Missing: Pim Verstraeten (11)
The police and the Judicial Authorities are searching for an 11-year-old boy that has been missing since Sunday. Pim Verstraeten from Landen in Flemish Brabant failed to return to his foster parents’ home after having gone out to play with a friend in the Attenhoven area of Landen on Sunday afternoon.
The boy was taken by his father against whom there is a restraining order preventing him from seeing Pim. Heidi De Pauw of the association for missing and abused children Child Focus told VRT News that "Here we have a very disturbing disappearance. Pim is only 11 and we have had no news at all from him”
There is a restraining order in place against Pim Verstraeten’s father that prevents him from seeing him. "The father has been stripped of his parental rights and is not allowed any contact with Pim. This is why were are concerned for the boy”, Ms De Pauw added.
Child Focus is calling Pim Verstraeten’s disappearance a “third-party abduction” rather than a “parental abduction”. “In this case the third party was known to the child, but were can’t call it a parental abduction as the father had been stripped of his parental rights”.
