A portrait of slain abductee Ananda Dean, the face of Jamaica's missing-child alert networks.

Jamaicans have given a lukewarm response to an urgent call to play a critical role in the success of the Ananda Alert, a nationwide child-abduction alert network named after 11-year-old Ananda Dean, who was kidnapped and murdered in 2008.

The multi-agency alert system was launched in May this year and is designed to alert the nation whenever a child is reported missing.

Six months after the launch of the government-led thrust, aimed a recruiting an army of concerned citizens to work along with the State in ensuring the safe and speedy return of abducted children, official statistics revealed that of the more than two million cellphone subscribers in a country of approximately 2.7 million people, only 2,255 had signed up to help locate the nation's children when they are reported missing.

Last week, reports surfaced that there was a significant increase in the number of missing children. Up to September this year, 1,206 children had been reported missing. Of that figure, 676 have returned home, while three have died. The heartbreaking numbers for the nine-month period far outstrip the 960 children reported missing during 2008.

As a result of the increase, Betty Ann Blaine, convener of advocacy group Hear the Children's Cry, called for the Government to launch an active missing-children's unit in the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Wayne Robertson, senior director of strategic policy, planning and reform at the Department of Local Government in the Office of the Prime Minister, bemoaned the "very small" number of people who have signed up thus far.

Robertson believes the poor response is indicative of a much more serious underlying societal problem.

"We are not as caring as we once were as a society. We need to go back to those days when people were more caring about our children," he said.

However, Robertson remains hopeful.

"It's still early days, but we would like to see people signing up en masse," he said.

An expert source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, blamed the lacklustre response on a lack of marketing. The source believes the public would respond if the visibility of the alert numbers was increased.

Robertson also pointed out that several media houses were unwilling to advertise the numbers without a fee. To date, only one media house has done it for free.

Robertson told The Gleaner that his team would embark on a public-education drive geared towards increasing awareness about abductions. The message the government department wants to send is clear: It could be your child or a child affiliated with your family.

Despite a rise in the number of abductions, Robertson revealed that since the launch of Ananda Alert, there had been an increase in the recovery rate. And, he is persuaded that, if more Jamaicans subscribed to receive the text-message alerts, there would be a further increase in the recovery rate.

tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com

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