Advocate pushes missing-children bill

Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 4:25 pm

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.

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