(ANS - Bangalore) - A new web-based service has recently been put online as a useful tool for those in the unhappy situation of trying to trace their missing children. It will also be useful for those with information about children found alone on the streets, who may have members of their family looking for them.

`Missing Child Search` has been set up by the `Homelink Network`, a
group of Indian social work organisations dedicated to locating missing children and reuniting them with their relatives. Behind the scenes this initiative is supported by the `Don Bosco South Asia Forum for the Young at Risk` (DBSAF-YAR), based in New Delhi.

As mentioned above, the web site is available for parents who for various reasons are searching for a lost child, in the hope that the database on the site may provide information of their whereabouts. The system allows the addition of useful information, for the same purpose, provided by various people who may find, or suspect they have found, one of these children wandering alone on the streets and thus at risk.

The service was launched at at the Bala Bhavan auditorium in Bangalore by the Karnataka State Minister for Women and Child Development, Mr. H K Kumaraswamy. Also present were the UNICEF child protection officer, Mr Sony George, and other eminent persons. Fr George Kollashany SDB, director of the Homelink Network, gave a presentation on the usefulness of the service.

Published 2/8/2007