DHAKA — Standing at a podium with tears in her eyes, Swapna Akter made an appeal no parent should ever have to make.
“Has anyone seen my daughter? She has been missing for a year. I cannot find her,” she said. “I have a small homestead in my village. If anyone can bring my daughter back to me, I will give them that property as a reward.”
Her three-year-old daughter, Rupa Akter, disappeared on Aug. 29 last year from near a shop close to the family’s home in Pallabi, Dhaka. Closed-circuit camera footage showed a young man walking away with the child. More than a year later, the family still does not know where she is.
Swapna was among parents from around 40 families who gathered Sunday at the Dhaka Reporters Unity auditorium for an event titled “Where Is My Child?” The program was organized by families of missing children with support from the Zero Missing Children Foundation.
Each family arrived carrying a photograph of a son or daughter who had vanished.
Some had been missing for eight days. Others for hundreds of days. One placard said 6,553 days.
As one parent spoke, others wept. Some cried openly. Others silently wiped away tears while holding photographs of children they had been searching for months or years. They appealed to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman and the authorities to help bring their children home.
‘I Don’t Know Whether She Is Alive’
Swapna came to the event with her 10-year-old son, Md Siam, who held a photograph of his younger sister.
She lives in Pallabi with her husband and two children. Her husband, Md Rajan, earns a living selling children’s toys from a van.
After Rupa disappeared, the family filed a general diary with Pallabi Police Station.
A year has passed, but there has been no answer.
“I don’t even know whether my daughter is alive or dead,” Swapna said. “But I cannot give up hope of finding her even for a moment.”
She pleaded with people to share videos and photographs of missing children so that someone, somewhere, might recognize them.
“I want to see my child at least once before I die,” she said.
A Father Searches Across Bangladesh
Another parent at the gathering was Md Nazrul Islam, a retired police constable.
His son, Md Tamim, also known as Abdullah, was a 15-year-old seventh-grade student at Sarisha Premtia Secondary School in Pangsha, Rajbari.
Tamim left home for school on May 20 last year and never returned.
Nazrul said he had searched for his son across Bangladesh.
His desperation eventually took him far beyond conventional avenues. He sought help from traditional healers and even people who claimed to summon supernatural beings, following whatever advice anyone offered in the hope that it might lead him to his child.
Tamim is the younger of Nazrul’s two children.
“I will give away everything I have,” the father said. “I will live on the street. I just want my child.”
A Two-Year-Old Disappears Within Five Minutes
For 22-year-old Tahura Islam, the disappearance happened in the space of only a few minutes.
Her two-year-old son, Md Toha Adnan, has been missing for one month and 20 days.
Tahura said she had gone to visit her in-laws in Doha, Nawabganj. She left her son sitting in a room with a mobile phone and stepped into an adjoining room.
Five minutes later, she returned.
The boy was gone.
The mobile phone was still lying on the bed.
Tahura later filed a general diary with police, but her son has not been found.
One Twin Still Waiting for Her Sister
Sabuj Mia and his wife Champa Begum, 25, came to the event carrying their daughter Lamia.
Lamia has a twin sister, Samia, who disappeared two and a half years ago while playing in front of their home.
Champa filed an abduction case naming a neighbor as the accused. The man was released on bail after three months, but Samia remained missing.
Six months ago, Champa said she saw a child in a TikTok video and became convinced that the girl was her missing daughter.
She learned that the child was living with a family in Jashore and traveled there.
Champa said police did not assist her in recovering the child. According to her, officers maintained that the girl was not Samia.
The family is still searching.
Children Missing for Years
Several other families told similar stories.
Six-year-old Khadija from Chandpur disappeared while playing at a neighboring house. She has now been missing for 1,974 days.
Five-year-old Ganesh from Dhamrai also disappeared while playing near a neighboring home. He has been missing for 333 days.
In Dinajpur, Moniruzzaman Moni said his eight-year-old daughter Mantasha disappeared from outside their home in May last year.
He even took ransom money in an attempt to recover her, but could not bring her home.
As he spoke about his daughter at Sunday’s event, he broke down in tears.
One Child Returned — After Her Mother Died Waiting
Among the grieving families was also a father with a rare story of reunion.
Azad Rahman found his seven-year-old daughter Ashfia last month — one year after she disappeared.
Azad alleged that his daughter had been abducted from outside their home in Tongi in July last year because of an old workplace dispute.
After she was found, Ashfia told him that someone had given her popcorn and put her on a train. She could not remember how to return home.
For months, the family had no idea where she was.
Five months after Ashfia disappeared, her mother, Shamsunnahar, died.
Azad said the grief of losing their daughter had devastated her.
Police eventually located Ashfia last month at a government shelter in Pubail and reunited her with her father.
The reunion came too late for her mother.
More Than 2,000 Children Still Missing This Year
The accounts shared by the families reflect a much larger problem.
According to Police Headquarters data cited at the event, 17,808 general diaries relating to missing children were filed in 2023.
The number was 16,414 in 2024 and rose to 22,550 in 2025.
During the first seven months of 2026, from January through July, police received 15,717 reports of missing children.
Most of those children were subsequently recovered, but 2,038 were still missing.
The figures do not mean that every case involves abduction or trafficking. Children can go missing under a wide range of circumstances. But for families whose children remain unaccounted for, the distinction offers little comfort.
Their lives remain suspended between hope and fear.
Missing-Child Alert System Introduced
Zero Missing Children Foundation President Md Sadat Rahman said efforts to establish a nationwide rapid-alert system gained momentum following the disappearance and killing of a child named Muntaha in Sylhet in 2024.
A petition signed by 100,000 people called for an Amber Alert-style system in Bangladesh to help locate missing children quickly.
As part of that effort, a pilot program called Missing Urgent Notification, or Moon Alert, was launched on Jan. 13, 2026, with assistance from the Criminal Investigation Department of Bangladesh Police and under the management of the foundation.
A toll-free-style helpline, 13219, was also introduced.
The initiative is now being used nationwide to support efforts to prevent child disappearances and locate missing children.
Families Seek Renewed Investigations
At Sunday’s gathering, families demanded stronger action from the authorities.
They called for missing children to be located and returned safely, old and unresolved cases to be reinvestigated, and progress in long-running investigations to be reviewed.
They also demanded effective measures against child disappearance and trafficking, along with support for families who have spent months or years searching for their children.
For Swapna, however, the demands ultimately come down to one thing.
She does not know whether Rupa is safe, where she sleeps, who she is with, or whether she is alive.
But she continues to wait.
And more than a year after her daughter vanished, she is still asking strangers the same question:
Has anyone seen my child?
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