REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ROME -- More than 600 minors have been missing in Italy since 2009, figures of Italian children's charity Telefono Azzurro (Blue Telephone) showed on Monday, the International Missing Children's Day.

In fact more than 15,000 minors, of which the most part foreigners, have been missing in Italy over the past 40 years, according to the Italian Interior Ministry, which collaborates with Telefono Azzurro on the issue of missing children.

The children go missing for various reasons connected to hardship and poverty, Ernesto Caffo, professor of child neuropsychiatry at the University of Modena and president of Telefono Azzurro, told Xinhua in an interview on Monday.

"Many run away from their homes in the hope of making better lives in Italy or abroad. Others born from parents of different countries are victims of international parental child abduction," he explained.

But there are also a lot of cases, Caffo added, connected to the sexual or work exploitation of children who are illegal migrants from troubled countries.

Such children, who are often unaccompanied or run away from Italy's immigration centers, become invisible in big cities and can easily fall into the hands of criminals who take advantage of their vulnerability.

"A few days ago several people were arrested on charges of forcing foreign children into prostitution at Rome's Termini railway station," Caffo told Xinhua.

This phenomenon has significantly increased in recent years due to the growing flows of illegal migrants into Italy, while the age of the victims has further lowered, he said.

The professor called for European authorities to do more to welcome the unaccompanied minors, protect them and find solutions to help them grow up in a healthy environment.

The International Missing Children's Day, May 25, is a day where people around the world commemorate the missing children who have been victims of crime and urge efforts to find those who are still missing.

The observance of May 25 as Missing Children's Day began in the United States in 1983, a few years after six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared from a street corner in New York while he was walking to school.

Telefono Azzurro is part of the Global Missing Children's Network (GMCN), a network of 22 partner agencies promoters of International Missing Children's Day.

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