Rock-one-sock to remember missing children

    May 25 is National Missing Children’s Day, and The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has asked for a show of solidarity with one sock on and one sock off. The center suggests taking a selfie -- a “footsie” -- and posting it to Twitter under the hashtag #RockOneSock.
    While you're at it, here are three things to know about missing and exploited children, according to the center:

• Many children are actually never reported missing. But if a child is reported missing, the report is entered into a database with the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. In 2015, the database had 460,699 entries for missing children. Each entry represents a report of a missing child, so if one child runs away several times a year, he will be represented with several entries.

• In 2015, The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children helped law enforcement officials with 13,700 missing children’s cases. Only 1 percent involved “non-family abductions,” meaning a stranger kidnapped the child. The vast majority -- 86 percent -- were runaways. An additional 10 percent were family abductions. Of the remaining number: 2 percent were “lost, injured or otherwise missing children,” and 1 percent involved young adults, ages 18-20.

• Children who run away are likely to find themselves swimming with sharks. More than 11,800 endangered runaways were reported to The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2015, and of that number, 1 in 5 was probably a victim of child sex trafficking, according to the center.

     To learn more: Visit The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 

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