(LAWFUEL) – For the first time the Australian Federal Police (AFP) will use youth-focused websites like MySpace and Facebook to promote its National Missing Persons Week advertising campaign.
The campaign begins this week with a series of broadcast and print advertisements and will go online at various websites including MySpace, Facebook, bebo, ninemsn, Messenger and Hotmail in an effort to connect with young people and to support those most at risk of going missing.
AFP National Missing Persons Coordination Centre Coordinator (NMPCC) Leonie Jacques outlined the importance of using the right communication channels to raise awareness of the issues associated with going missing.
“About 20,000 young people go missing each year and research indicates that they are predominantly female and aged between 13 and 17 years, so this year’s campaign aims to focus on this group by using a medium they identify with,” she said.
The Austereo Network radio program MyGeneration will also dedicate a two- hour show on Saturday, 2 August titled Lost & Found to support National Missing Persons Week and will feature interviews and songs related to this theme.
The advertising campaign will include television and radio community service announcements as well as advertisements on buses and trams.
It will be supported by advertising on Foxtel and Channel Nine, which currently profile missing persons cases through the Crime and Investigation Network, Missing Persons Unit and Without a Trace television series.
National Missing Persons Week will run from Sunday 3 to Saturday 9, August 2008 and young people and their parents will be asked not to close the door to communication with the message ‘When communication goes missing, so do our youth. Don’t close the door to communication’.
If you think you have information on a missing person, or are interested in learning more about missing people and the agencies which help them, visit http://www.missingpersons.gov.au
