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40 thousand Madeleines

Sircide, the Investigative Service for Missing Children, was set up in Paraná in 1995. The organisation is linked to the Civil Police and registers and investigates local cases of missing children. One of the most interesting aspects of the organisation’s work is their use of digital aging. By taking pictures of missing children or of close relatives, the organisation tries to create a computer enhanced image of what a person would look like today.

Guilherme Carames Tiburtius was one of the first children to have his photo digitally aged in order to aid the investigation into his disappearance. He went missing in Curitiba in 1991 when he was eight years old. The family has posted photos of him across the country and he’s become something of an emblematic fi gure in Brasil. Nevertheless, Guilherme was never found. Another famous case in Brasil was the disappearance and discovery of Pedro Braule Pinto. Kidnapped from the local maternity ward in 1986 just a few hours after being born, the lad was brought up in Goiânia, just 200km from Brasilia, where his biological parents live.

Pedrinho, as he’s more commonly known, was taken away by ex-businesswoman Vilma Martins and brought up as her son until the granddaughter of Pedro’s supposed father grew suspicious, having overheared Vilma declare that the young man wasn’t her biological child.

After looking on the Missing Kids site, she saw that Pedrinho bore a striking resemblance to Jayro Tapajos, indeed his biological father. She got in touch with the organisation SOS Criança (“SOS Children”) in Brasília, and the Federal Police looked into the case. In November of the same year, Pedrinho took a DNA test that confi rmed his true identity, and began a process of reintegration into his real family. Vilma Martins was processed for kidnapping and falsely registering a child under her own name.

It was later discovered that another one of Vilma’s supposed children had also been kidnapped in 1979. Registered as Roberta Jamilly Martins Borges, the young Aparecida Fernanda Ribeiro da Silva had also been taken away from the maternity ward by Vilma Martins, 48 hours after her birth.

Whether famous or anonymous, the families of missing children live with a huge sense of loss for a loved one that they may never see again.

The one great hope that these families have is that someone, somewhere, may be able to shed some light on the whereabouts of their children.

There are many missing persons sites on the net, with photos, personal details and descriptions of what the children were wearing the last time they were seen, along with the names of the relatives that are looking for them; Madeleine McCann’s case is just a heavily hyped drop in the ocean. JD