stolen child
Taken from family
A stolen child is one taken from their family, whether by literal kidnapping or through systemic removal.
The phrase carries particular weight in contexts of historical injustice—children taken from Indigenous families, from unmarried mothers, or during wartime.
Yeats's poem "The Stolen Child" draws on Irish folklore of fairies spiriting children away: Come away, O human child!
The term emphasizes the child as victim and the taking as violation.
- kidnappedTaken captive illegally
- abductedTaken by force
- parental abductionParent unlawfully takes own child
- missingNot present, whereabouts unknown
- missing personUnlocated person sought by authorities
changeling · fairy · ransom · amber alert · police report · milk carton · age progression · custody · trafficked · snatched · taken · lost · mother · birth parents · searching · grief · poster · vanished
- Fairiesfairies, faeries, fairy queen, fairy dust, fairy wings