Missing Children/International Voluntary Law Office ETOS Firm calls you, it's alert action and we are on act; ETOS main office is open 24 hours!..
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Volunteer SOS Centre ETOS Law Firm calls you, people!.. Everyone should support the YAKAD, the Association for Bereaved Families.
Did you know: in every 40 minute disappears another one child! It's a big shame on civilization!
Shame on Humanity!
Development of an operational network of NGOs in Europe:
In 2004, M and P, both aged thirteen, ran away from home to Lille (France). Child Focus immediately contacted the new French association, SOS Enfants Disparus, which alerted its network. Straight away, the contact point in Lille distributed Child Focus posters and informed the French authorities. The following day, the two exhausted children were found in the South of France.
A second objective of the International development department is to set up an operational NGO network in Europe. The European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children (folder pdf), whose members have the mission of talking with a single voice to the various European bodies, serves as a driving force for this development and constitutes a forum for the exchange of information and expertise.
At present (April 2005), this international association with a humanitarian objective, which has its General Secretariat in Brussels (Belgium) in the offices of Child Focus, brings together 19 organisations in 15 countries on the European continent.
• Germany: Elternititiative Vermisste Kinder
http://www.vermisste-kinder.org
Kisdorf
Weisser Ring
http://www.weisser-ring.de
Mainz
• United Kingdom: National Missing Persons Helpline
http://www.missingpersons.org
NMPH, London
• Austria: 147 - Rat auf Draht"
http://rataufdraht.orf.at
Vienna
• Denmark: Thora Center
http://www.thoracenter.dk
Copenhagen
• Spain: Accion Contra la Pornografia Infantil
http://www.asociacion-acpi.org
ACPI, Madrid
• France: La Mouette
http://www.lamouette.asso.fr
Agen
Aide aux Parents d'Enfants Victimes
http://www.apev.org
APEV, Issy-les-Moulineaux
Fondation Pour l'Enfance
http://www.fondation-enfance.org
Paris
• Greece: The Smile of the Child
http://www.hamogelo.gr
Athens
• Hungary: Kék Vonal
Budapest
• Ireland: Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
http:/www.ispcc.ie
ISPCC, Dublin
• Italy: Aurora - Centro Nazionale per la Ricerca dei Bambini Scomparsi e Sessualmente Abusati
http://www.auroraonlus.org
Bologna
• Poland: Fundacja Dzieci Niczyje (Nobody's Children Foundation)
http://www.fdn.pl
Warsaw
Itaka Foundation
http://www.itaka.org.pl
Warsaw
• Portugal: Instituto de Apoio à Criança
http://www.iacrianca.pt
I.A.C., Lisbon
• Czech Republic: Nadace Nase Dite (Our Child Foundation)
http://www.nasedite.cz
Prague
Associated member :
• Romania: Salvati Copiii SCR, Bucharest
http://www.salvaticopiii.ro
The Federation was officially founded on 4 May 2001 at the European Parliament in Bruxelles under the patronage of Mrs Nicole Fontaine (President of the Parliament) and Mr Antonio Vitorino (member of the European Commission – DG for Justice and Home Affairs).
A non-profit-making association, the Federation acts independently, exclusively in the interests of children, with reference to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Its missions are in keeping with the philosophy of ICMEC and can be summarised as follows:
- to speak with a single voice to the European bodies (European Parliament, Council of Europe, to which a request for participatory status has been submitted, the European Commission, etc.);
- to increase the awareness of the general public and to promote consciousness-raising campaigns, such as International Missing Children’s Day, organised on 25 May;
- to promote the creation of operational centres in as many European countries as possible, available day and night and having a free short telephone number;
- to promote collaboration among these private centres of public utility on the one hand and the judicial and police bodies on the other, on the basis of cooperation agreements;
- to promote the creation of an observatory allowing statistics to be produced concerning the phenomena of disappearances and exploitation, in the awareness that reliable and comparable data are lacking at present.
The European Federation is run by the following Board of Directors:
• Chairman:
Mr Daniel Cardon de Lichtbuer,
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Child Focus (Belgium)
• Vice-Chairman:
Mr Costas Yannoupoulos,
President of The Smile of the Child (Greece)
• Board Members:
Mrs Zusana Baudysova,
Director-General of Our Child Foundation (Czech Republic)
Mrs Bodil Dichow,
Director of Thora Center (Denmark)
Mrs Annie Gourgue,
President of La Mouette (France)
Mr Arnauld Gruselle,
Assistant Manager of Fondation pour l’Enfance (France)
Mrs Maria Keller-Hamela,
Director of international affairs of Nobody’s Children Foundation (Poland)
Mr Stuart Rae-Brown,
Case manager at the National Missing Persons Helpline (United Kingdom)
* The election of Mrs Kristine Kloeck, Director-General of Child Focus (Belgium) will take place at the next meeting of the Board of Directors and the General Assembly in June 2005.
• Secretary General:
Mrs Tessa Schmidburg,
International Development Manager, Child Focus (Belgium)
• Financial Committee:
The European Federation is assisted by a Financial Committee headed by Ms Isabelle Barnier and Ms Marie-Laure Schöller.
This financial support committee contributes towards the Federation’s financial viability. It mainly comprises representatives of France, who in 2004 organised in particular a tennis tournament for the benefit of the Itaka Foundation and the Federation’s activities.
In 2004, on the initiative of Ambassador Dubuisson, the Federation also benefited from an important contribution from "Musiciens d'Europe", under the presidency of Mr Hadelin Donnet.
Five action priorities were established in 2004, within five working groups:
1. A first priority is to create a solid operational network in the countries of the European Union. The centres must have a telephone line offering long periods of accessibility, a permanent team of case managers and an adequate budget derived from both public and private funds, which guarantees their independence. Their operational activities should be based on official cooperation agreements, which assure them of genuine collaboration with the courts and the police. Alongside these operational centres, associations which are not operational but pursue the same objectives as the European Federation can continue to form part of the network.
2. Secondly, the operational centres in all the countries of the European Union should deal with the phenomena of the disappearance and sexual exploitation of minors and possibly also with related problems. This guarantees that they will fit perfectly into the international network of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC – www.icmec.org). However, the Federation may accept centres which, for various reasons, do not yet fully cover both fields of activity.
3. A third objective is putting into service a three-digit emergency number for all the European network. A study should be carried out with the telephone companies in the different countries to resolve the existing technical problems. The help of the European Commission would be welcome in this connection.
4. Along the same lines, the members of the operational network should have the same name. This would be an advantage for communications with the authorities, the sponsors and the general public. The opinion of a specialised agency will be requested for this purpose.
5. In conclusion, the European Federation must pay the necessary attention to its official status given the fact that in future it must become not only essential to the national and European authorities but also recognised by them. To this effect, it must develop a common capacity for research, reflection and the development of strategies, in the field of intervention, prevention and follow-up of victims.
The Queen, in her capacity as a member of the ICMEC Honorary Board, set in motion the idea of a day of reflection and consciousness-raising on the disappearance and sexual exploitation of children in Europe. For the European Federation, this initiative was a most valuable encouragement.
The day was organised on 23 November in collaboration with the European Federation. The Queen expressed the desire that other European countries develop centres similar to that of Child Focus. Distinguished guests, namely Queen Sylvia of Sweden, Mrs Bernadette Chirac and Mrs Jolanta Kwasniewska – also members of the ICMEC Honorary Board – and Princess Astrid and Princess Victoria of Sweden, attended the event. Thanks to an academic session in the Palace, the day did not go unnoticed in political, administrative and judicial circles in Belgium and around Europe. Some important speakers took the floor: Guy De Vel (Director-General of Legal Affairs at the Council of Europe), Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin (Chair of the Executive Board of the Internet Rights Forum), Ernie Allen (ICMEC President and CEO) and Francisco Fonseca Morillo (Director at the European Commission's DG for Justice, Freedom and Security).
In the presence of the King and Queen, the day closed with a magnificent concert in Flagey conducted by Philippe Herreweghe, for the benefit of the European Federation.
Positioning of activities in Europe:
The third priority of the International development department concerns promotion of the Belgian concept.
Child Focus and the European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children represent Europe at the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In 2004, the Centre organised many contacts in order to explain its operational activities on the European scene and to promote cooperation among existing organisations.
In effect, it must be acknowledged that for the time being there are only two fully operational centres in the world which offer active support in all investigations connected with the disappearance, abduction and sexual exploitation of children and which also analyse these phenomena and/or organise prevention campaigns.
They are the National Center for Missing & Exploited Childre (NCMEC - www.ncmec.org) in Washington and Child Focus in Brussels.
In March 2004, for instance, an important meeting was held in Romania with representatives of NGOs, the police and the courts, at which the operational model of Belgium and the United States (NCMEC - www.ncmec.org) was presented. Subsequently, the adviser to the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs made a visit to the Centre.
In 2004, there were two meetings of the ICMEC Board of Directors, on which the Child Focus Chairman has a seat: the first in April in Washington and the second in October in The Hague.
• ICMEC or the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children was created in Washington in 1998.
• The cofounders included the National Centre, which had existed in the United States since 1974, and the Belgian Centre, Child Focus, created in 1997.
• ICMEC brings together several American and European personalities and, gradually, persons from other continents too.
• Its objective is to make decision-makers and the general public aware of the problems of missing, abducted and/or exploited children.
• ICMEC promotes the distribution of photos of missing children worldwide, finances studies concerning parental abductions and sets up programmes to combat child pornography on the Internet.
• ICMEC is run by a Board of Directors chaired by Mr Arnold I. Burns, former Deputy Attorney-General of the United States, assisted by three vice-chairs:
- Mary Banotti (European Parliament)
- Dennis DeConcini (former US Senator)
- Daniel Cardon de Lichtbuer (President of Child Focus and of the European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited Children)
• An Honorary Board has been set up to help ICMEC construct a world network of organisations and persons likely to be able to protect children around the world.
Current composition:
Her Majesty the Queen of the Belgians
Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden
Mrs Laura Bush, wife of the President of the United States
Mrs Marta Sahagùn de Fox, wife of the President of Mexico
Mrs Jolanta Kwasniewska, wife of the President of Poland
Mrs Valentina Matvienko, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia
Mrs Susanna Agnelli, President of the IL FARO Foundation
All these activities carried out by the Child Focus International Development Department are aimed ultimately at making the Centre more effective in Europe so as to improve the situation of missing and abused children.
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Contact via above links; please!
Related matters available by the Turkish Organizations too for example The Miisng Peoples' Relatives main Bureau in Istanbul YAKAD Tlf: (0212)6352864, (0212)5327312 e-mail: zafer@kaybolanlar.com OMNIS INTERNET HiZMETLERi (0212)2342735, (0212)2317266
INFO CENTRES and main figures at the action task updates by ETOS/EU officially board on related subjects/systematically informs by The ETOS&Law Firm Sweden
Fax: 00.46.8.6465406
Best regards
Human Rights Advocate-interpreter Mr. Ekrem TOS
Consulting_Bureau@hotmail.com, Anwalt_EkremTOS@hotmail.com, Advocate_Ekrem_TOS@yahoo.de, Advocate_Ekrem_TOS@hotmail.com
address:
Child Rights' Voluntary Law Firm ETOS
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12462 Raagsved-Bandhagen, Stockholm-Sweden
tel 00.46.8.6465406 mobile00.46.735889796
ETOS Law Firm supports YAKAD and calls you for en effective support to the Association for Bereaved Families
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