By: ELOISE WALTON
THE PORTUGUESE government has attributed a new European wide telephone number, 116 000, for reporting cases of missing children to the Portuguese children’s institute, Instituto de Apoio à Criança (IAC).
This is part of a European directive started in February in which all 27 member states have to implement this telephone number by today (Friday).
A spokesman for the Ministry of Internal affairs (MAI) said: “The Minister has signed a document in which the Instituto de Apoio à Criança is assigned the new number. The institute was chosen because of the specialised telephone answering system it has been developing for several years”.
Since May 2004, MAI and IAC have maintained a protocol of cooperation with the objective of finding missing, sexually abused and mistreated children around Portugal as soon as possible.
Vivian Reding, the European Unions Telecommunications Commissioner, said: “This phone number is a concrete example of what the EU defines as one of its priorities to children’s rights”. Parents, witnesses and children will now have rapid access to a specialised help service through a free European wide telephone number.
Alexandra Simões, coordinator of the existing SOS Criança telephone system at IAC, said: “The directive is being adopted by all 27 member states, but other European countries are also showing an interest in the project”.
Manning the SOS missing child telephone line from Monday to Friday 9am until 7pm are seven professionals including five psychologists, one social worker and one kindergarten teacher.
Information received from the helpline which is based on a questionnaire developed with the Child Focus model from Belgium and revised by the Polícia Judiciária, will be gathered and will be put into a file.
Once the questionnaire is completed, all the information will immediately be transformed into a text message sent by fax to the following entities; the local law enforcement responsible for the investigation according to Portuguese law, the local family court, the Polícia Judiciária when there might be a crime involved, the local governmental child protection commission, so that they initiate the protection system of the child and a network of Portuguese NGOs working across the country that provide local free psychological, social and judicial support to the victim and his or her family.
The Resident tried to obtain a comment from Kate and Gerry McCann as to their views on the initiative. Justine MCGuiness, the McCann’s PR told The Resident: “Kate and Gerry do not feel it is appropriate to comment at this time as they are trying to step out of the media spotlight”.
For more information, please visit the website in Portuguese only, www.iac.pt. National Data Protection laws do not allow the IAC to have the faces of missing children posted onto their website. These can only be displayed by the Polícia Judiciária website, along with missing adults at www.pj.pt (in Portuguese only).
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