Missing

How many people in Japan are missing annually? According to the National Police Agency, there were 89,388 searching applications the Agency received from the missing families in 2000. Among them, 80,502 appeared. Roughly, 9,000 were still missing only in that year. Some of the missing people were getting involved in sudden accidents such as natural disasters or adventurous leisure. Some were missing in crimes like kidnapping. Many of them seemingly just don't go back home.

As long as abduction is concerned, there is suspicion that Japanese were occasionally taken away by North Korea. Specifically, almost 10 Japanese living mainly along the Sea of Japan disappeared all of a sudden without any proper reasons. As the police are still investigating, all of the Japanese are dubious that a series of abductions were done by North Korea. Evidentially, the North Korean ships were often witnessed around the Sea of Japan. Some material evidences were left near the abducting points. If it's truly done by the country, there is still a risk of missing in such a way despite of severe security on the sea.

What concerns you foreigners is how many foreigners are missing. Although there is no data about it, there seem to be many cases in which foreigners are missing without any search by the police because of no searching implications from the victims' family. As both of the numbers of crimes in Japan and foreigners coming to Japan are increasing, there must be certain number of foreigners who are missing.

The most outstanding case of missing foreigners is Ms. Lucie Blackman's. She was a flight attendant turned bar hostess from the UK who disappeared July 1, 2000. She gave her friend a buzz and said that she was going to the seaside with her bar customer. Since then she had been missing. The father of the missing foreign woman implored the Japanese police to find her as soon as possible, at the same time he appealed to the Japanese media to make it easy to acquire information of the missing daughter.

According to police investigations, her hairs were found in a seaside condominium of the accused bar customer in Kanagawa prefecture. The man was charged with drugging and raping some women including foreigners. Moreover there was much evidence to connect him to a series of his crimes.

The suspect spoke English so fluently that he could easily become intimate with foreign women. In the Blackman's case among the Japanese people who can't speak English well, it seemed to her that the accused guy was a special Japanese. Despite if her family's hopes, she was found dead on the beach near his apartment.

When it comes to missing in mountains or seas for your pleasure, it's more possible to be searched because the searching points are rather limited. Furthermore, you tend to make enough preparations just in cases that you brace for such missing (it depends on the weather conditions). But in crimes like Blackman's case, it happens when you relax your guards. This can be true in any situation. As for your first date, it's better to avoid the situation where you go on a one to one date. Instead you go on a group date. If you really have a date only with the partner (most people want to do), call or tend to call someone where you are going and who you are going with just in front of your dating counterpart. It's some deterrent.