Where are the more than 1,000 long-term missing children? ”Social interest needs to grow” - South Korea

It has been revealed that there are over 1,000 children in South Korea who have been missing for more than 20 years. The relevant authorities are running various systems to help them return to their families, while citizens are also working on social issues.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Police Agency on the 24th, there are 1,336 children who have been missing for more than a year, and of these, 1 child has been missing for more than 20 years.
The number of missing children who have gone missing in the past five years has reached 44. Most of the children were found and returned home within 12 months of being reported missing.
After the 'Law on the Protection and Support of Missing Children, etc. (Missing Children Law)' was enacted in 2005, the government established the Missing Children Law to prevent children from going missing and to find long-term missing children early.
We operate various systems such as email notifications for missing persons, pre-registration of fingerprints, DNA analysis, conversion of past photos using complex cognitive technology, and comparison projects.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare is expanding the search information that families of long-term missing people want, and is now allowing adopted children whose biological parents are unknown to be identified as unrelated children through genetic testing.
The government plans to improve the system so that registration is possible. Hyun Su-yeop, a popu- lation and child policy officer at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, said, "In order for missing children to be reunited with their families, we need the interest of society more than anything.
We ask that you sympathize with the pain of families with missing children and help them search for them. In the future, we will allow adoptees who have been unable to find their biological parents to register in the missing children's genetic database, and we will
"We plan to make it easier for police to find the real parents of missing children," said Kim Hak-gwan, director of the National Police Agency's Public Safety and Transportation Bureau. "So far, the police have attracted attention from all walks of life, and we have seen cases where missing children have been safely reunited with their former families," he said.
In the future, we will incorporate cutting-edge IT technology, such as automatic tracking from surveillance cameras, into the search and tracking of missing children, and change the paradigm to a science and technology-centered search and investigation.
"We will do our best until the very end to ensure that the missing children are returned safely," said Jeong Ik-jun, director of the Children's Rights Protection Center. "We will do our best to make the miracle of missing children returning to their former families possible."
"We ask for your continued interest and participation in the case of missing children. The Child Rights Center will continue to make our utmost efforts together with related agencies to prevent and quickly identify missing children."