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MissingPoster

Fact Sheet

Our mission is the protection and retrieval of children who go missing for whatever reason.

Who we are

PACT is an international, non-profit organisation registered both in the US and the UK. PACT was founded in 1999 by Lady (Catherine) Meyer, wife of Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to the United States.

Our mission

PACT’s mission is to fight parental child abduction across borders, and to help the police locate and retrieve missing children.

Why we exist

Every year, hundreds of thousands of children around the world go missing or are abducted. Some of these children are forcibly separated from one parent by the other; some are abused, exploited or murdered; others simply disappear, never to be found. PACT campaigns, conducts research and helps to make policy to secure the better protection of children.

What we are doing and what we have achieved

Stamping out parental child abduction across borders

PACT has succeeded in raising significant international awareness of the urgent need for better laws to protect children. As a result, PACT has played a role in drawing up new legislation in the EU, the UK and the US. It has participated in several congressional hearings in the US; initiated parliamentary debates in the UK; and enrolled the support of key politicians, including two US presidents and two British prime ministers.

PACT continues to press governments to recognise that parental child abduction raises issues of public policy and human rights, and to act accordingly.

Finding missing children

PACT works closely with the police and is a member of the governmentís Steering Oversight Group (SOG), which devises and coordinates policies related to missing adults and children. We were also invited to sit on the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center (CEOP) advisory board. Other examples of PACT's work to find missing children are:

  • Promotion of the Missingkids Website missingkids.co.uk.
  • Funding of poster campaigns, in which photographs of missing children, downloaded from the Website, are displayed across the UK in supermarkets, bus shelters, and car parks, thanks to the help of several partners from the private sector.
  • Advocating the use of the Child Rescue Alert, which instantly disseminates details of children who are feared to be in grave danger across the media.

Research projects

PACT has produced several major reports that highlight the acute need for coordination of services, centralised data collection, and better laws to protect children as well as a documentary that demonstrates the long-term effects of abduction on children.