Three out of every ten disappearance cases registered in Brazil during the year 2025 involved children and adolescents. According to data from the National System of Public Security Information (Sinesp), out of the 84,760 general occurrences, 23,919, or 28% of the total, involved victims under 18 years of age.
This result also means that, on average, police stations across the country registered 66 police reports daily on the disappearance of children and adolescents. An 8% increase compared to the 22,092 disappearances reported to Civil Police in 2024. A percentage twice as high as the 4% increase in general cases, which jumped from 81,406 to 84,760 in the same period.
Compared to the 27,730 occurrences in 2019, the year when the National Policy for the Search of Missing Persons came into effect, the total cases from the last year are nearly 14% lower, but maintain the gradual growth curve started in 2023 (20,445 reports).
Another striking fact is that, while men represent 64% of the total missing persons, among the child and youth population, the majority (62%) of occurrences involve girls.
Since 2019, Brazilian legislation has recognized as missing any “human being whose whereabouts are unknown, regardless of the cause of their disappearance, until their recovery and identification have been confirmed by physical or scientific means”.
Types of disappearances
For some experts, it would be important to differentiate the circumstances in which the disappearance occurs, with some proposing at least three distinct categories: voluntary disappearance; involuntary, in which no violence is used; and forced.
“I still work with another category, not very common, which is what we call strategic disappearance, referring to the person who disappears to survive. Cases of a woman fleeing an abusive husband and a child victim of mistreatment,” said Simone Rodrigues, coordinator of the Observatory on Missing Persons in Brazil (ObDes) at the University of Brasília (UnB), to Agência Brasil, explaining that the causes of the problem are “complex and diverse”.
Data from the Map of Missing Persons in Brazil, produced by the Brazilian Public Security Forum, indicate that most disappearances occur between Friday and Sunday.
The case of young I.S.B, 10 years old, who left his father’s house, painter Leandro Barboza, in Curitiba (PR), on December 27 of last year. The boy was located three days later, not far away, by an elderly man who saw the disappearance alert on social media. He took the boy to his house and called the police.
According to the father, the boy said he left to play with other neighborhood children. Distracted, he moved away from home, spent the whole day on the street, and upon seeing it was already night, feared getting beaten.
“That’s what he told me later, but the truth is we never know what really went through the person’s mind, especially a child’s,” Leandro told Agência Brasil’s report, revealing that the boy had already given the family a similar scare shortly before.
“This time he said he even came back to our street more than once, but was afraid of punishment and stayed on the street. The first night he says he slept on a cardboard behind a car, not far from home. While I was looking for him in the neighborhood, knocking on doors; going to the police station to register the disappearance,” added the painter, lamenting the missed connection.
Recalling the days wandering in search of his son, Leandro said he “wouldn’t wish this on any mother or father”.
“It’s an agony that only those who go through it can describe. I thought the worst: that someone had kidnapped my son; that they had killed him; that I would never see him again. On the first night, I had arrived from work tired, in the late afternoon, and spent almost the entire early morning looking for him. I only stopped when my body couldn’t take it anymore and I didn’t know where to look anymore”.
With the boy now safe at home, listening to him give this interview, Leandro admitted fearing that his son might give him another scare. “I warn him about the risks, tell him there are children who, unlike him, are taken [kidnapped] and never seen again, advise him not to listen to bad ideas, and tell him he has no reason to do this, but, you know how it is,” explained the father. He says that while he spends the day working outside, his wife (who is the boy’s stepmother) juggles caring for the couple’s other two children – one diagnosed with autism – and household chores.
“We do our best to give our children what we can. We take care of them and try to teach them the best we can. Then something like this happens and you see on social media lots of people criticizing you; calling parents irresponsible; saying you don’t care, don’t pay attention,” complained Leandro, agreeing with the popular saying that there are many to judge, but few to help.
“Even at the police station, a police officer told me that my wife and I could be held responsible for my son’s disappearance. When I was there filing the report, asking for help to find him after a whole day working and looking for him,” recalled Leandro, adding that, overall, he was well attended to at the station.
He adds that it would be important for families who go through a child’s disappearance to receive support from a specialist, like a psychologist, to know how to talk and guide parents and children. The painter said that, for now, the boy accompanies him while he works.
Source: brasil247.com