Run Lora Run

 

The story of 16-year-old Lora, missing for twenty-four days, does not spark the usual terror of a child’s disappearance. Instead, it stirs admiration, reflection, it is a crash course on the responsibilities of a family, welfare services, society. In fact, it feels like a thriller, like Run Lola Run, and I can’t help but hope, as one might for a hero against all odds, that she makes it, even while knowing no parent and no child should ever face this position.

It is the story of a child who, in order to protect herself from alleged abuse and authoritarianism within her family, was forced to run, quite literally, a relentless endurance race. A minor who, since 8 January, has exposed everyone and laid bare all the gaps of the state and of society. From Patras to Athens and finally to Frankfurt, her movement unfolded with the pace and precision of a non stop film sequence, where stopping is not an option and every second counts. Actions of a desperate person who must survive. 

Lufthansa has confirmed that a teenage girl travelled to Germany, on the very day of her disappearance. Apparently it took five separate requests from the Hellenic Police before the airline provided this confirmation. Lora was last seen on 8 January near Patras. Police say she sold her mobile phone before disappearing so that she could not be traced. She sold jewellery, erased her digital traces. She used the money to travel by taxi to Athens. And she managed to travel abroad alone. Officers also established that she deleted all her social media accounts one day earlier. Her parents, German citizens permanently residing in Rio, reported her disappearance and an Amber Alert was issued by the charity Smile of the Child.

A scenario so precise, so tightly executed. But not fiction. This is Lora’s life, in real time, no cuts, no pauses. Where most kids worry about school or chores or what to wear, where their biggest responsibility might be making their bed or holding a part-time job, she has to run. For her life. Reportedly, she escaped years of restriction and oppression. 

The details that emerged were disturbing with a precision we usually assume only comes from a script writer's imagination. But life is always worse.  Once, she asked to go to a hairdresser, and instead, as other children reported, her father cut her hair short. She used hats and bandanas to hide the marks of control. This parental behavior was known to the authorities, European authorities. The girl was left to take her safety into her own hands and feet.

Spectators follow her movements in the news like a continuous tracking shot, camera in hand with the tension of a long take, but also with hope that, when she is finally caught, she will be able to make a genuine start in life. But this is not a tick in the box, it is not a case to be filed away nor a happy end for the news bulletins. The child should be found only if the authorities are able to truly protect her. Not to return her mechanically to the place she escaped from because of their lack of structures, because of their lack of capacity. Not to look away from everything that forced her to plan her flight with the precision of a professional fugitive.

Because if a 16 year old child managed on her own to cross borders, erase digital footprints, sell what little she had and disappear into Europe, those responsible should ask themselves not where she went, but what she was running from. And for how many years she had been trying to leave, long before she stepped into that taxi in Patras.

If the state cannot guarantee safety and care and justice, then...

Run, Lora. Run for yourself!

And for all the children no one protected...