Agata FurgałaDeputy Director of Department for Analysis and Supervision

Ministry of Interior and Administration of Poland

What’s next regarding missing children

116000 hotline for missing children in Poland116000 hotline for missing children in Poland

According to the Decision 2007/116/EC MS should have 5 phone lines (earlier 3 phone

lines):

116000 – hotline for missing children

116006 – helpline for victims and crime

116111 – child helpline

116117 –not-emergency medical on-call service

116123 – emotional support helpline

Poland has 3 phone lines working opereted by NGO’s:

116000 – Itaka – Center for Missing People

116111 – Nobody’s Children Foundation

116123 – Polish Psychological Association

Poland established 116000 phone line as a sixth MS in the EU and as a first MS - all 3 phone numbers

/which in the past were the only ones recommended in EU/

ITAKA Foundation:exists from 12 yearsone of the founder of Missing Children Europeunique NGO in Poland who takes care of missing people in such a large scale: 24h 7 days per week helps to find missing people and support their families

MISSION of ITAKA:searching peoplehelping families prevention measures to avoid missing people

ITAKA’s TEAM: psychologists, psychiatrists layers, social employees, voluntaries

Phone line for Missing Children works since 5th March 2009

Phone line works 7 days a week – 24 hours a day. All calls are free of charge form the cells and fixed network

Telekomunikacja Polska S.A. is a private association who finance a great part of cost of phone lineIn 2010 i 2011 Ministry of Interior and Administration co-finance the line activities

Measures:psychological help searching activities and mediations direct assistance point for helplegal support

about 5000 calls by year

80% of effectiveness in 2009/10 for 212 cases of missed children searching via phone line 182 –were find it means

In May 25th 2009, an agreement on cooperation between the Foundation and Police Headquarters Agreement is made for cooperation in:searching missing people, determining the identity of unknown identity, missing prevention, combat the phenomenon of missing people and reduce the negative consequences of this phenomenon.

Cooperation between ITAKA and POLICE

The website is existing as a part of the official Police website www.policja.pl, as one of the theme bookmarks: „missing” and „wanted”

Publication of persons reported as missing, is done automatically on a daily data internal computer system

Automatic publication of data is aimed at maximum efficiency the present system of missing persons, and to provide actual content

On the site are photos and data on 990 people reported as missing

ITAKA’s website www.zaginieni.pl is a complementary tool to provide to society all information about missing person

/coded sub-site for families concerning unknown identity of died person found/

website: www.zaginieni.policja.pl

Bookmark

missing person in total

reported children missing

year Up to 7 7-13 14-17

2010 118 436 2.915 2009 125 442 3.054

2008 145 528 3.487

year All missing person

2010 14.393

2009 15.076

2008 15.881

Statistic Data

Further steps

In general:Strong cooperation in counteracting and preventing all missing on national and European level

strengthening partnership between different actors: NGO’s, government administration and business sector, volunteers

Further steps

In particular:

1. International conference on the missing children and adults (5-6th October 2011) General topics about missing children:-Child alert – how to implement it?-116 000 phone on missing child and teenager – How does it work? How can it help?-Child trafficking-Parental abductions-Age progression

Further steps

2. Develop ITAKA’s Direct Assistance Centre

The proposed help: psychological help (psychological support during

disappearance of a child, assistance in mourning)

mediation (for teenagers who plan to escape, for parents who are afraid that their child will escape, for teenagers who are on the run and don’t want to come back home, for parents of teenagers who came back home and would like to avoid similar situation in future)

legal support

Further steps

3. Implementation of the National Action Plan against Trafficking in Human BeingsIn this framework government entities and NGO’s perform tasks aimed at preventing and combating trafficking in Poland

Further steps

4. usual activities of different entities such as f. ex.:• publications

• workshops and lectures

• all around Poland

• media campaigns

• implement national and local prevention programs aimed to counteracting crime and unsocial behavior among children and youth

Thank you for your attentionThank you for your attention

Contact: agata.furgala@mswia.gov.plTel. no. +48226014070