Kate and Gerry back 'Missing Children's day'

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Madeleine-McCanns-Parents-Kate-And-Gerry-Help-Launch-International-Missing-Childrens-Day/Article/200905315284040?lpos=UK_News_Second_UK_News_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15284040_Madeleine_McCanns_Parents_Kate_And_Gerry_Help_Launch_International_Missing_Childrens_Day



Simon Newton, Sky News reporter
Madeleine McCann's parents have joined the families of other youngsters who have disappeared to launch International Missing Children's Day.



Speaking after the event at the National Theatre in London, Kate McCann said all missing children deserved the publicity given to their own daughter.
"It's vital. Obviously our memories will be with us for ever but we are relying on everybody around the world to help us find our children and I do believe we all have a responsibility to help with that," she said.
Madeleine was three years old when she disappeared from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007.
Her father, Gerry McCann, said: "Children go missing all over the world and we want to make sure that when these tragic events happen the best possible chances of children being reunited with their families is put in place."
May 25 was designated Missing Children's Day by then-US President Ronald Reagan following the disappearance of six-year-old Etan Patz from New York.
children go missing each year, according to the Children's Society.
Most are returned home within a week but an average of six children each year are never found.
ChildLine founder Esther Rantzen told the audience the plight of missing children needed more worldwide attention.
She said: "I used to think the most terrible grief a family could face was the death of a child but I now realise that having a child who is missing when everything is unresolved is even worse and leaves them in perpetual pain and torture."
Among the audience were the parents of toddler Ben Needham, who disappeared in 1991 on the Greek island of Kos, and Natasha Lee, whose two-year-old sister Katrice vanished from a Naafi supermarket in Paderborn, Germany in 1981.
Ms Lee said: "Without days like today there's a possibility that all those missing children will be forgotten. We all deserve our answers we all deserve to have our children, our sisters our brothers back in our lives."
The UK's National Missing Person's Bureau became part of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) in 2008.
NPIA has announced plans to relaunch the existing Child Rescue Alert system nationally.
The amber alert system is similar to one used in the US and aims to ensure officers respond within the so-called "golden hour" when a child goes missing.
Chief Constable Peter Neyroud, head of NPIA, said: "We get virtually every single (missing child) back but it's the "virtually every single one" that worries me - a small number of cases where kids do get abducted or they come to harm, and that's the thing we're trying to prevent."
Wristbands and badges supporting the forget-me-not campaign to bring missing children home are now available in Tesco stores.

It's all too easy, for us, to get so wrapped up in Madeleine's plight, that we forget sometimes there are other missing kids out there. Each one is a tragedy, each child is priceless.

How right you are Vee. What started off as a search for Madeliene has become a search for all the children missing from Portugal for me. I want to catch the bu***rs who did it and the big boys behind them - so that future children will be safe.

And, of course, I want to get Madeleine safely back and all the other missing children. Madeleine and Kate and Gerry were the catalysts to my search. Without their courage and conviction, I doubt I would ever have started.

I guess we all feel the same, but we express ourselves differently and we all are doing our utmost in our own ways - and what a lot we have found out now!

One more reason to support all the parents of all missing children worldwide.