Service 116000

Service 116000 – Hotline for missing children

1. What is the Service 116000

To handle the problem of missing children and the heterogeneity of situations that this macro category includes, the European Commission, with the Decisions n. 116 and n. 698 of February 15 and October 29, 2007, decided to allocate the numbering range beginning with 116 for services of social value, thus creating the Service 116000, a hotline for missing children, and urging member countries to introduce it and make it active. The 116000 is a service dedicated to whoever wants to report the disappearance, the sighting or the discovery of a child or adolescent, Italian or foreign, in the home country or in another European country, since the number is linked to various national organizations specializing in the management of cases of disappearance; a number easy to remember, active 24 hours per day and every day, that adults and children/adolescents can call if the need arises.

2. What do you mean by “missing children”

Runaways

Minors who run away from home, from the people responsible for their care or from the istitution where they have been placed.

Abduction by a third person

Abductions of minors by anyone other than the parents or persons with parental authority.

Parental abduction (National/International)

Cases where a child is taken away to, or kept in, a country or place other than that of its normal residence by one or more of his/her parents or persons having parental authority against the other parent’s will or against the will of the person with parental authority.

Missing unaccompanied migrant minors

Disappearances of migrant children, nationals of a country with which there is no free movement of persons, under the age of 18 who have been separated from both parents and are not being cared for by an adult, who by law is responsible for doing so.

Lost, injured or otherwise missing children

Disappearances for no apparent reasons of minors who have got lost or who have been injured and cannot be found immediately, as well as children whose reason for disappearing has not yet been determinated.