Children's Society warns over young runaways

Teenage girl (Copyright Lawrence Dutton. Image modelled for the Children's Society) Thousands of children run away from home each year (Image modelled for the Children's Society)
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Only a small proportion of the tens of thousands of children who run away each year are reported to police as missing, a report suggests.

Some 84,000 under 16-year-olds ran away overnight on at least one occasion every year in England, the study for the Children's Society has found.

Only 17% of runaways said they were reported to the police as missing.

The charity urged the government to make the plight of runaway children a top priority.

The report is based on research with children aged 14 to 15 years old in schools across England.

The charity says one child runs away from home or care every five minutes.

The report found children who had experienced family change and conflict over the past year were three times as likely to run away as those who had not.

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