116000 Emergency number for missing Children in Spain

The Spanish govern­ment have created an emergency line which will deal solely with children who have dis­appeared, and put into place a series of actions once a child is reported missing.
Parents of missing children who gathered recently in Vecindario
11.06.2009 - The new number is 116000, and callers to the line will be speaking directly to a team deal­ing with missing children and persons rather than having to go through the normal police channels. Information will be asked for which will allow the authorities to put into place search measures as soon as possible. In parallel a new alert system, SADAR (Sistema de Alerta por De­saparación de Alto Riesgo) has been created which allows those investigating a disappearance to issue alerts, use the media and seek help from members of the public, depend on the co-operation of border police to prevent any at­tempt to leave Spain, and is transnational in character, to facilitate cross-border co-operation in the event that there is a suspicion that a child has actually been removed from the country. The new protocol was signed into being by secretary of state Antonio Camacho, and underlines that any missing child is immediately con­sidered ‘high risk’, whether their disappearance might be considered voluntary or not, and once reported will prompt an appropriate re­sponse, particularly in those vital first few hours.

On a Europe-wide basis, the number 116000 has been reserved by the EU for use in countries of the union as a hotline, and, along with Spain, the countries to have adopted the number are Greece, Hungary, the Nether­lands, Portugal and Romania. However it is stressed that the sooner other countries actually find a local operator and bring the service into play the better.

With a fully operational Europe-wide system it is hoped that cases such as the disappearance of Canar­ians Yeremi Vargas, Sara Morales, Irish teenager Amy Fitzpatrick and British child Madeleine McCann could be addressed and even resolved rapidly.

Sorry to be negative but even with this high risk talk from the governments there is still not enough done for the children....

Just look at the pain in the faces of those 3 mothers faces....no one is helping them and the press only help the ones with connections.