EU URGENTLY NEEDS MISSING CHILD HOTLINE

12.00.00pm GMT Thu 6th Mar 2008

Recent attempted abductions of children in Birmingham and the continued absence of Madeleine McCann show that a single Europe-wide telephone number is needed to report missing children, according to local Euro-MP Liz Lynne.

This international phone number would be coupled to a Child Alert mechanism in each Member-State to get the word out faster, rescue more children and bring more perpetrators to justice, says the MEP. The European Commission launched an initiative on the single phone number and early warning system this week but it will still have to be implemented by Member States.

Speaking today, Liz Lynne said:

"In this era of fast-improving technology we sometimes seem to lag behind in exploiting it for good.

"This single missing child hotline would be a relatively simple system that would surely save lives by bypassing the initial need to directly contact local police, who might not speak the same language. It would allow a central, dedicated team to quickly get information out to all relevant emergency services, rather than relying on local Police to do this.

"EU Member States need to move quickly on this would have an immediate practical and positive effect when children inexplicably go missing."

Commenting further on the continuing negative publicity that the Europe-wide emergency number 112 is receiving, Liz added:

"The UK government really needs to move on promoting this number as so few British people know it exists. We need to remind the sceptics this is not an issue of sovereignty or 999 being abolished. It is about saving lives by providing an additional emergency number that everyone can use in any EU country, in their own language."

ENDS