When someone goes missing during an armed conflict, the Geneva Conventions affirm "the right of families to know the fate of their relatives." (Article 32, Protocol I)
When someone goes missing for any reason in the United States, the Missing Persons Identification Resource Center affirms "the right of families to know the fate of their relatives," and will help.
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There are few things more painful than not knowing the whereabouts of a loved one. Yet within
the United States alone, there are more than 100,000 missing persons. Their families and friends
constitute a large, yet unrecognized, distressed community.
In 1983, the federal government established a system to match missing persons with unidentified bodies. But an estimated 40,000 bodies still remain unidentified in coroners' offices.
Clearly more can be done.
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The Missing Persons Identification Resource Center
(MPID) works to improve the chances of identifying the unidentified
by putting families at the center of the process.
Working with families of missing persons,
MPID's anthropologists develop unique, forensic profiles that
describe how a person's life would have been recorded on their bones
and include analysis of dental and medical X-rays.
MPID works on the basis that when its profiles of missing
persons are compared with forensic analysis of unidentified bodies,
then coroners and law enforcement agencies gain a new source of
information to help restore identity. The profiles will be housed in the MPID Database, which is currently under development. Approved coroner and law enforcement personnel anywhere in the world will be able to search the database for matches with unidentified bodies via a secure, Web-based network.
MPID believes that human identity must be based on
description. A limited number of categories or criteria on a standard
form cannot record the full story of a person's life -- their bones do.
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MPID was founded by Clea Koff, forensic anthropologist and author of The Bone Woman.
MPID grew out of her interest in the living people related to
the bodies she exhumed while working on behalf of the United Nations
International Criminal Tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Clea Koff believes that a "disappearance is a
disappearance, whether it occurs in peace- or wartime." MPID is an
effort to apply that belief for the benefit of families of anyone who's gone missing in the United States.
ABC World News Tonight Weekend featured Clea Koff and MPID in July 2005. Please click here to see the ABC News printed summary of the program.
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The Missing Persons Identification Resource Center is a
501(c)(3) non-profit organization and its services are free for friends
and relatives of missing persons.
MPID's work is made possible through the generosity of individual donors. All
donations are tax-deductible and may be made through PayPal using the yellow button. Donations may also be sent directly to MPID at the address at the bottom of this page.
