"PORTUGAL: Some Missing Children More Equal than Others
October 27th, 2007
Dear Editor
The report by Mario de Queiroz, suggests that there have been 31 children gone missing last year in Portugal; and that none given the attention as that of Madeleine McCann.
In Portugal, SOS Crianca Desaparecida (SOS Missing Children) of the Instituto de Apoio a Crianza opened 31 new cases last year of missing children, involving 19 girls and 12 boys. Filgueiras said that when Portuguese children go missing, “no TV station airs photos of the victims”. Another blog, http://insolitos-da-gravata.blogspot.com/, notes that in the case of Joanna, a Portuguese girl who disappeared a year ago, ‘’it took the police several days to start searching, while in this case it took just 30 minutes, and I can’t avoid thinking, selfishly, that it was only because she was from a well-off English family, since any of us would have had to wait for 48 hours after the disappearance, as established by law.”
However, I’m sure most people in Britain would agree that this should not be the case. But on the contrary all children should have equal high profile if gone missing. But surely the fact Portuguese children who have gone missing are not given high profile, or any for that matter, is a failing on the part of Portuguese, bureaucracy and is nothing to do with parents of missing Madeleine or that they are doctors. And why is it that when a British girl goes missing, the parents are treated as suspects, but when Portuguese children are reported ‘gone missing’ we are simply led to believe that they have been abducted. Surely the stress should lie on finding these missing children and trying to make countries like Portugal a safer place to live or visit. This of course can only be done by bringing these matters to people’s attention, as we do here in Britain.
Yours sincerely,
Steve Phillips
England - Oswestry"
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