About Us - Some of our Achievements

National and international lobbying:

2011

• Saw the culmination of years of campaigning and research, when on International Missing Children's Day (25th May), the government announced a major step forward in Child Protection. Read more.

• Selected to be one of ICAP Charity Day beneficiary to fund a major campaign to advertise the Missingkids Website.

2010

• Following PACT’s 10-year campaign, the UK government announced that responsibility for all aspects of missing children will be placed under one roof: the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, or CEOP.

2009

• Brought together for the first time, government departments, police agencies, MPs and NGOs to discuss the way forward on child protection using the findings of The Current Landscape as a basis.

• Funded and commissioned The Current Landscape, a study carried out by The Brand Union, a WPP company, to review the “missing” landscape and come forward with options for the creation of a National Centre in the UK.

2008

• Convinced the Home Office to improve data collection on missing children.

2007

• Testified before the All Party Group on Runaway and Missing Children.

2006

• Pressed the Home Secretary to create the Strategic Oversight Group, of which PACT is a founding member.

2005

• Invited to sit on the steering group, which drew up the Police Guidance on the Management, Recording and Investigation of Missing Persons; and became a member of the ACPO-led Strategic Oversight Group.

• Parliamentart Ombudsman upholds complaint against Lord Chancellor’s Department. Download a copy of the report (PDF). 

2004

• Successfully pressed the French government to introduce the Child Rescue Alert, Alerte Enlevement.

•  Instigated several House of Commons adjournment debates and Parliamentary questions  to demand more aggressive government action on behalf of missing and abducted children.

2002

• Played a major role in enacting new legislation in the EU on mutual recognition of custody/access orders, later became know as Brussells II bis.

2000

• Persuaded Prime Minister Blair, Presidents Clinton and Bush and President Chirac to make representations on behalf of PACT to the German government.

• Successfully pressed the Hague Convention member states to agree to a Guide to Good Practice on its implementation.

1999-2001

• Presented evidence to the Belgian Senate and the US Congress which led to several concurrent resolutions  calling for the proper enforcement of the Hague Convention.

1999

• Co-founded, with Ernie Allen the International Center for Missing & Abducted Children.

1990

• Obtained the support of the then First Lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton and the wife of the British Prime Minister, Cherie Booth, QC to the campaign against parental child abduction.

.	Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, one of PACT’s Honorary Chairs

• Co-hosted with the International Center for Missing & Exploited Children two international forums on Child Abduction in Washington, DC.

Publishing groundbreaking reports:

• Every Five Minutes, 2005: which, after examining in depth the defects in UK data collection on missing children, concluded that it was impossible to say how many children went missing each year and why (the figure varied between 100,000 and 180,000)

• .A Postcode Lottery, 2006: which mapped out for the first time the role of different agencies in the UK, the services they provided to missing children, and the enormous variations in quality and coverage between different parts of the UK.

• Beyond Every Five Minutes, 2007:  which set out a blueprint for action on missing and abducted children based on the creation of a specialist national centre, and helped lead to the January 2010 decision to move responsibility for missing and exploited children to CEOP.

Campaigning and getting others involved:

2005

• Produced “Victims of Another War”, a film documentary on the long-term effect of abduction on children which has been distributed worldwide.

2002

• Launched multiple national campaigns to help the police find missing children with the backing of companies such as Tesco Plc, EMCOR Group UK, ASDA and UK Media Group, resulting in over 354 missing children being recovered safely.

.	Launch of the Tesco poster campaign in March 2002. Right to left: Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Bryan, Lady Meyer, a representative of Tesco plc, and Chief Inspector Tim Bonnett.

1999

• Acquired the support of Cherie Blair, the wife of the British Prime Minister, to launch new initiative to locate missing and abducted children.

1998

• Co-chaired in Washington, D.C. the first international conference on the effectiveness of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.