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  3. The figures are estimates, but the few known facts are appalling: thousands

The figures are estimates, but the few known facts are appalling: thousands

游客2023-12-11  19
问题     The figures are estimates, but the few known facts are appalling: thousands are murdered annually, the number of missing children is rising and no one is keeping an accurate count.
    About 8:30 a.m. on January 7, 1980, Katheleen Mancil drove her daughter Marian Batson to school in Inverness, Florida. "See you tonight," Kathleen called as the petite, blue-eyed 16-year-old stepped from the car. But she did not see Marian that night. Or the next. Or the next. In early October 1980, two-year-old Brandy Barlow vanished from her front yard. The list goes on. On May 25, 1979, Etan Patz walked alone for the first time to his Manhattan school-bus stop and has not been seen since. Methodical searches with bloodhounds, helicopters, and phalanxes of police have failed to turn up any clues.
    These are not isolated cases. The best estimates are that about a million American youngsters leave home each year, with 90 percent returning in two weeks. Approximately 100,000 children are thus unaccounted for. Add another 25,000 to 100,000 stolen by divorced or separated parents, and the total becomes significant. "Kids who just disappear present a big problem that people had better start opening their eyes to," says Dick Ruffine of the Bergen County, New Jersey, Sheriffs Office. Yet no single U.S. agency concerns itself exclusively with missing children on a national scale. Automobiles, handguns and silverware can be registered, traced and recovered more easily than children. "Our priorities are mixed up," says Ken Wooden, director of the National Coalition for Children’s justice. "If someone steals a car, he can be traced and caught because we have a computer system for tracing stolen cars. But children apparently aren’t that important to us."
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答案     本文所涉及的数字均属估计，但是一些已知事实令人震惊：每年有成千上万名儿童被谋杀，失踪儿童的数目正在增加，对此，无人在作准确的记录。
    1980年1月7日上午8点半左右，佛罗里达州的凯瑟琳.曼西尔驾车送女儿玛丽安.巴特森去因弗内斯上学，这位16岁的蓝眼睛的身材娇小的女孩下车了，母亲对她说，“晚上见”。可是那天晚上，玛丽安没有回来，次日，没有回来，再次日，仍然没有回来。1980年10月初，年仅两岁的布兰地.巴洛在自家的前院中突然不见了。失踪儿童的名单一直继续下去。1979年5月25日伊坦.帕兹第一次单独走到附近的曼哈顿校车停靠站，从此后变无影无踪。事后，警犬、直升机、大批警察密集搜寻，没有得到任何线索。
    这些案例并非孤立的。最可信的估计是每年离家而去的美国儿童大约是100万，其中90％在两个星期内返回家中。下落不明的儿童约有10万之多。另外再加上25000到10万名被离异夫妻或分居父母窃走的儿童，其数目极为可观。难怪新泽西州伯根县的行政司法长官狄克.拉芬诺说：  “儿童失踪已经成了一个大问题，大家对此必须引起警惕。”然而，时至今日，美国在全国范围内，尚无一个机构专门处理失踪儿童的问题。比起失踪儿童来，汽车、手枪、银器等都更易报失、追踪和寻找回来。  “我们把轻重缓急都搞颠倒了，”一个民间关心儿童问题的联合机构主任肯.伍登说：  “如果有人偷了一辆汽车，窃贼会被跟踪逮捕，因为我们有一套追踪被窃汽车的电子计算机系统。可是，孩子对我们显然没有那么重要。”
解析     本篇节选自Missing：100．000 Children a Year，从一个侧面揭示所谓的人权卫士国美国实际上在人权问题上存在严重的问题，每年有10万儿童失踪。
petite：(指女孩或妇女)娇小的。
or the next．Or the next：表达了深深的担忧之情，需要增补，建议译为“次日，没有回来，再次日，仍然没有回来。”
vanished：英文意思是“to disappear or stop being present or existing，especially in a sudden，surprising way”，因此，需要添加“突然”二字。
phalanxes：(古希腊士兵的)密集方阵，此处可以将形容词“密集”转换成副词“密集地”，译为“大批警察密集(搜寻)”。
had better：就某一具体情况提出个人的忠告，译为“应该”较为恰当。
priorities：表示“优先权”，但如果译为“优先权”过于死板，可以改译为“轻重缓急”。
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