'Force-ripe' - 16-year-olds determined to have sex

'Force-ripe' - 16-year-olds determined to have sex; parents struggling to deal with teenagers who run away from home to 'hook up'

A leading child-advocacy group is reporting that the majority of the more than 17,000 children who went missing in the last nine years actually ran away from home because they wanted the freedom to have sex.

Betty Ann Blaine, convener of the group Hear the Children's Cry, says calls made to the family of those who went missing over the years have indicated that the majority of the children were not abducted.

"I would say, of the children that go missing every month, probably about somewhere between 60 and 70 per cent of them go missing, the parents tell us it's for sex. It is a very, very serious problem," Blaine told The Sunday Gleaner.

"They would leave on a Friday and come back Sunday. When they go missing, typically, it's a few days, but parents do the right thing and they report it," said Blaine, whose organisation provides counselling for the families of missing children and creates a profile of each child after speaking with their guardians.

Of the more than 1,674 children that went missing last year, 195 were still not accounted for up to the end of December while three were murdered.

According to Blaine, the fact that the age of consent is 16 is creating problems for many parents and is part of the reason for the high number of missing children annually.

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