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<p>&nbsp;<strong>Update:</strong> In a reaction to the news coverage the &nbsp;recent missing persons cases has received, the DPS responded. Iowa DPS &nbsp;says the number of “missing juveniles&nbsp;reported in recent weeks is in &nbsp;line with historical numbers.” It is important to point out that this &nbsp;does not make 34 missing children any less newsworthy or otherwise &nbsp;“sensational.” A young University of Iowa student made headlines recently after she &nbsp;disappeared during an evening jog—but she is just one of the dozens of &nbsp;people who have been reported missing in Iowa in the last 10 days, and &nbsp;the overwhelming majority of the disappearances are children. Mollie Tibbetts, 20, has become the latest face of the missing person &nbsp;database this week after she was last seen going for a jog near her &nbsp;boyfriend’s house on the evening of July 18, and she seemingly <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/07/26/mollie-tibbetts-missing-search-fbi-investigation-following-leads-poweshiek-county-student-brooklyn/843564002/">vanished</a>. &nbsp;</p>
<p>Dozens of people of have pitched in to help search for the college &nbsp;student, and as she appeared to have no motive to flee, and her closest &nbsp;friends and family members have cooperated with police, it raises &nbsp;troubling questions about whether she was abducted.&nbsp;</p>
<p>However, Tibbetts is not alone. According to the <a href="https://www.iowaonline.state.ia.us/mpic/controller.aspx?cmd=showResults&amp;sortBy=Most%20Recent">Missing Person</a> database published by the Iowa Department of Public Safety, <strong>48 people have gone missing in the last two weeks, and 34 of those people are children</strong>. On the same day that Tibbets disappeared, two minors were also &nbsp;reported missing in Iowa—Mackenzie Lipp, 16; and David Harn, 16. In the &nbsp;next two days, another <strong>eight children</strong> were reported &nbsp;missing—Mackenzy York, 15; Malachi Vanderpool, 15; Nazario Campbell, 13; &nbsp;Joshua Wallace, 17; Nia Howe, 15; Madeline Francis, 15; Joesiah &nbsp;Armstrong, 14; and Yaritza Arita, 15. Thomas Bishop, 16, was reported missing on July 22, and Isabelle &nbsp;Buckman, 14, and Yvette Avila, 17, on July 23. The numbers then &nbsp;increased again July 24 when <strong>five children</strong> were &nbsp;reported missing—Summer Williams, 17; Asa Starr, 14; Belinda James, 15; &nbsp;Alberta Harlan, 16; and Maydelin Guerra-Albatado, 15. Tyron Woolery, 16; Serenity Wieman, 13; and Emagehn Champagne, 17, were all reported missing on July 24. <strong>Six people</strong> &nbsp;were reported missing in Iowa on July 26, and all of them were &nbsp;minors—Daishaney Phillips, 16; Anna Marousek, 17; Eric Magnussen, 14; &nbsp;and Mckenna Driver, 15.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Each one of these children has a family and friends who are &nbsp;heartbroken by their disappearance and who are actively looking for &nbsp;them, and unfortunately, they are just a few of the approximately <strong>2,000 children</strong> who are <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-children-america-unsolved-cases/story?id=19126967">reported missing</a> every single day in the United States—more than 100 of which are cases of stranger abduction. The National Crime Information Center <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2017-ncic-missing-person-and-unidentified-person-statistics.pdf/view">reported</a> that as of Dec. 31, 2017, there were <strong>88,089 active missing person records</strong> &nbsp;in the U.S. More than 36 percent of those cases, or 32,121, were under &nbsp;the age of 18, and more than 46 percent, or 41,089, were under the age &nbsp;of 21.&nbsp;</p>
<p>As The Free Thought Project <a href="https://thefreethoughtproject.com/chilling-ncmec-report-shows-88-of-missing-sex-trafficked-kids-come-from-us-foster-care/">reported</a> last month, disturbing statistics from the National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children revealed that more than <strong>27,000 children</strong> were reported missing in 2017. Nearly 25,000 of those children were labeled as “<em>endangered runaways</em>,” and <em>“</em><em><strong>one in seven&nbsp;</strong></em><em>were likely victims of child sex trafficking. Of those,&nbsp;</em><em><strong>88 percent&nbsp;were in the care of social services when they went missing.”</strong></em>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The overwhelming number of missing children made headlines in March 2017 when more than <a href="https://thefreethoughtproject.com/500-kids-missing-stay-home-trafficking/">500 children</a> &nbsp;were reported missing in Washington D.C. and a police commander who was &nbsp;asked about what children in the area should do to avoid becoming &nbsp;victims of child trafficking, responded, “<em><strong>Stay home, it’s as simple as that.”</strong></em> When a child goes missing, there are a number of fears that run &nbsp;through a parent’s mind, and they often fear that the worst has happened &nbsp;to their loved ones.&nbsp;</p>
<p>While individual cases such as the disappearance &nbsp;of Mollie Tibbetts do receive some national media attention, the &nbsp;overwhelming majority are swept under the rug and forgotten. It raises the question—what kind of a difference could the media make if it started focusing less on <a href="https://thefreethoughtproject.com/msnbc-stormy-daniels-yemen-genocide/">Stormy Daniels</a> and <a href="https://thefreethoughtproject.com/as-americans-argue-over-russia-us-govt-quietly-allows-dark-money-groups-to-keep-donors-secret/">Russia hysteria</a>, and more on the innocent children who go missing every day in the United States?&nbsp;</p>