President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca of Malta has urged international organisations to engage in a European level roundtable meeting to save missing migrant children and avoid them from exploitation.

Speaking at the meeting of the council in Belgium, Coleiro Preca said that a collaborative effort is crucial to achieve the sustainable strengthening of communities, and to provide opportunities for the development and implementation of improved policy initiatives at both a European and international level.

“It is my firm conviction that we must work together to create a resource and information sharing network, which includes the participation of all stakeholders, if we are to affect results,” she said, suggesting the creation of a pan-regional network that unites and mobilises the participation of major actors, including IOM, UNHCR, the Red Cross, and civil society, alongside EU entities and initiatives like the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and AMBER Alert Europe.

“Governments must further commit the financial and political good will that is necessary to create a network of stakeholders ready to nurture and maintain the necessary infrastructure that is lacking, or as yet underdeveloped, in so many transit countries, at European entry points and destination countries.”

Source: Malta Today