Recognizing the importance of a globally coordinated and standardized approach to the registration, management, investigation, and resolution to missing children’s cases, in August 2015, ICMEC published the first Model Missing Child Framework. It was updated in 2019 – Model Missing Child Framework. The Framework outlines a robust, multi-faceted national missing child strategy and includes legislative provisions, policies, practices, systems, mechanisms, tools, and other key initiatives. It represents a best practice and an important step in changing the way the international community responds when a child goes missing.

The Model Missing Child Framework, when implemented alongside other child protection mechanisms like the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols, helps to increase the global community’s ability to protect children from child sexual exploitation and trafficking, while also addressing the stated need in the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals to end all forms of violence against children.

In an effort to enhance our offerings and provide a roadmap for the implementation of several elements articulated in the Model Missing Child Framework, we have developed two additional framing documents that focus on Rapid Emergency Child Alert and Photo Distribution Systems.

The 2015 Framework is also available in Chinese, Thai, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Portuguese.