Child Focus
Heidi De Pauw (52) leaves Child Focus. For twelve years she headed the organization that was founded after the Dutroux case to help locate missing children.
Heidi De Pauw worked at Child Focus for twenty years and during that time became the face of the organization. Child Focus was founded in April 1997, after the Dutroux case had sent shockwaves through our country. De Pauw started in June 1997 as one of the first case managers at Child Focus. She went to the scene of a disturbing disappearance of a minor and, among other things, ensured that the search posters were distributed everywhere.
Between 2005 and 2011 she headed Pagasa, the Brussels counterpart of Antwerp’s Payoke, which provides assistance to victims of human trafficking. In 2011, De Pauw returned to Child Focus, but as CEO, a position she is now resigning.
“It is with deep pride and gratitude that I look back on my journey at Child Focus,” De Pauw responds. “It has been a privilege to help shape the very important mission of Child Focus. When I was appointed CEO in 2011, a dream came true for me. I have always fulfilled my role with passion and dedication, knowing that every decision, every project, every collaboration was imbued with the deep belief that we were doing something valuable and essential for the most vulnerable in our society: our children. It is with confidence in the future that I leave Child Focus.”
Refugees
Over the years, Child Focus became more than an organization that only cares about disappeared and missing children. Child Focus also worked for unaccompanied minor refugees.
De Pauw has also stuck out her neck in recent years with a plea to bring the children of Belgian Syria fighters from the refugee camps back to our country. This resulted in a lot of criticism on social media and also from the right, but she stuck to her position. In the meantime, most of those children are back in our country.
De Pauw will be succeeded by her deputy Nel Broothaerts, who has specialized in online child abuse at Child Focus in recent years. It is not yet certain what De Pauw will do next.
