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OUR HISTORY

Responding to tragedy
Created as a “reaction” to heinous crimes
committed against children, we now take a
proactive approach to child protection.

Official Public Launch of ICMEC at the British Embassy in Washington,

D.C. (April 1999): Lady Catherine Meyer; Hillary Rodham Clinton;
Cherie Booth Blair

In 1996, Belgium was shaken by tragedy. A man named Marc Dutroux, an

unemployed electrician and father of three, had over the course of many
years committed a series of kidnappings, rapes, and killings of a still-
unknown number of teenage girls. Called the “Dutroux Affair,” the episode
galvanized Belgium, and more than 300,000 Belgian citizens came together
to express their anger and frustration in the handling of the case in the now-
famous “White March.”

Belgian Prime Minster Dehaene turned to the U.S. National Center for Missing & Exploited
Children (NCMEC) for help.

In the late 1990s, NCMEC had found itself responding to numerous requests for assistance from
individuals and organizations around the world. The “Dutroux Affair” was the latest. So when Prime
Minister Dehaene asked NCMEC to help establish a center in Brussels, NCMEC’s President replied,
“You do not need an American solution to this problem — you need a Belgian solution.”

With the volume of requests for assistance from abroad exceeding NCMEC’s capacity to respond, the
Board of Directors authorized the creation of a new organization that would devote itself to doing
globally what NCMEC was committed to doing in the United States.

“It will take a concerted effort by governments, law enforcement, industry,

civil society, communities, and individuals to ensure that the world’s children
are protected.”

DR. FRANZ B. HUMER, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, ICMEC

A year later, members of the Board of Directors for the International Centre for Missing and
Exploited Children (ICMEC) held their first meeting in 1998, and ICMEC was launched in April
1999.

ICMEC was born out of tragedy, created as a reaction to heinous crimes committed against children.
Since our inception, we have worked to safeguard children from abduction, sexual abuse and
exploitation, partnering with governments, academia, law enforcement, and the NGO community,
to offer a range of practical measures that protect children.

Since we opened our doors to the world we have trained over 10,500 law enforcement officers. We
have contributed substantially to both new and refined laws against child pornography in 127
countries. We have expanded the Global Missing Children’s Network; 25 countries are now
members. We have advocated for the commemoration of International Missing Children’s Day,
which is presently recognized on May 25th in 17 countries across four continents. And we have
expanded our global partnerships.

With each new partnership, each new initiative, we take another step toward our goal of making the
world safer for children.

About Us

Careers & Internships

1700 Diagonal Road, Suite 625, Alexandria, Virginia 22314, Media Resources
USA
+1 703 837 6313 (phone) Privacy Policy

+1 703 549 4504 (fax) Terms of Use

information@icmec.org

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This website is made possible through the generous support of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.