According to just-released data, 422 Thais between the ages of 13 and 15 were missing last year — and most of them were female.
Ekkalak Lumchomkhae, director of the Mirror Foundation’s missing persons’ information center, revealed this figure at a press conference this week in Bangkok. He also noted that there were three times as many girls than boys counted among those missing, which would break down to about 105 males and 315 females, reported Thai PBS.
Though Ekkalak noted that the number has gone down over the last three years, it’s still a problem because, as he said, most of those young people left home of their own accord. The most common reasons for Thai youth leaving home were domestic violence, running away with a boyfriend or girlfriend or being wooed into meeting people they knew online and never returning home.
He also said that, over the last four years, a dozen young missing persons were found murdered and three of those cases remain open since the killers have not been found.
