By Debra Rono
The Ministry of Interior has collaborated with Meta, DCI’s Anti-human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit (AHTCPU), and Missing Child Kenya to introduce the Kenya Emergency Child Alert (KECA) program that is intended to help in tracking and rescuing missing children in Kenya.
In an event that was presided over by the Principal Secretary for the Ministry of Interior and National Administration Raymond Omollo, the Ministry of Interior announced that it plans to utilize the broad audience of Facebook and Instagram to quickly alert users about missing children and assist in their safe return.
The ministry noted that the initiative was part of the Meta Amber alerts program and Kenya has officially become the 34th nation to benefit from the program. In Africa, Kenya is the 3rd state to adopt the program after South Africa and Nigeria.
Meta- The parent company for Facebook and Instagram- launched the amber alert program in collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the U.S. to allow its Facebook and Instagram users to receive amber alerts on their newsfeed anytime a child goes missing.
Alerts for Facebook were launched in 2015 while those for Instagram were launched in 2020.
The alerts on both Facebook and Instagram will include photographs of the victims, their descriptions, the location where they went missing, and other details that may help in the rescue of the child. The users can then share the alerts to reach a wider audience.
With the increasing number of missing children cases in Kenya, hopefully, this program will help reunite these kids with their families. According to the cabinet secretary for labour and social protection, Florence Bore, 6,841 children were reported missing from July 2022 to May 2023 and only 1,296 have been reunited with their families.