Advocate pushes missing-children bill
Advocate pushes missing-children bill Posted on Fri, Apr. 18, 2008 Fort Lauderdale's Sherry Friedlander, the president and founder of A Child is Missing, was on Capitol Hill on Thursday, testifying in support of a bill she says would benefit the nonprofit -- and missing children -- by allowing it to work with more law enforcement agencies. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton. Friedlander noted that one in every 42 children in the United States go missing every year. ''These daunting statistics are what motivated me to start the A Child is Missing program in 1997,'' she said. ``I did not have a missing child, just an idea to use technology to help law enforcement find missing children.'' She said she started small by helping a few agencies in South Florida, and now it's available in all 50 states. The program's phone system is able to auto-dial every listed phone number in a search area, telling those answering the phone to report any information about the missing child or elderly adult to the police. Klein said the bill would expand A Child Is Missing into a national program with regional centers under the Department of Justice. He called it the ``only program of its kind. ''This program fills a critical gap in time in the most dangerous cases, and can be the difference between whether a child lives or dies,'' Klein said. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/story/500532.html