A Rapid Emergency Child Alert System is a voluntary partnership between law enforcement, media, transportation agencies, and others who work together to disseminate urgent bulletins about missing children.
In the United States, the AMBER Alert Program – named for 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was abducted and murdered near her grandparents’ home in Texas in 1996 – is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, and transportation agencies in which an urgent bulletin is activated in the most serious child-abduction cases. The alert system is mainly led by law enforcement with the help of NGOs.
The goal of a rapid Emergency Child Alert is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for and safe recovery of the child. Broadcasters use the Emergency Alert System to air a description of the abducted child and suspected abductor. The alert is distributed through various technology (e.g., text message, e-mail, fax, radio and television broadcast, social media, etc.) to reach the largest number of people in the fastest time possible.
The success of AMBER Alert in the United States has inspired the creation of similar programs around the world. In addition to the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, emergency child abduction alert systems are in place in the approximately 24 countries. Each country has established its own criteria of how and when to launch the alert.
Within the European Union, an EU-wide alert system is being considered with the aim of all EU Member States sharing information if a child has gone missing and there is the possibility that he or she has left his or her home country. Since 2007, The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), with the support of the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S.-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, assists countries around the world with developing alert programs and sharing best practices.
What countries have a Rapid Emergency Child Alert system?
Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.
For more information on how to develop a Rapid Emergency Child alert system please read ICMEC’s Framework.
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