RIYADH, 17 April — A 13-year-old Pakistani boy has been missing from home since March 13 after going for a ride on his motorbike. At the time of Abdul Rahman’s disappearance, his parents were in Pakistan.

The Pakistani Embassy, together with the parents of the boy, are cooperating with the local police in the search for the teenager.

Investigations into the disappearance have so far drawn a blank.

The mother of the missing boy is said to be too distressed to do anything but cry. The father, Jan Mohammed, who hails from the Dera Ghazi Khan area of Pakistan, has traveled to the holy city of Makkah to pray for the safe return of his son.

Tahir Aiwan, a prominent Pakistani expatriate closely following the case, told Arab News that the Saudi-born Abdul Rahman was the third son from the first wife of Jan Mohammed, who has six sons and one daughter from two wives.

The family, including both wives, has lived together in an apartment in Suwedi area of Riyadh (near Badiya) for 21 years.

Local police have been unable to locate even the motorbike the boy was riding, despite the fact that the case was lodged in the Manfooha Police Station more than one month ago.

The Pakistan Embassy has already sent a report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad.

Fazle Wahid, a senior teacher at Pakistan International School, said that there has never been any incident of boys or girls going missing that he was aware of.

However, other members of the Pakistani community in Riyadh — a tightly-knit group who are known for their adoration of their children — tell a different story.

They complain of a growing number of child abduction and cases of child sexual abuse.

The boy who has gone missing in the latest incident was wearing a white shirt and pants on the day he went missing.

Local police are still searching remote locations, drainage systems and desert areas, which have a reputation for being notorious hang-outs for criminals and child abusers.

Although incidents of child abuse in Saudi Arabia are rare when compared to the total number of patients seen in hospitals and general crimes reported to the police, the reason for this could be an unwillingness to discuss such matters.

In recent months, several incidents of serious physical and sexual abuse have been reported in the Saudi media.

Abdul Rahman was probably abducted by a pervert, local people are saying, a matter on which they and the police differ.

And in a bizarre twist, some are even muttering privately that the victim himself ‘misbehaved’.

Other members of the community are convinced that the boy’s disappearance is related to several cases of child abuse, mainly on adolescent boys after they were kidnapped or lured to remote locations.

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Ayed of King Khaled University Hospital warned in a study published recently that “child abuse is an emerging problem in this country”.

In Saudi Arabia, where society is based on strong cultural and traditional values, child abuse is still widely considered a relatively rare occurrence.