The EU plans missing children hotline

The EU will set up a single hotline for parents to report missing children.

Calls to the new missing kids phone number - 116000 - will be free of charge for parents to report their kids missing. It is expected to be launched by summer. Several of the EU's member states already have their own missing children hotlines, but this is the first attempt to set up a common phone number. The European children's organisation says that at least 120,000 children are known to live outside their home country without supervision in the EU, and this number only includes children known about by the authorities. The hotline may be run by private organisations in each country with consideration given to the launching of other common social services hotlines starting with the first three digits 116. The EU already has a common emergency number - 112 - which was set up in 1991. In a shocking remark - It's claimed that more than two-thirds of Europeans were unaware of its existence.