By the time Rachel* turned 17 she had been reported missing at least eight times.
After searching the streets and knocking on doors for days and weeks, her father would find that she had been taken in by some abusive stranger who took advantage of her fragile mental state with manipulative promises of affection.
Rachel was five years old when she was sexually abused and, as she battled with the psychological repercussions, by the age of 14 she had started disappearing from home, her 39-year-old father recalls.
"She didn't realise that people could harm her. She would leave the house and go along with the first person who showed interest in her. You can imagine what kind of people they were. She thought that people who took her in did so because they loved her," her father says as he sighs: "Thankfully it hasn't been happening for almost a year."
Rachel's eight "missing" reports were among the 750 missing-minor reports filed in the past five years.
Of these, only six minors, up to the age of 17, are unaccounted for. Five of them are teenage illegal immigrants who escaped from their residential homes and the only Maltese missing child is Theo Bugeja - the 11-year-old victim of the Simshar fishing tragedy, who will remain on that list for 10 years for legal reasons.
Over the past years Malta has not had any suspected kidnapping cases - like the case of four-year-old Madeline McCann who was reported missing two years ago yesterday.
The case of Madeline, who disappeared from the resort town Praia da Luz in southern Portugal where she was with her family on holiday, shook the world and rekindled awareness about missing children.
Malta's cases are different. Rather than suspected cases of abduction, in many instances the youngsters disappear because of problems at home or because they are enticed to leave by others, usually adults, criminologist Saviour Formosa explains.
"For the most part, the missing period duration is of one day or less. However, the older the person, the higher the probability of longer periods going missing with the longest period being for middle-aged males," explains Dr Formosa, creator of Crime Malta (www.crimemalta.com) which explores crime in Malta and contains a missing persons' alert page.
Out of the 750 minors reported missing between 2004 and 2008, 451 were girls, 186 were under 13 years old and 567 were between 14 and 17 years old. Figures obtained from the police show that the vast majority, 744, turned up after a day or two.
The case of Theo Bugeja is connected to the Simshar, which sank in what the owner, Simon Bugeja had described as an explosion. He was the sole survivor and the others on the boat all perished: his son Theo, his father Carmelo Bugeja, 33-year-old Noel Carabott and 21-year-old Somali Abdulrahman Abdalla Gedi.
Mr Bugeja had told rescuers that his son had died in his arms but eventually he lost the boy's grip and the boy's body drifted away. Since the boy's corpse was not found he will be listed as missing for the next 10 years.
Missing British girl Madeleine McCann was never found since she disappeared two years ago. As hope is the last to die, her parents believe she may still be alive and forensic experts created a computer-generated photo showing what Madeline would look like today.
Following the McCann case the EU launched three international support lines, one of which is aimed at missing children.
The Justice Ministry has issued a call for expressions of interest for running the 116 000 Missing Children Helpline service that will receive calls reporting missing children, pass on such reports to the police and offer guidance and counselling to people responsible for the missing child.
Calls were also issued for the other two EU 116 numbers that aim to support children in need of protection and adults in need of help.
*Not her real name