Brussels, 18/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - Franco Frattini, Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, suggested on 17 January that Member States adopt a system for sounding the alarm when children are abducted. Speaking in Paris at a rally of the world's leading ladies against the kidnapping of children and their sexual exploitation, Frattini said it is desirable that the example set by France should be followed by the 26 other Member States for setting an alarm system in place in the case of abduction or kidnapping. Laura Bush, Queen Paola of Belgium, Queen Silvia of Sweden, Ludmilla Putin, and Suzanne Mubarak of Egypt met at the Elysée on Wednesday at a gathering hosted by Bernadette Chirac. They called for international mobilisation against “one of the greatest scourges of our time”, as President Jacques Chirac put it, as he welcomed the guests. On this occasion, participants presented a single help line number in Europe - 116000 - for notifying abductions, to be operational throughout the EU by this coming summer.
The abduction and kidnapping alarm system, which is inspired by the American model, allows the justice system to diffuse an alarm message during three hours via various media: television channels, radio stations, press agencies, motorway panel messages, announcements in railway and metro stations, and on the internet sites of victims' associations. The alarm is raised if four conditions are met: it must really be a case of abduction or kidnapping, the child must be in danger, concrete elements must be available to pass on to the public, and the parents must agree. According to Laura Bush, the setting up of the American system has allowed the percentage of missing children found again to be increased from 62% in 1990 to 94% today. “As kidnapping knows no borders, such a system at world level would be extremely useful”, Frattini said. The Commissioner also pointed out that he would publish a communication at the end of March on the fight against cyber-crime, to include measures aimed at strengthening operational police cooperation to combat the exploitation of children and child pornography on the internet. He also said he had begun talks with banks and credit card institutions to generalise the control of paedophile sites throughout Europe. Viviane Reding, European Information Society Commissioner, pressed for “self-regulation” internet access providers and mobile phone operators. According to Ms Reding, mobile phone operators will be signing a charter on the protection of children at European level on 6 February. (bc)