A child goes missing in India every 8 minutes.
1 lakh children go missing each year.
Over 45% of these children are never found.

The first 24 hours of a child’s disappearance are the most important. The importance of a swift response and immediate coverage formed the basis of AMBER Alert, the Child Abduction Alert system in USA, where 75% children are killed within the first three hours of abduction.

The AMBER Alert System began in 1996 when Dallas-Fort Worth broadcasters teamed with local police to develop an early warning system to help find abducted children. AMBER stands for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response and was created as a legacy to a 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, was kidnapped while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas, and then brutally murdered.

Once law enforcement has determined that a child has been abducted and the abduction meets AMBER Alert criteria, law enforcement notifies broadcasters and state transportation officials. AMBER Alerts interrupt regular programming and are broadcast on radio and television and DOT highway signs. AMBER Alerts can also be re-disseminated through lottery, digital billboards, Internet Ad exchanges, Internet Service Providers, Internet search engines, as well as wireless devices such as mobile phones.

Even Facebook has recently became a part of this system.

To prevent public desensitisation and misuse of the technology, AMBER Alerts are only issued when:

• There is reasonable belief by law enforcement that an abduction has occurred.
• The law enforcement agency believes that the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death.
• There is enough descriptive information about the victim and the abduction for law enforcement to issue an AMBER Alert to assist in the recovery of the child.
• The abduction is of a child aged 17 years or younger.

As of 2015, 800 children were recovered as a result of AMBER Alert.

As a result of the success of this program in tracing missing children, it has been replicated in other countries including Canada, Mexico, Australia, France, Netherlands, UK & Malaysia.

With initiatives like CHILDLINE 1098, Track the Missing Child & KhoyaPaya, India is finally working towards tackling its missing children epidemic. However, with a Child Abduction Alert system, similar to the AMBER Alert, we can help save countless children whose cases come to light too late.

We request the Government of India, particularly the Ministry of Women & Child Development to work on a similar Alert Broadcasting System which can be linked to the existing missing children portals.

This petition is a part of Child Awareness Project’s Campaign, #LostNotForgotten, to start the conversation about child abduction and trafficking.
Please sign this petition and share it with the hashtags: #ALERTIndia #LostNotForgotten


Sources:

https://scroll.in/article/677280/half-of-indias-missing-children-last-year-were-sold-into-prostitution
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/One-lakh-children-go-missing-in-India-every-year-Home-ministry/articleshow/39779841.cms
http://trackthemissingchild.gov.in/trackchild/readwrite/News_Clippings/NATIONAL_LEGAL_RESEARCH_DESK.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-slowly-confronts-epidemic-of-missing-children/2012/09/22/395d51b0-fd95-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html?utm_term=.fdee6d091a79
http://bba.org.in/sites/default/files/Synopsis.pdf
https://www.amberalert.gov/faqs.htm#faq3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMBER_Alert