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[19 April 2006] - A Latin American regional initiative to combat human trafficking was launched today by the Inter American Centre against Disappearances, Exploitation and Trafficking of Persons (CIDETT, from the Spanish acronym) in cooperation with Save the Children Sweden and the Organisation of American States. This includes a new website www.denuncialatrata.org which aims to encourage people to report cases of trafficking. The system allows any person to file a report which will go directly to the national police of nine countries in the region: Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Belize, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Mexico. This will guarantee a rapid response to the case, and has already helped to rescue children who were victims of sexual exploitation. The role of CIDETT will be to supervise and monitor the proper use of the tool. The active participation of law enforcement officials across Latin America in the Latin American Network for the Disappeared (RLD), a CIDETT initiative for reporting disappearances, is a good indication that they will use this new tool. It is this network of governmental and civil society organisations that makes these initiatives so effective, as the information reaches those who must act directly. The countries involved in the RLD have received a total of 12,508 reported disappearances through their web pages; of this total, 8,012 have been located, 205 brothels have been reported for using children and 46 cases of child pornography have also been discovered. Further information