New helpline for Spain's missing children

Spain has joined a new Trans-European agency dedicated to assisting with locating missing children. The helpline will allow members of the public to report a missing child and provide counselling, but more importantly to be a channel where information can be gathered quickly and effectively, and then passed to the appropriate agency.

This initiative is supported by the Anar Foundation and the Missing Children Europe groups, which coordinate in Spain with the Police and Guardia Civil as well as regional police forces.

The authorities in Spain estimate that here alone there are around 20,000 incidents of missing children every year.

The vast majority of all reported disappearances have no sinister connotations, and are quickly resolved however, each reported incident is placed in one of five categories. These are : running away; kidnapping by a parent; a child emigrating alone; loss; and kidnap by an unknown or third party.

The number of the helpline, which becomes operative today, is 116 000 and remains the same throughout Belgium, France, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Greece, Romania, Portugal, Holland and Denmark.