Criteria for the use of an AMBER Alert

Every day children are reported as missing in The Netherlands. After a shorter or longer time almost all of them are found alive. Most of these missing children are runaways. Obviously there is a risk, that they will meet, or maybe have already met, the wrong kind of people. Publicity can help find these missing children in several different ways. We have all seen items about this in Tros Vermist or in Hart van Nederland or in national or regional newspapers. The Internet is also being used to find these children, with the Netpresenter screensaver, on Twitter, with Windows Live messages and on this web site.

Every year though we have a couple of cases of missing children, in which the risks for the child are much more severe than normal. That will almost certainly be the situation if the child has been abducted by a stranger. Such abductions are often meant to sexually abuse the child and therefore there is a greater chance that the abductor will kill the child for fear of discovery of what he has done. Another situation which poses a greater risk to a child is when very young children go missing. They can easily become the victim of an accident when they have lost their way.

AMBER Alerts have been designed for these special high risk cases. You will only receive an AMBER Alert if the following circumstances are met:

1. the missing child must be younger than 18 years.
2. there must be direct danger for the child's life or direct fear for serious bodily harm.
3. there must be sufficient information about the victim, a possible abductor or a vehicle used, so an AMBER Alert will increase the chances of recovering the child.
4. the AMBER Alert must be used as soon as possible after the abduction or the child going missing has been reported.

For persons of 18 years of age or above no AMBER Alert will be issued, even if they mentally function at a level below the age of 18. If such seems necessary, other ways to ask for the public's assistance will be used. Though one can assume that every case in which a child goes missing poses a risk to that child, such would not be sufficient to issue an AMBER Alert. The use of AMBER Alerts in missing child cases with less risk for the child would take away the special effect of the system.

A picture of the abducted or missing child is required to be able to ask the public's assistance. It is also possible to use information of a vehicle, i.e. the brand and type and the (partial) license plates.

Finally, the strength of AMBER Alerts is the immediate and all-encompassing way in which the public is asked to assist in helping to find the abducted or missing child, which could be in a life threatening situation. That requires that AMBER Alerts should be issued as soon as possible after the abduction or after the child has gone missing.

For more information about AMBER Alerts and how to receive them you can visit www.amberalertnederland.nl .