diana Diago, of the Democratic Center, who has been insisting that these figures cannot be ignored because, In addition to being alarming, they are the highest compared to other cities and municipalities in the country since, only the cases of Bogotá, They represented 40 percent of all disappearances in Colombia in 2023.

“What are we doing to protect our children? (…) Carlos Fernando Galán must urgently articulate with the Secretariat of Security and the Metropolitan Police a security plan with the aim of lowering the numbers of disappearances and Also increasing the rescue rates, that of those missing in 2023, 49 percent will still be in that condition, is nonsense“, mentioned the lobbyist.

According to Paula Andrea Amaya, Criminal Investigation coordinator at the Manuela Beltrán University, the most frequent reason for disappearance in the city is human trafficking, both for sexual exploitation and extortion.

Furthermore, the expert explained, that problems in family structures and mental health problems can also influence the high numbers of disappearances, since not all cases correspond to reasons related to a criminal act.

In this regard, the Missing Persons Unit of the Metropolitan Police indicated that the cases with the highest reports correspond to rebellious adolescents with bad family relationships, men and women who They flee from debts and love disappointments, people who go out to party and end up with scabs, victims of traffic accidents and cases of people with mental pathologies, considered voluntary disappearances. On the other hand, there are forced disappearances, which represent its greatest challenge. And in Bogotá, there is everything.

Two of these points are very important and would be fueling the numbers of disappearances in the city, especially in youth and young adults, which related to cases in which citizens decide to leave their places of frequency of their own free will.

“Disappearances are not necessarily related to criminal acts. There are many cases, the majority, in which children leave home in a fit of rebellion, without knowing the impact of the action they are carrying out, or young adolescents who run away with their partners or who have been scolded by their parents and believe that in “revenge” the best thing is to disappear for a while (…) This does not reduce the importance of what happens to those who forcibly disappear, but we see everything,” explained an investigator from the Search Unit for the Disappeared.

For his part, Cristian Carranza, analyst at the Faculty of Law of the Manuela Beltrán University, He added that the figures are alarming and that they require “urgent and coordinated” attention. to optimize the technical search and rescue capabilities of the authorities.

“It is essential to improve the capabilities of public forces to investigate and resolve cases of disappearance and that includes the use of technology such as drones and other electronic devices (…) High coordination is also required between the Police, the Prosecutor’s Office, human rights organizations and health sector entities to improve the response in cases of disappearance.”, noted the analyst.

JONATHAN TORO ROMERO
Bogotá Editorial