Fingerprint campaign gets thumbs up
A successful fingerprint initiative was recently launched in KZN, in the hopes of helping authorities locate missing children.
THE Pink Ladies in association with the Hillcrest SAPS, SecureLink and SA Community Crime Watch have recently launched an innovative campaign, designed to facilitate the process of tracking down missing children, at the Forest View Primary School (FVPS) in Forest Hills.
The campaign, affectionately known as The My Little Fingers Project, is a personal particulars initiative designed to collect and store the vital information authorities need to track down missing children, such as a recent photo, fingerprints, defining features and demographic information (age and gender).
Steven King, on behalf of SecureLink and SA Community Crime Watch, initially approached the Pink Ladies with a missing children awareness campaign. In turn they suggested launching the fingerprint campaign in KZN, which has been successfully introduced in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
According to King, the information will be stored at the pupils’ respective schools, with their personal academic files. “Should the pupil go missing the details will be used to make a flyer, which will be distributed across various social media. We have had a lot of success using social media,” said King.
Vijay Ramlall, head of department at FVPS, said, “We are pleased to announce that the project has been well received and supported by both the parents and the pupils. It is an issue of great concern. So many children have gone missing and have not been found. This fingerprint initiative will, hopefully, not only make it easier to locate the missing children, but also to positively identify them once they are found.”
Wendy Pascoe, the KZN coordinator for the Pink Ladies, was also impressed by the reception of the campaign. “A lot of schools have shown interest. The children are also very excited by the prospect of getting their fingerprints taken,” said Pascoe.
She also reported that before the pupils were brought in to have their details collected their teachers explained to them the importance of the campaign, and why the police officers will be finger printing them.
Shayleen Shum, the principal of FVPS, said,”We are proud to be associated with a project that will help keep our pupils as safe as possible.”
The South African Police Service Missing Persons Bureau recently reported that a child goes missing every six minutes in South Africa, which means that approximately 1460 children disappear annually. Missing Children South Africa also reported that 50 children were reported missing in KwaZulu-Natal, from 1 May 2011 to 30 April 2012, and only 35 were found.
