If missing children were found, what would you do?

Obviously it would depend what sort of circumstances the child / adult was living in and what they wanted to do, once found.

Wouldn't the Portugese family be jailed immediately, for kidnapping?!

Obviously the child would have to be returned to the parents.

She is/would be thirteen now, a very difficult age to cope with the turmoil

I long for lost children to be found and returned to their parents

Yes. I do too.

Yes, so do I. It is tragic beyond words

I think it would be terrifying for a child of thirteen, who may not even remember her birth language anymore, to have to cope with that sort of emotional turmoil. But I pray that eventually they all may be found alive and well, even if they don't choose to return to their parents. The alternative is too awful to contemplate.

I just keep praying they're all found no matter how old they are. I can't imagine the pain of parents and family worrying about what's become of them and what sort of life they are having. It's very

The alternative is usually the truth though.

From what I've read over the decades, the majority of kidnapped children of 'The disappeared' in Argentina were grateful to be re-united with their birth family, even those adopted as newborns.

Of course by the time this happened they were adults. Their parents had been killed by the junta so they were re-united with their grandparents

All praise to the Plaza de Mayo grandmothers

Grandmother

There was recently a case in South Africa (?) where a baby kidnapped from a maternity ward was discovered as a teenager. She had been raised by, what she thought, was her family and is said to be distraught that her 'mother' in in jail awaiting trial and she has, so far, refused to have anything to do with her birth mother.

Understandable - the birth mother is a complete stranger to her...very sad.

I can't see an easy end to it. Say Madeleine was found now, if she had been settled with a family she might have very little memory of her previous life and would have no wish to be uprooted and handed over to virtual strangers. How would the twins react to the "real" Madeleine instead of the memory they've been living with?

If on the other hand she has been kept locked away for whatever awful purpose it could well take the rest of her life to return her to some sort of normality. You can imagine the Tabloid headlines if she is found, but it won't be an instant happy ending.

I think the not knowing must be the worst part for the parents. If you suffer the tragic death of a child, given time, hopefully you can accept it but I imagine they have days of hope and days when they fear the worst and live on a constant rollercoaster of emotions. (not that I'm saying the death of your child isn't a rollercoaster of emotions)
As Deedaa says a reunion with a child who has been mistreated would need different handling to one where the child is loved

I think the self recriminations must be the biggest problem with the " if only ..." So very heart breaking.

I'm really not deteriorating into McCann bashing but an awful lot of money is being spent by the police on the search and I do wonder if the same is being done for the likes of Ben Needham and others and if not, why not?

I have my own opinion of the Mc Canns so won`t enter into that debate but I would wish for any who are still alive to be found so the parents can have the closure or be reunited .

In the light of all the time and effort being put into the McCann case, Kerry Needham campaigned long and hard for additional resources to be put on Ben's case, and I believe that fairly recently the police were back on the case out in Greece, but some potentially very promising leads have all come to nought in recent years and with the passage of so much time, you just wonder if he's even still in the country.

That is probably a wise decision f77ms - I, for one, don't want to hear that sort of talk.