Sometimes people go missing for a reason and you know why. However, the Wikipedia definition is this:-

A missing person is a person who has disappeared for usually unknown reasons.

Missing persons' photographs may be posted on bulletin boards, milk cartons, postcards, and websites, along with a phone number to be contacted if a sighting has been made.

People disappear for many reasons. Some individuals choose to disappear alone; most of these soon return. About 10 percent of missing persons in the United States never return, however. Reasons for non-identification may include:

• Leaving home to live someplace else under a new identity.
• Becoming the victim of kidnapping.
• Abduction (of a minor) by a non-custodial parent or other relative.
• Seizure by government officials without due process of law.
• Suicide in a remote location or under an assumed name (to spare their families the suicide at home, or to allow their deaths to be eventually declared in absentia).
• Victim of murder (body disguised, destroyed, or hidden).
• Mental illness can cause someone to become lost, or they may not know how to identify themselves.
• Death by natural causes (disease) or accident far from home without identification.
• Disappearance in order to take advantage of better employment or living conditions elsewhere.
• Sold into slavery, serfdom, sexual servitude, or other unfree labour.
• To avoid discovery of a crime or apprehension by law-enforcement authorities. (See also failure to appear).
• Joining a cult or other religious organization.
• To escape domestic abuse.
• To avoid war or persecution during a genocide.
• To escape famine or natural disaster.

On May 26, 2002, a monument to missing persons was unveiled in County Kilkenny, Republic of Ireland by President Mary McAleese. It was the first monument of its kind in the world.

Benjaman Kyle is the only person in the United States who is officially listed as missing, but whose whereabouts are known.He suffers from retrograde amnesia as a result of a severe beating in 2004. As of June 2009 efforts are ongoing to identify him.

Reports of missing persons have increased sixfold in the past 25 years, from roughly 150,000 in 1980 to about 900,000 this year. The increase was driven in part by the country's growing population. But the numbers also indicate that law enforcement treats the cases more seriously now, including those of marginalized citizens.

An astounding 2,300 Americans are reported missing every day, including both adults and children.

Only a tiny fraction of those are stereotypical abductions or kidnappings by a stranger.

The media's dilemma is that government research shows that victims of nonfamily abductions and stereotypical kidnappings are most at risk of injury, sexual assault or death. "Damsel" cases may be the exception, but they often are the most urgent.

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