First Forerunner DNA - Prokids Scientific Group Meeting in Granada

Oct 19 2009

Experts in genetic identification and criminalistics from Brazil, China, Arab Emirates, Spain, USA, Philippines, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and United Nations (UNODC) will meet in Granada next October 26th and 27th to celebrate the first Forerunner DNA - Prokids Scientific Group Meeting.

The meeting will focus on coordination of scientific criteria to create a worldwide database with genetic information of human trafficking victims and their families, to enable police and judicial systems to fight more effectively against this crime.

Among meeting's objectives are gathering information about traffic in human beings (particularly children) in the world, training of specialists in genetic identification technology, proposing a warranty system to watch over genetic data, establishing criteria of sample collection, analysis, encryption of identification kits, etc. All of them are key factors to allow countries make political decisions in order to coordinate legal and police actions in the world.

The Forerunner Meeting is the starting point for the celebration of a DNA - Prokids International Conference in the first semester of 2010 that will be attended by scientists, international organizations, NGOs, heads of security forces and judicial experts.

Of the 600,000-800,000 people trafficked across international borders each year, 50 percent are under 17. They are associated with human trafficking whether through prostitution, forced labour, militant activities, or illegal adoptions, or homeless children found living on the street. United Nations estimates that by 2010, human trafficking will be the No. 1 crime worldwide, ahead of arms trade and drug trafficking.

Full development of DNA - Prokids will help to solve this problem. In fact, up to June 2009, DNA - Prokids programme has identified more than 200 disappeared children, which have been returned to their families or to shelters. That has been possible due to the confidence of judicial and police systems that have referred their missing children cases to the laboratories of the University of Granada and the HSC of the University of North Texas. Moreover, it was essential the support from institutions and national and international companies (Life Technologies, CajaGRANADA, BBVA and Banco Santander-Fundación M. Botín).

Meeting venue

The Meeting will take place at the Fundación Euroárabe de Altos Estudios, (http://www.fundea.org), organized by the Laboratory of Genetic Identification of the University of Granada (Department of Legal Medicine) with the support of the Regional Department for Justice and Public Administrations of Andalusia.