Located at the Thibault Arcade building in the CBD, it would be updated with photographs of missing children around the world, including South Africa, on a regular basis, spokesperson Senior Superintendent Tummi Golding said.

Photographs of missing children and their names were on display at the centre, while balloons bearing their pictures floated around.

Ways children went missing included abduction, negligence by parents and delinquency.

"Other cases are civil, in which you find that parents are divorcing and the other parent takes the child to a foreign country without consulting the other parent," she told Sapa.

"In other instances teenagers are promised to study overseas and on arrival they become drug traffickers or are involved in prostitution."

She explained that the police were working with foreign countries to find missing children in South Africa and abroad.

"We used Interpol system to trace missing children. Our recovery stands at 80 percent."

May 25 had been recognised as the International Missing Children's Day. The day had been recognised in many countries since the early 1980s after the disappearance of six-year-old Etan Patz from a New York street corner on his way to school in 1979.

In South Africa, the day coincided with the Child Protection Week.