Why is cross-border communication important?
It is essential to make sure that the vanishing borders in the EU - which are not respected by criminals abducting a child or for instance by a runaway going from one country to another- are not taken into account when national systems are implemented. To give you a very practical example just last year a child disappeared in the North of France at 10-20 minutes of the Belgian border and France decided to launch a child alert because the child had been abducted by a convicted pedophile that had just come out of prison. There were clear indications that this person had taken the child and that the child’s life may be at risk. So France decided very wisely to launch a child alert, which means that everybody in France was informed; everyone in the South of France spending holiday at the beach knew that in the north of France a child had disappeared. Luckily thanks to the child alert a bartender and a cab driver recognized the abductor and were able to inform the police and the child, while abused meanwhile, was found alive and safe. If the abductor had had the idea to spend 10 minutes in the car to cross the border to go to Belgium nobody would’ve known because at 10 minutes driving while everyone was informed in the south of France nobody knew in Belgium. That for us doesn’t make sense. If a child is missing in a border region these borders are not real so there should be possibilities to make sure that national systems work together to inform the public. 

Not all countries have activated this “116000” number. Is there a deadline to activate the number or a consequence if countries do not activate the number?
In a summary there is no deadline, unfortunately. The good news is that the number has been implemented successfully with the support of Missing Children Europe in 10 EU Member States. This allowed us to launch a broad communication campaign on the number in these countries on International Missing Children’s Day (25 May – see www.hotline116000.eu) There are however still a lot of steps to be undertaken for the number to be fully operational in 17 more EU member states and where the number is operational there is still a lot of work for us to do to make sure that the quality that parents and children receive on hotline has a certain minimum standard level and to make sure the costs that are related to operating “116000” can be covered. We are hoping that the the European Commission and the Parliament will continue to work with us very constructively to make sure that the number is operational in all member states and that these [cost] issues are solved as well. 

France and Greece have a child Alert System. Why haven’t more European countries established something similar?
Since France and Greece launched a child alert, developments have been going on in Europe. Steps have been taken and there is a growing will to develop interconnected national child alert systems. Now obviously in the EU things are quite a bit complicated because every country has its own system, its own judicial, and its own structure. Progress is ongoing, slowly but surely.The good news is that we’ve been working with the European Commission quite a bit to and the Commission has drafted some guidelines on what interconnected child alert systems should look like. These guidelines were presented last year at the level of the Counci, whichit generally expressed its political will to support the development of those kinds of systems. 
Following that the European Parliament decided to dedicate some funds that the Commission was asked to spend to develop national child alert systems. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s a start and we will definitely continue as Missing Children Europe to promote the importance that first of all, countries have some sort of system and secondly, that these systems are interconnected. 

Unlike the United States there is no public sex registry in Europe. Is this somewhat of a controversial issue in Europe?
It is definitely a controversial issue. As Missing Children Europe we have been promoting two articles included in the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. which are of relevance in this field. The first article says that there should be a system that allows national authorities to exchange, in an efficientand coherent manner, information on convicted sex offenders. The second article says that anybody working with children should to some degree be checked to make sure that it is not someone that has been convicted of offending a child sexually. We consider that this is a smart way of protecting children from sexual abuse while still balancing the fact that in many cases when you look at what happens in different countries trying to reintegrate sex offenders into a relatively normal life prevents them from offending again. So it is a difficult and very sensitive issue and you see that across Europe there are very different ways of dealing with this.  Missing Children Europe is not pleading in favour of a public sex offender registries accessible to the general public. 

What are some of the current projects or goals of Missing Children Europe?
In addition to the aforementioned European telephone number for missing children as well as the promotion of interconnected child alert systems, we are actively involved in the creation of a financial coalition against commercial online child abuse. We are working with the UK police unit CEOP, Europol, the Italian Police, , Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and Microsoft in trying to create a coalition of stakeholders involved in combating online child abuse. The idea is to follow the money flow and find the people that are selling the images and make sure that the business they have now that is low risk, high profit becomes exactly the contrary. 
Another issue of concern for Missing Children Europe is the lack of coherent and comparable data on missing and sexually exploited children. So we are calling on European Institutions to look at this more carefully because we consider that EU the Fundamental Rights Agency should work across sectors to understand how many children are actually missing and how many children are actually victims of sexual exploitation.We consider that knowing these facts will allow us to develop better policies, policies that are based on evidence and clear and objective facts. 
Missing Children Europe is also supporting the development of national initiatives. In addition to supporting our 23 national member organizations in 16 EU Member States, we also try to assist organizations in other countries. We are as such currently supporting Bulgarian NGOs in developing services for missing and sexually exploited children. 
Finally, a very practical issue that we are looking at is to make sure that we can have secure funding for the continuation of our work. Missing Children Europe benefits since 2008 from an operating grant under the Daphne Grant but, in line with the rules of the Daphne Programme, this grant will continue to decrease annually.

Is there any specific legislation that Missing Europe Children is currently focused on?
Absolutely. We are currently hoping that the proposals for framework decisions on Council Framework Decisions on sexual exploitation and abuse of children and trafficking in human beings, which both have been proposed by the European Commission a few months ago, will be adopted and implemented as swiftly as possible.

Delphine Moralis is the Deputy Secretary-General of Missing Children Europe
Interview by Daniella R. Lopez