![Family reunification Burundi](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Family_reunification_Burundi.jpg)
Family Tracing and Reunification (known as FTR) is a process whereby disaster response teams locate separated family members and reunite them following natural and human catastrophes.
During major crises, children can become separated from their families for a wide range of reasons, and government disaster relief agencies as well as NGOs have developed inter-agency procedures to return children, and other vulnerable people, to their families.
Mobile technology
UNICEF
UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to c ...
has developed a tool called RapidFTR that uses smartphones to register and monitor children who have become separated during a natural disaster or conflict, with a view to reunifying children with their parents. While the tool has been assessed as having some benefits, it has reportedly encountered significant challenges relating to relevance of the design and heavy dependence on internet in contexts with limited access. The RapidFTR platform showed some promise and was used to track displaced children after
Typhoon Haiyan
Typhoon Haiyan, known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Yolanda, was one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded. On making landfall, Haiyan devastated portions of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines. It is one of the ...
in the Philippines, but has been phased out in the more sizable South Sudan response in favour of more contextually suitable methods of registering separated families and managing related data.
See also
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Restoring Family Links
External links
Registration, emergency care and family tracing - Better Care Network
References
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Charnley, Helen M., and Josefa Langa. 'Community Based Interventions For Separated Children In Mozambique: The Family Tracing And Reunification Program.'. Community Alternatives: International Journal of Family Care (1994): n. pag. Web. 19 Feb. 2015.
UNICEF
Convention on the Rights of the Child