Despite the recent abductions and killings in the country, a report by the World Population Review has revealed that countries like Turkey, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom have higher records of kidnapping cases than Nigeria.
The report indicated that along with factors such as murder rate, frequency of rape, and whether or not a country is currently at war, kidnapping is one of the crimes that contribute to a country’s rank among the world’s most dangerous or most violent countries.
Kidnapping takes many forms and occurs for a wide variety of reasons.
The most common form of kidnapping in many developed countries is the abduction of a child by a parent, who is typically estranged from the other parent and does not have legal custody of the child.
The parent resorts to kidnapping either to cause the other parent emotional distress, because they fear the other parent will keep the child from them, or because they feel the other parent poses a threat to the child’s well being.
Though much less common, there also exist instances of children being kidnapped for more nefarious purposes, such as human trafficking or sexual exploitation.
In less-developed countries, kidnappings are often politically or economically motivated. Some kidnappings are carried out by insurgents as an act of terrorism, an effort to draw attention to their cause, or a means of extorting the government to comply with the kidnappers’ demands.
Other kidnappings are performed by individuals seeking to raise funds, either by holding the abductee for ransom or selling them to human traffickers.
With 44.669 per 100,000 people, Turkey has the highest rate of kidnapping in the world.
Others are: Lebanon, Kuwait, Canada, Belgium, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan and the United Kingdom.
