Security at Viennas schools.

11 Sep, 2006

Vienna schools are handing out information sheets to parents with guidelines on safeguarding their children from paedophiles and kidnappers following the recent escape of Viennese schoolgirl Natascha Kampusch after eight years of imprisonment. The campaign is to be accompanied by a more visible police presence at school gates and pedestrian crossings as Austrian students go back to school this week. Children are being encouraged to walk in groups, to avoid strangers and to memorise their parents mobile phone numbers as part of the new security awareness drive. The director of Viennas primary schools, Wolfgang Grpel, has urged parents to accompany their children to school at least for the start of the new term. Kampusch was abducted in March 1998 at the age of ten while walking to school in Vienna, only to resurface in late August.