One of the members of Abianda's Young Women's Advisory Group participated in Missing People and Listen Up's research for their report The Experiences of Black Missing Children and their Parents. This new research, carried out by Listen Up and Missing People, aims to explore Black children and their families’ lived experiences of going missing. You can read about their experience below:
I was asked if I was interested in taking part in an interview about black and mixed race people that go missing and what has affected them being found or not found after a certain amount of time. I thought it was important to take this opportunity because I’ve noticed many black people going missing and how gender and skin tone influence who is more widely spoken about and how quickly they’re found.
I appreciated the effort that it took to reach out to people in the black community and listen directly to us as people that have either gone missing, known someone that has or has noticed common trends amongst the people that have been missing. It allowed me to reflect on the different experiences people have that could lead them to leave home, whether they were running away from home for their own safety or for the safety of others, or if they were pressured by someone else to spend time away from home to do county lines for example.
I’ve noticed that black men get more coverage on social media than black women, especially darkskin black women, and it frustrates me knowing that less people are looking out for us and caring for us. I wanted to speak up about us being looked for less because there are stereotypes attached to us about being aggressive or more capable of looking after ourselves, so we’re left to fend for ourselves. Darker skinned black women are especially not seen as desirable so people don’t deem us worthy of being found.
I’m happy that I got a chance to think about what impacts the black community as a whole, as well as what might affect different people in the community. I took a look at the research once it was published, and I felt a sense of pride that even though it was anonymously done, I contributed to research that could really help people that are missing or may go missing in the future. Hopefully those numbers will start to go down and less people will go missing and for shorter lengths of time.
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