Children below 18 years who go missing or are abducted in Ghana can now be identified and reunited with their families more swiftly, following the launch of the “Together We Shall Bring Them Home” initiative. This transformative project marks the official rollout of AMBER Alert Ghana, a child recovery system developed through a partnership between Meta and the Ghana Police Service.
Every minute counts when a child is missing, and by reaching people across Facebook, Instagram, and now Messenger, the country is demonstrating the power of technology and Meta’s commitment to partnering with law enforcement agencies and others to help protect children.
AMBER Alert is designed to increase the chances of finding missing children by putting more people on the lookout for them.
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When an AMBER Alert is activated by the Ghana Police Service, the alert will appear in the Facebook and Instagram Feeds of users, and as a notification on Messenger, within the designated search area. The AMBER Alert will contain all the necessary information about the missing child, such as a photo description, location of the abduction, and other relevant and available information to aid in immediately identifying the missing child.
The Director of the Law Enforcement Outreach at META, Madam Emily Vacher, said the expansion of AMBER Alerts to Messenger reflects their deep commitment to child safety and to building safer communities across Africa and beyond.
The Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service, COP Lydia Donkor, said this technology will help the CID act faster, reach farther, and resolve more cases to ensure that every missing child has a better chance of being found.
“I would like to express my appreciation to the Police Administration for the unfaltering administrative support, offering the resources and policy guidance that allows the Missing Persons Unit to function optimally. If it were not for them, the achievements we are celebrating today would not have been possible,” she stated.’
The AMBER Alert programme was launched on Facebook in 2015 and has since assisted in hundreds of successful child endangerment cases around the world. In June 2022, Meta expanded the AMBER Alert programme to Instagram globally.
With the rollout of Messenger and Ghana joining as the 36th country and fifth African country following (South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Morocco), Meta continues to invest in technologies that help protect children and strengthen collaboration with law enforcement.