Protection of missing children

In the previous report, we wrote about a girl Nina who was still missing. Luckily, we have a good news! Nina was finally found! An associate from the Social welfare center informed us about the news. Nina is now safe and sound. Her medical condition is under control. The joyful news and satisfaction from this outcome after several months of waiting and working on the case convinced us that everything we do makes sense, that every conversation, meeting, appeal, informing the authorities, etc, has additional weight i.e. importance if the goal is achieved, if the child is found. It is also a confirmation of how much cooperation and trust between all actors is necessary in such cases and that such relations must be encouraged.

All our effort is placed to contribute to the creation of a society in which children can safely and happily grow, where adults will give them full support in their upbringing, and as our mission says, we want to contribute to society which is free from all forms of exploitation, violence, discrimination, economic and social inequalities.

In addition to individual stories and cases that we monitor and manage, a very important aspect of our work is the analysis of trends and the evaluation of cases of missing children in our country. On the International Children's Day, which is celebrated on May 25th around the world, ASTRA published a report on the work of the European Children's Missing Children in Serbia, 116000.The data of the entire network of European numbers for missing children show the same structure calls. That is also the case with ASTRA’s line. Namely, the highest percentage of total calls refers to children who escaped from home, followed by parental abductions in second place, unaccompanied migrants and in a very small number (under 1%) abductions by a third person.

ASTRA is constantly trying to point out to state authorities, but also to parents, about the large number of children who are running away from home, because these children are at this very moment vulnerable and may be victims of various forms of exploitation. We supported and welcomed the amendment to the Law on Police, Article 72, that says that the search for missing children would start immediately and not after 24 hours of the child’s disappearance, and urged the implementation of this Article of the Law in practice.  We also insisted on the urgent introduction of an alarm system in cases of missing children (so-called Amber Alert) in Serbia, regarding which ASTRA spoke several times with representatives of state institutions, but the concrete steps for the introduction of the Alert system are still lacking.

Links:

• Annual Report of the European Missing Children Number in Serbia