Catherine Meyer, wife of Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's Ambassador to the US, is founder and CEO of PACT, Parents & Abducted Children Together. She explains the importance of the Tesco missing children's campaign

'This poster campaign represents a critical partnership between the police, a charity - PACT - and the private sector, namely Tesco PLC and Computer Associates. This initiative gives the general public a unique opportuntiy to play an active role in helping the police locate missing children.

The key to finding and rescuing missing and abducted children is speed. But, until recently there was no quick and easy way to transfer pictures and information on missing children between police forces.

All this changed thanks to Charles Wang, CEO of Computer Associates. He decided to exploit modern technology and to create a website dedicated to reuniting children with their families. With the support and guidance of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), the American site www.missingkids.com was born.

Today this site is used by over 17,000 police forces in the USA. It has proved a great success, contributing to the recovery of 91 per cent of missing and abducted children posted on the site.

The British http://uk.missingkids.com was recently launched. As a result, one police force can instantly transmit the photograph and personal details of a missing child to other police forces throughout the UK, as well as abroad. Because the website is also accessible to ordinary members of the public, they are in a position to help the police find and retrieve missing children.

They can, for example, download posters of missing and abducted children. Research in the US has shown that most people who give information to the police on a missing child first saw the child on a poster.

This is why PACT has decided to lend its support to the poster campaign. Tesco PLC has kindly agreed to display posters of missing children throughout its stores in the UK. I am very hopeful that with this initiative, the police and public will achieve success in bringing together children and parents who have lost each other.

I am enormously grateful to the UK police and Tesco PLC, who have so enthusiastically embraced the importance of this campaign. I am also very grateful to iVillage.co.uk for its role in helping us raise awareness of this issue.

So, please use this new opportunity to help our police find children safely and quickly and make the world a better place.'
Catherine Meyer