On May 25th, the Police Expert Network On Missing Persons (PEN-MP) is kicking off its annual prevention campaign for International Missing Children’s Day. This year‘s ‘#DontBeAnEasyCatch’ campaign, created in close cooperation with AMBER Alert Europe, aims to educate children, teenagers specifically, on online grooming. The campaign will be shared with the public in 23 countries.
In Poland the campaign in run by NASK’s Dyżurnet.pl - a point of contact for reporting potentially illegal material, mainly related to sexual abuse of children together with the Centre for Missing People Itaka.
The prevention campaign, comprising of an animated video in which valuable tips are given to children, is shaped by members of the Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP). The PEN-MP is the first and only official European missing persons police network consisting of police experts in the field of missing persons from all over Europe.
Share the campaign
“Awareness of online grooming is still lacking. The focus often lies on the dangers in the outside world, while children could just as easily be at risk in the safety of their own home when engaging in online activities. Additionally, not all children have the necessary knowledge and skills to keep themselves safe online”, says Damjan Miklič, President of the PEN-MP and Senior Criminal Police Inspector Specialist at the Slovenian Police Directorate.
“Especially now that children are spending more time online than ever, it is important to bring awareness to this issue and give children the necessary levers to keep themselves safe from online predators. That is why I call on everyone to share the campaign among your community; whether it be at schools, on relevant social media platforms, or among parents.”
International campaign
The ‘#DontBeAnEasyCatch’ campaign is distributed in 23 countries and translated into 19 languages. It is shared with the public by national police forces and NGOs in the field of missing children and children’s rights in Albania, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Srpska, Taiwan, and the United States, with the support of Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency.
To view and share the ‘#DontBeAnEasyCatch’ campaign in your language, please see www.amberalert.eu/dontbeaneasycatch