Research of run-away children behaviour and reasons of running-away

Research conducted 18 – 25 September, 2006

According to official data of Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau there were 214 children missing in Lithuania during year 2005. There is no statistics on how many of these children are run-aways. Although experience of the Missing Persons Families Support Centre (MPFSC) shows, that there are many missing children, who are never reported to the police. It concerns children from dysfunctional families; those, who run-away from home or foster settings for the number of times; those who run away for less than 3 days. However, consequences of under-aged children running away are very dramatic: run-away children are very vulnerable, are being involved into the criminal actions, drugs and alcohol consumption, prostitution, pedophilia or human trafficking.

Aiming to evaluate and explore situation of children running-away in Lithuania, MPFSC started a project “Don`t run away” and conducted a sociological research of the reasons and models of behavior of run-away children in Lithuania. 1002 children were questioned all around Lithuania, representing entire population of children aged 7-18. Main outcomes of the research are:

• Almost each one of five children (18%) at least once thought of running-away from home;
• Almost each one of ten children (8 %) at least once run-away from home;
• Typical run-away child is male, aged more then 14 years old, who has bad relationships with his parents;
• Main reasons of children running away are: quarrels with family members/ patrons (40 %); will to be independent (27%); feeling of being sick and tired of everything (27%);
• Main purposes of running-away are: to raise attention to oneself and to one`s maltreatment (59%); will to act independently (36%);
• Most children (74%) stay at their friends` place while away from home;
• 32% of children told they lacked understanding while away from home; 17% that they wanted to be searched for; 35% didn`t lack anything;
• More than half (67 %) of all run-away children want to return home, but 1/3 of them (23 %) are afraid to return.

For more information on the research and the project please contact the MPFSC on centras@missing.lt. Project “Don`t run away” was funded by the Ministry of Social Security and Labour of Lithuania.