Frequently Answers and Questions on 116000 and Missing Children

1. Missing Children

What do we mean by missing?
The concept of “disappearance” includes all those situations where you lose track of a child or a teenager, do not know the exact location where a child is found and / or the circumstances in which this disappearance took place. Children who disappear are those who are lost, being kidnapped, who are abducted from one of the parents, Italian or Foreigners children who voluntarily depart from home or an institution.

Why an International Day of Missing Children?
This day was created to commemorate the death of little Ethan Patz, who was kidnapped in New York 25th of  May 1979 and to sensitize the people on the stories of these children to send a message of solidarity and hope to parents who no longer have their news.

2. 116000: the Service

What is 116000?
116000 is a Hotline of the Ministry of Interior and managed by Telefono Azzurro, dedicated to anyone who wishes to report an Italian or foreign missing child or an adolescent.

What is the job of 116000?
The task of 116000 is to respond 24 hours per day to reports from the national territory with regard to situations of disappearance of children and to support the investigation of the competent authorities through agreements and procedures that Telefono Azzurro has defined with the Police.

How is it organized?
The 116000 is held in a central control operators with dedicated and trained by Telefono Azzurro for managing these records, along with volunteers from the civil service. The service has procedures shared with the Police and a database with details of the territorially competent police forces.

Where is the Service?
The operations center of 116000 is physically located in Palermo at Telefono Azzurro place and responds to telephone reports from all over the country.

From which is reached?
From fixed and mobile telephony in Italy.

And is it free?
Yes

Can the alert  be anonymous?
Yes, it can.

Can the Service be contacted also by people who do not speak Italian?
Yes, the selected and trained operators by Telefono Azzurro also speak English fluently.

What is the role of Telefono Azzurro?
Telefono Azzurro is the Manager of the Service. On 25 May 2009 at the Ministry of Interior signs the Memorandum of Understanding about 116000.

What is the role of the Ministry of Interior?
The Ministry of Interior is the assignee of the number. In 2008, the National Regolamentary Authority made available and considered as reserved for use by the Ministry of the Interior.

Who is working on 116000?
The Service receives reports and forwards to the nodes with local law enforcement Police (Polizia di Stato and Arma dei Carabinieri).

What happens when a person contacts the 116000?
Meet a dedicated and properly trained operator, able to collect 24 hours per day information on the disappearance, sighting or finding of the child / adolescent and forward them promptly to the competent Police through telephone contact and email that will start automatically after completing the computerized data collection.

Which ones has the Service?
The operator has 116000 different functional tools to the objectives of the Service:
1. a collection of data and adjusted in accordance with the guidelines and standards;
2. operational procedures specific to each type of report (disappearance, sightings or recoveries) regardless of the causes and characteristics of the case (leakage abduction  by a parent, kidnapping, etc.).
3. A database organized and complete with the addresses of all offices at national level of the Police and Carabinieri.

Can you contact the service from abroad?
Abroad the call will be answered by the correspondent association, if any.
In which countries is operational on 116,000?
In addition to Italy, it’s operational in Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia.

Answered only by fixed line or mobile?
From both.

How can I get information on the Service?
On site www.116-000.it well as those of Telefono Azzurro (www.azzurro.it) and the Ministry of the Interior (www.interno.it).

Who are the contact people for journalists?
Head of Communications of Telefono Azzurro : Cristina Massara +39 347 7623250; cristina.massara @ azzurro.it; Head Office Press and Media Relations of Telefono Azzurro: Andrea Festuccia +39 347 7618090; andrea.festuccia @ azzurro.it.

3. Amber Alert

What is Amber Alert?
This is a computerized system that disseminates information on the disappearance of a child through all electronic media available.
Already in 2007 the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, then vice president of the European Commission, Franco Frattini, had illustrated the need to activate in Italy an alert system immediately. In the United States starting in 1996, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) established the Amber Alert, which was adopted in 2003, also from Quebec. In Europe the Council of Ministers of the Interior and Justice, which was held in Brussels on 27th and 28th of November 2008, we discussed planning for the establishment of a Child Alert municipality.

In which countries is already active?
France, Belgium and Greece