Faces of the missing

While the issuing of bracelet to adults has seen remarkable results, Lin Wu-hsiung, (林武雄) director of the Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF, 中華民國兒童褔利聯盟文教基金會), faces a more daunting and costly task.

Unlike Chen's organization, the CWLF doesn't rely solely on the general public or the police to locate missing children. It distributes a desk calendar with the faces of missing children on it to hospitals and doctors' offices nationwide. It has also been known to hire private detectives.

Results in locating missing children, however, are less than encouraging. Since 1987, the percentage of those located has been less than 50 percent of those going missing each year.

Last year the league located 27 percent of those reported missing, a total of 77 children. "We've got about 1,000 cases still open at present. Over the past five years we have located a total of 283 missing children, 200 of whom were female and 76 percent of whom were aged between 12 and 18 years old," said Lin.

While the recent campaign did see authorities locating a number of children on the Foundation's books, like Chen, Lin believes a long-term increase in resources is necessary if the rate of locating missing persons is to rise.

"Although we get a lot support from media outlets and businesses, since we are a private association our funds and resources are limited. The cost of publishing books and posters and ensuring they are distributed nationwide is a sizable chunk of our budget," continued Lin. "Including me, the foundation only has four full-time social workers to cover the whole of Taiwan."

Although the proportion of missing children located is not high, the cases where the child is discovered dead are relatively few. Last year, nine missing children were found dead, and in the three years Lin has worked for the Foundation, he has only dealt with two such cases.

As for the whereabouts of nine children whose photographs stare forlornly from the yellowing two-year-old missing persons' poster propped up against the wall in his office, Lin shrugged his shoulders, but remained optimistic.

"Obviously, more funds and man power need to be found from somewhere if the results of the recent campaign are to continue," explained Lin. "I believe that the missing children are living happily somewhere in Taiwan. To take any other view would simply prove too upsetting and make my task totally unbearable."