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Home › Articles › Toddler Safety › Child Abduction

Child Abduction

Tips for Parents

By Gwen Morrison

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Shapiro points out that there are many new technologies available to parents and law officials when trying to recover a missing child. "The Internet is absolutely a resource in searching for missing children," he says. "We display pictures from children worldwide and have many successful recoveries via people who have searched our site."

Other new technologies include Reverse 911 (the ability to push pre-recorded calls in communities relaying information on the search for a child), Amber Alert (use of the Emergency Broadcast System to notify communities that a child is being searched for), digital IDs (use of digital technology to take pictures of children and held by parents; should a child go missing, the picture can be e-mailed to police and the NCMEC).

Photographs are one of the most effective tools that law officials can use to recover missing persons. Digital imaging technology has been effective in recovering one in six of the missing children featured in the Canon/NCMEC Picture Them Home photo distribution program. By distributing a quality image of your child, you increase the odds of recovery dramatically.

The NCMEC credits the Internet for directly finding 48 children since 2000. That's greater than two other primary methods – 44 through Wal-Mart posters and 19 through postcards sent with bulk mailings.

"In one way or another we use the Internet in every case," says Mike Gibson, president of Operation Lookout in Everett, Wash. "It's just too valuable a tool to not use whenever possible."

For more information about missing and exploited children, visit the NCMEC's Web site at www.missingkids.com or call the 24-hour hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).

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