Missing persons hit record

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This article was published 11/03/2016 (3753 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The number of people reported missing in Winnipeg reached an all-time high last year, and most were chronic runaways under the care of Child and Family Services — a fact Manitoba’s family services minister says requires preventative action.

The Winnipeg Police Service received 8,894 missing persons reports in 2015, a 29 per cent increase from the previous year and an all-time high for the city, according to a WPS report on missing and murdered indigenous women that will be tabled at today’s police board meeting.

“My message to all Manitobans is that we are extremely concerned about the number of runaways. We are working with families and communities across this province to address this issue, (along with) other partners in the not-for-profit sector as well as health and justice to come up with strategies that ensure the safety of these children and ensure that they are in placements (and) they have that sense of belonging,” Family Services Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross said. “We’re never going to give up. We’re going to keep looking for them and keep bringing them back.”

In the last three months of the year alone, police dealt with a daily average of 94 open missing persons cases — a 49 per cent increase compared with the first three months of 2015.

Seventy per cent of those cases involved habitual missing persons, and 85 per cent of them were running away from group homes in the city, the report said. Women were more likely to be reported missing, accounting for 66 per cent of the reports for the last three months of 2015.

An official from the police service’s missing-persons unit was not available to comment. But Irvin-Ross said one reason the number of missing-person reports is so high is CFS agencies must report a child missing each time they break curfew or leave the facility without permission.

“Another reason is the sheer complexity of these young people. These young people are struggling from a sense of belonging; some of them are struggling with addictions, mental-health issues. Some of the young men and women are sexually exploited, so it’s really trying to (answer) how do we address the trauma that they’re experiencing and (work) with them on a one-to-one basis?” she said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

indigenouswomenreportMarch2016