Abducted to Greece: Mom battles to rescue son held in Greece by father

February 18 2013

Source: usatoday

Father ignores legally binding divorce decree when he doesn’t send son back to U.S. after a 2011 visit.

Alissa Zagaris hopes an international arrest warrant filed against her ex-husband will allow her to get her son Leo, 12, back home from Greece, where he allegedly has been held against his will since August 2011.

INDIANAPOLIS — In June 2011 Alissa Zagaris drove her then-10-year-old son, Leo, from their home in Noblesville, Ind., to Chicago and put him on a plane for Greece — just as she had done four times before.

It was a long-distance visitation arrangement set forth by the couple’s divorce agreement struck in a Hamilton County, Ind., court. Leo would fly over, spend some time with his father, Nikolaos Zagaris, then fly back.

No big deal.

STORY: N.J. father, son adjusting after Brazil abduction drama

STORY: Documentation for traveling in Europe with children

But on this fifth journey, things went wrong when Leo, now 12, did not come home. His father kept him in Greece — despite the legally binding divorce decree that awarded Alissa custody.

Leo soon would become embroiled in a protracted and messy bureaucratic morass that would involve two nations, the FBI, Interpol, the State Department, international treaties, courts on two continents and one angry and heartbroken mom.

Unlike so many other incidents when one parent keeps a child away from the other, this was not a custody case. This was an international abduction. This, authorities ultimately concluded, was kidnapping.

Nevertheless, prodding authorities in Athens, Washington and Indianapolis to take up her case has been a long, frustrating journey for Zagaris. In December, in a Greek court, Zagaris finally got the chance to tell her side of the story — and she was reunited with her son for a brief, supervised visit.

When she saw Leo for the first time in 19 months, all her fears and anxieties — stemming from his recent comments about hating America — melted away.

“My little boy jumped in my arms,” Zagaris said. “He is this tall on me now (holding a hand up to her shoulder) and he lunged at me and held my hand the whole time. ”We sat together on the couch and I just rubbed his skin. His skin is fine like mine. I always rub his back. And look into his eyes.”

The Dec. 13, 2012, visit lasted for about 45 tense minutes as Nickolaos and his mother watched.

‘Left behind moms’ unite

Many of the more than 350 or so friends and followers of Zagaris’ two Facebook pages — her personal page and one she set up to publicize her son’s kidnapping — call themselves “left behind moms” or “left behind parents.”

They are the husbands and wives who fight the same battles Zagaris has fought during the past 19 months.

According to the Bring Sean Home Foundation, founded in 2009 as a support group and resource hub, more than 4,700 American children were abducted outside the United States between 2008 and 2010 by a parent or guardian,

Getting them back is rarely quick and never easy. Zagaris found that out in the fall of 2011 when it became clear to her that her ex-husband had no intention of sending Leo home.

She contacted the U.S. State Department, office of Consular Affairs, and reported what had happened. They urged her to file an application with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction — a necessary step in any case that spans international borders.

The Hague Convention, designed to make the process work more smoothly, is contingent on both countries agreeing to its terms — which provide a framework for communicating the facts of a case and agreeing to abide by the laws of both countries.

In other words they need to get along, which can be a sticky situation depending on the state of world affairs.

“Sometimes they cooperate in getting a child back to the country,” said Wendy Osborne, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Indianapolis. “But some countries don’t play by the rules.”

Osborne declined to comment on Zagaris’ case — an agent in Indianapolis is heavily involved and filed the affidavit that led to charges being filed by the U.S. District Court.

But Osborne said the FBI is involved in hundreds of cases like this across the country.

“At one time I was working on six myself, involving Mexico, Syria, other countries, all at the same time,” Osborne said. “And these are very difficult cases because they are so emotional.”

According to the Bring Sean Home Foundation, children abducted abroad are often traumatized, losing contact with a parent and finding themselves in unfamiliar surroundings, forced to live in a country where they may not know the language or the culture.

Leo, does not speak Greek, Zagaris said. And despite assurances that he would be enrolled in an English-speaking school, she suspects that has never happened. Experts also say abducted children are often told lies about the other parent or guardian and the country from which they came.

Love, marriage, violence

A younger “Nick” and Alissa met in 2000 when he was a weekend waiter at a Greek restaurant, and she, a nutritionist and caterer by trade, was a manager. One thing led to another.

“It was mainly a physical relationship,” she said. “I had no intention of getting serious. But then, lo and behold, I’m pregnant.”

Attempts to reach Nickolaos Zagaris through his attorney for this story were unsuccessful.

Alissa said Nickolaos, a Greek citizen, was looking for a way to stay in America. He had come to the U.S. on a student visa and studied at the University of Indianapolis. But that visa had expired.

Not long after their wedding in July 2000, Leo was born. Zagaris said things changed once the pressures of parental responsibility set in.

“Nick changed,” she said. “Before that it was just me and him. The day Leo was born, everything changed.” As the baby grew, Zagaris said, Nick grew physically abusive toward her. In 2008, Nick was arrested and charged in Hamilton County with domestic battery and felony strangulation. Before he would stand trial on those charges, he fled to Greece.

Zagaris filed and was granted a divorce (without her husband present) in Hamilton County. The court granted custody of Leo to his mom. Despite the charges pending against him, the court allowed for a clause in the divorce decree that not only gave Nick visitation rights, but guaranteed visits to Greece.

In exchange, Nick Zagaris would maintain child support payments and put $5,000 into an account controlled by his attorney as a sort of “insurance clause” that he would have to give to his ex-wife should he ever fail to return Leo in a timely fashion.

According to the State Department, Zagaris was lucky her ex-husband had not taken their son to a non-compliant nation such as Costa Rica, Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, France or Poland — countries on the State Department’s “enforcement concerns” list when it comes to child issues.

Greece, however, is known as a country that works well with other countries.

She had other facts in her favor. Nick was not only a fugitive from a felony charge in Hamilton County, he was violating a court-ordered divorce agreement that specifically gave her custody.

The Greek courts set a hearing date for April 6, 2012.

During the delay, Zagaris also filed charges against Nick in Hamilton County, based on the violation of the custodial agreement. Hamilton County issued a warrant for his arrest.

She wrote a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pleading for the White House to do something to help.

Not much happened.

“I used to be a very clear, organized thinker,” Zagaris said. “But I’ve lost my mind.

“There is a very high suicide rate with our kind. It’s very hard. We have to fight through every obstacle, every hurdle just to get our cases taken seriously.

“It’s like our children are wrapped up in this diplomatic nightmare.”

The State Department spokesman told The Indianapolis Star on Friday that it is working as quickly as it can.

“The Department of State is aware of the Zagaris case and is providing all appropriate assistance,” the spokesman said. “We will continue to monitor the case and the welfare of the child through close coordination with the U.S. Embassy in Athens and the Greek Central Authority for the Hague Abduction Convention.”

A final dagger?

With two legal victories in Greek courts, Zagaris was counting the days when she could bring her son back.

But on Jan. 9, the State Department sent Zagaris an email saying that the Greek Central Authority told U.S. officials that because of “recent judicial strikes” in Greece a final and formal decision could take up to two years to be published.

After that, her ex-husband would have 30 days to file yet another appeal, with the Greek supreme court, the email said. Another appeal would mean another long delay.

However, the State Department told her that it was working with Greek officials who seem to be willing to move forward with returning Leo to Indiana despite any future appeal … “and will be in touch as soon as the situation is clarified.”

Zagaris was stunned.

“It’s just back and forth, back and forth,” she said. “I’m frustrated. I’ve won the right twice now from Greece. I’ve got the acknowledgments from the courts.

“It’s been 19 months.”

While all this was happening, Zagaris said she received an angry phone call from her ex-husband. According to an FBI affidavit, Nick Zagaris threatened to “take (him) to the United Arab Emirates” — a nation not part of the Hague Convention.

Not long after that call, an FBI special agent filed the paperwork and U.S. Magistrate Judge Tim Baker signed the formal federal charges against Nikolaos Zagaris for international parental kidnapping.

Those charges have been filed with Interpol, the international police community comprising 190 countries, including Greece. Greek authorities now (or soon) will have the authority to simply arrest him on those charges.

But now all Zagaris can do is wait for the words that will finally end a mother’s nightmare.

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The Most Dangerous Kidnappers: Parents

January 28, 2013

Source: Abcnews

Despite what seems to have been a rash of children abducted by strangers last year, there aren’t any more than normal, and vastly greater numbers of children are kidnapped by their own parents and relatives — and those cases rarely generate headlines.

Stranger abductions make up the smallest percentage of children reported missing every year. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children believes that stranger abductions are decreasing overall and projects that there will be approximately 100 of these kind of cases by the end of this year.

According to statistics cited by the NCMEC, most missing children are abducted by relatives or parents: a soon-to-be released report, the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children, referred to as NISMART-2, finds that 203,900 kids were abducted in 1999 by family members or parents. Approximately, 58,200 were “non-family” abductions — only 115 were defined as the frightening kidnappings by strangers.

Parental kidnappings do not spark media attention — and the sense of urgency from law enforcement officials — that the disappearance of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the kidnapping and slaying of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion and this month’s abduction and rescue of two California teenagers attracted.

Experts say there is a perception among the public and law enforcement that children kidnapped by their parents are not endangered. After all, figures from the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention show that only 4 percent of children abducted by their parents are physically harmed.

“I think there’s a perception with people that, ‘Oh, since they’re with a parent no harm will come to the child,’” said Nancy Hammer, director of the International Division of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “And also since it involves two parents and family, it seems to be a messy situation. It doesn’t seem as black and white as if a child was abducted by a stranger. It’s taken a while, but progress has been made in making these abductions crimes, felonies. But they can lack the sense of urgency in the public and law enforcement reserved for other cases.”

A Very Lucky Recovery

Tracy and Robert Morse had to fight those perceptions when their children were abducted. In December 1996, three of Robert Morse’s children from a previous marriage were kidnapped by their biological, non-custodial mother when they got off the bus at school.

“There’s this perception in the public and among law enforcement, that when children are abducted by their parents that they’re safe, and that just isn’t true,” said Tracy Morse, co-founder of American Parental Abductions Resource & Support Organization — APART for short. “These children are separated from everything they know and love, they are forced to live a life of a fugitive, constantly on the run, separated from their identity and their schooling interrupted and often told their left behind parents don’t care about them.

“When my husband’s children were kidnapped by his ex-wife, she pulled up at school and made a big scene at school and everything,” Morse continued. “People who saw her take the children, they just thought, ‘Oh, it’s a domestic thing. We shouldn’t interfere.’”

Tracy and Robert Morse spent more than more than two years trying to find their children and only got a break in their search when the children’s mother remarried and sparked the suspicion of her new in-laws and their relatives. One of her new husband’s relatives went on the Web site for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, saw the faces of the three children and contacted NCMEC officials. The children were recovered and reunited with the Morses in March 1999.

“The kids were a mess, in really bad shape,” said Tracy Morse. “But we were very, very lucky.”

Following their children’s recovery, the Morses founded APART to give parents a resource to both prepare themselves and their children for family abductions and give them guidance as to what to do during those situations. “Left Behind” parents spent so much time trying to figure out what to do when their children are abducted by an ex-spouse or family member, valuable time is wasted. Abductor parents easily flee amid the confusion and shock.

A Mother’s Desperate 28-Year Quest

One woman who wishes she had the Morses’ good luck and perhaps could have benefited from APART when her son was abducted is Marianne Malky.

Malky, founder of Voice for the Children, a Florida-based organization that helps locate and recover missing children, has been searching for her son David for 28 years. Malky said David, then 7 years old, was taken by his non-custodial father, Stephan Shipenberg, during a court-ordered weekend visit in 1974. Shipenberg, she said, called her and told her that she would never see David again.

Malky, who lived in New Jersey at the time, went to Shipenberg’s job at American Airlines in New York City and was told he had quit. She found out he had moved from his Manhattan apartment and ultimately tracked him and David at a new address as they drove away in a station wagon. As she pounded on the car window, that was the last time she saw her son.

Since then, Malky has had little progress in finding David, and she said she has received little help from law enforcement. She was so anxious to get her son back and track him down that she did not file a missing person’s report in New Jersey when he was first abducted. When she tried to file one year later, she was told too much time had passed.

“There isn’t any finding your kids unless you do everything yourself. You basically have to do everything,” Malky said. “No one [from law enforcement] really wants to get involved. ‘It’s too complicated,’ they say. ‘It’s a domestic problem.’ You’re told you need custody papers or you need to go to an attorney to get custodial papers, but what you need are [private] investigators. Custody papers don’t find missing children; investigators do.”

At one time, she said, she received a tip that David was attending grammar school under another last name “Kaplan” and contacted officials. However, by the time she made it to the school, administrators had contacted Shipenberg and he had retrieved David. She has learned that her son attended middle school and high school in Oyster Bay, N.Y., but she says the schools refused to give her access to his records. She also learned that he was in the Navy, but officials would not release any records because of privacy laws.

“In the United States, it’s very difficult to find them [abducted children and abductor parents] because they change their name,” Malky said. “It’s very difficult if you don’t know what their name is.”

Frustration of ‘Left Behind’ Parents

Malky said she has received tips and help from people who believe they have spotted Shipenberg and David over the years. However, she said her quest has cost her hundreds of thousands of dollars and frustrated — experiences commonly shared “left behind” parents.

“You end up broke and physically and emotionally drained,” Malky said. “But I was — am still — determined.”

And lack of resources is an obstacle for parents in family abduction cases. Not everyone has the money to hire private investigators and communication firms to print fliers for their missing children. Often, as time passes and money dwindles, parents are forced to accept that they may never see their children again.

“Unless you really keep the pressure on police, really harass them, you won’t get the updates that you want on your case, and it’ll fall on the bottom of the pile,” said Morse. “You have to turn to private investigators but not everyone has those kind of resources.”

Malky said she never saw David’s abduction coming. His father never made any previous threats, and they had civil discussions about the custody and visitation arrangements.

“I didn’t see this coming. Usually they tell you that they’re going to take your child. I was never told,” said Malky. “But I tell you, all these cases are premeditated. They know where they’re going to go, where they’re going to hide.”

• Family Abduction Safeguards and Warning Signs? Read Below

AMBER Needed for Parental Abductions

New wireless child safety tracking devices have been developed that enable parents to trace the whereabouts of their children. The lightweight devices integrate digital technology from the Department of Defense’s Global Positioning System satellites to pinpoint children’s locations, and many child advocates believe they could prevent child abductions or at least help recover kidnapped children.

Still, more needs to be done. Experts say parental abduction victims need a program similar to the AMBER alert system, which was credited with helping law enforcement officials to rescue two California teenagers approximately 12 hours after they were abducted at gunpoint, and save an infant abducted from an Abilene, Texas, parking lot last week. Parental abductees have little, if any chance, of being considered for the AMBER alert system because the children’s lives are not considered endangered in most cases.

“The AMBER alert system is great, and they need to develop one for family abductions,” said Morse.

More may also need to be done in the courts when parents are trying to reach an agreement on visitation and custodial rights. Sometimes the early signs of a family abduction manifest during legal negotiations.

“The first instance or signs that people may abduct their children are likely seen in court,” said Hammer. “Maybe if more court officials are trained to pay more attention to certain risk factors, they can identify which child may be at risk and take action and fully inform parents what they face, what will happen if they do abduct their child.”

Child advocates also argue that there should be more severe punishment for parental child abductors — or at least they should be prosecuted to the law’s fullest extent. Stephen Fagan pleaded guilty in 1999 to kidnapping his two daughters, telling them their mother was dead and living under an assumed name for 20 years. He avoided jail time by agreeing to a deal that gave him five years’ probation, a $100,000 fine and 2,000 hours of community service.

Barry and Judith Smiley kidnapped a baby after an attempted adoption of the infant was ruled invalid, and they lived for 22 years under an assumed name, raising the boy they called Matthew Propp as their own son. They avoided trial and possibly 25 years by agreeing to plead guilty to second-degree kidnapping in June. Barry Smiley received a two-to-six-year sentence while his wife Judith was sentenced to a six-month prison term and five years’ probation.

These plea deals, child advocates argue, make would-be parental abductors believe that they would not be risking anything if they kidnapped their children.

White House Weighing In

Many left-behind parents have complained that custody orders have not been readily enforceable when they locate a missing child. Often, they have had to hire two attorneys — one for each state — if the abducting parent has traveled to another state. As the filings go through the court system, the abducting parent may flee the state again without a trace, leaving the wronged parent back where they started, not knowing the whereabouts of a missing child.

According to the Department of Justice, California is the only state that requires district attorneys to take whatever civil remedies and criminal prosecutorial measures necessary to locate and recover children abducted by family members and to enforce child custody orders. In July 1997, the National Council of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws approved the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, which contains a similar mandate. As of February 2001, 21 states had enacted UCCJEA, and it had been introduced to the legislatures in 10 other states.

Some change may begin with attention from the White House. President Bush has announced the White House would hold a first-ever conference on missing, exploited and runaway children in September. Held in conjunction with the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention, the conference will focus on the prevention of child victimization, improving law enforcement policies for handling crimes against children, stranger abductions, and domestic and international parental kidnapping, among other topics.

‘Never an End’

Despite the time that has passed, and the fact that her son is now approaching his mid-30s, Marianne Malky is willing to do whatever it takes to find him. She said she plans to file lawsuits against the schools she suspects David has attended to force them to release his records.

If Malky finds her son, there is a possibility that he will not accept her. It happened to Barbara Kurth, the ex-wife of Stephen Fagan, when authorities tracked him down and prosecuted him for kidnapping. Even after learning that that their mother was not dead and that their father had lied to them for 20 years, Kurth’s daughters stayed by Fagan’s side. Afterwards, Fagan said he abducted the daughters because Kurth was neglecting them and abused alcohol, a claim she denied.

Still, knowing this, Malky remains determined.

“I know he has been told that I don’t care about him, that I don’t love him, but I’m not giving up,” Malky said. “Hopefully, I will win. … The feeling that I and many parents of children who have been abducted is not unlike those whose children have been killed, except that we never have an end. There’s never an end until you find your child.”

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U.S / Barbados – Mother who kidnapped children gets 18 months

January 19, 2013

Source: Buffalo News

Jacqueline Bontzolakes says an abusive relationship forced her to gather up her two kids, flee her Town of Tonawanda home and escape to faraway Barbados.

A federal court jury didn’t buy her story, however, and instead found her guilty in one of Buffalo’s first cases of international parental kidnapping.

Today, a judge sentenced Bontzolakes to 18 months in prison, well below what he could have given her.

“I ended up doing something I regret in order to protect my daughter,” she told U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson in a tearful plea for leniency.

Bontzolakes never denied taking her kids away from their fathers and leaving the country, but insisted there were sound reasons for what she did – the fear that her oldest daughter also was being abused.

Federal prosecutors tell a far different story of why Bontzolakes kidnapped her children. They claim it was because she had lost custody of the girl.

“I would ask the court not to forget who the real victims are here, the two children she kidnapped,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Fauzia K. Mattingly told Wilson, a visiting judge from Arkansas.

With nearly two dozen of Bontzolakes’ family, friends and supporters looking on, Wilson stopped well short of the three-year sentence he could have given her under federal sentencing guidelines.

The government’s case against Bontzolakes offers a glimpse into international parental kidnapping, which until this year was rare, if not unheard of, in Buffalo federal court.

It has been a long-standing problem elsewhere, however, an issue so big that a Hague Convention in 1980 resulted in an international treaty governing how countries deal with these types of kidnappings.

 

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Parental child abductions have ‘risen by 88% in a decade’

December 12, 2012

Source: ITV

• Cases of parental child abduction have risen 88% in just under a decade (2003-2012), the FCO have said.
• 24% of Britons are unaware parental child abduction is a crime.
• The FCO’s child abduction section received an average of four calls a day between October 2011 and September 2012.

• The FCO also pointed out that parents may suffer severe financial difficulties as they fight for custody of their child through foreign courts.
• Further illustrating public misunderstanding, nearly three quarters of those surveyed (74%) thought fathers were more likely to abduct children.

• But, according to statistics from the Reunite International Child Abduction Centre, 70% of the charity’s cases concern mothers taking the child.
• There are skewed opinions over where children were taken – 71% thought parents most commonly abduct their children to the Middle East, India or Pakistan.

A worldwide problem

Parental child abduction – where a parent takes a child without the permission of those with parental responsibility – is now a worldwide issue. In 2003/04 we worked on cases in 51 countries; now cases relate to 84 different countries, showing just how widespread the problem has become.

We also fear that these statistics are just the tip of the iceberg; many cases go unreported as parents seek custody of their children through foreign courts.

Raising awareness

Public understanding of parental child abduction is alarmingly low.

The research we commissioned shows that half the UK population believes the government can intervene to order the return of a child to the UK if he or she has been abducted by a parent.

The reality is that whilst help is available, parental child abduction cases can take years to resolve. This has significant impact on those concerned and there is the strong possibility that the child may never be returned.

It is also much harder to return a child from a country that has not signed the 1980 Hague Convention, an international agreement between certain countries which aims to ensure the return of a child who has been abducted by a parent.

Legal and financial reality

Despite parental child abduction being against the law, a quarter (24%) of people do not think, or are unaware, that it’s a crime for a parent to take their child overseas without the consent of others with parental responsibility.

When asked which parent they thought was more likely to abduct a child, three quarters (74%) of people thought it was fathers.  Yet according to statistics from the Reunite International Child Abduction Centre, 70% of the charity’s cases concern mothers taking the child.

As well as this emotional distress, both parents may often face severe financial difficulties as they fight for custody of their child through foreign courts. The statistics show that people tend to underestimate just how much getting a child back costs, including legal fees overseas and in the UK which may continue to mount up even after  the child is returned to this country.

There also seems to be a lack of awareness about who pays the costs of resolving a parental child abduction case involving a non-Hague country. Sixty-two per cent either didn’t know or responded with the wrong answer, and only 38% answered correctly by saying it was the parents who would pay, not the UK Government.

The expert view

Daisy Organ, head of the Foreign Offfice Child Abduction Section said:

“The increase in parental child abduction cases is a major cause for concern, particularly in the lead up to the school holidays; we know that before or during school holidays is one of the most common times for a child to be abducted. We hope that this campaign will help inform and educate the UK public and encourage parents thinking of abducting their child to think twice before they cause significant distress to themselves and their family. “

Alison Shalaby, Chief Executive of Reunite, said:

“It is important to remember that parental child abduction is not faith or country specific. 71% of the UK public thought that parents most commonly abduct their children to the Middle East, India and Pakistan but it can happen to anyone, from any background. Countries where children are abducted to can range from Australia, to France, to Thailand.

“We have seen a 20% increase in calls made to our helpline in the first half of 2012 compared to 2011  and a 67% increase in the number of children who have been abducted by a parent to a non-Hague country between 2001 and 2011.

“This issue is not going away and with a 47% increase in the number of child abduction cases Reunite has worked on between 2001 and 2011, we are urging parents to think twice before they abduct their child or seek help if they think their child is at risk.”

Contact information

If you are concerned, or if your child has been abducted, you can call the FCO’s Child Abduction Section on 0207 008 0878 or visithttp://www.fco.gov.uk/childabduction, or Reunite on 0116 2556 234.

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Parental Child Abduction to Ukraine and Russia

November 5, 2012

Child kidnapping is a crime that happens with frightening regularity. And it often involves the parents. Sometimes a Ukrainian-born mother cannot adapt to her new life abroad and returns to the safety of her native Ukraine, taking along her child without the father’s consent. Or a divorce has gone wrong, and the mother takes the child back to Ukraine despite a court order that allows the father visitation rights.

In any case, domestic child kidnapping is a fairly common event that carries criminal consequences for the offending parent.

As a general rule, the Ukrainian Interpol Bureau, a part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, should take action based on Interpol notices for missing children and kidnapping parents. This warrant information is also shared with the Ukrainian State Border Control Service. Unfortunately, there is no national coordinating agency for such searches. The State Execution Service of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine enforces related court decisions on a case-by-case basis and the Court’s Execution Service involves other relevant agencies, such as local police or children’s services. The entire system is quite bureaucratic and unpredictable, and often precious little gets done in the way of returning the child to the foreign parent.

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Christmas A Time of Parental Child Abduction Risk

November 3, 2012

Source: SOS Childrens Villages 

It`s only a few weeks until Christmas. We know that many children will be abducted this holiday season. We urge you to be aware of the risk, and take precautions. Martin Waage, ABP World Group Ltd.

This post is from December 2011.

A European Union official has commented on the region’s work on international parental child abduction at the same time that security actors have warned parents to be vigilant about protecting their children over the holidays.

International child abduction is on an upward trend and the Christmas season is one of the higher-risk periods for parental abduction—particularly when it comes to multi-cultural relationships.

Yesterday, the European Union (EU) Commission Vice-President (Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship), Viviane Reding, made a statement on the issue in Strasbourg.

“Preventing child abduction is an essential part of the EU’s policy to promote the rights of the child. I welcome the initiative of the European Parliament Mediator for international parental child abduction,” she said.

Within the EU, the International Law Association (ILA) Regulation mandates courts within EU member states to not refuse an order to return a child to his or her state of origin, if within the EU.

While the laws do not prevent or solve all cases of international parental child abduction, disputes between EU member states are solved more efficiently and swiftly, Ms. Reding noted.

Among the improvements made to the legal system is the removal of the exequatur rule.  This has allowed for a shorter time period in which courts may recognize and enforce judgments made by another state.

In international cases related to child custody and parental abduction, the Hague Convention applies. All EU member states are state parties to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, and more countries are gradually signing on.

The Convention aims to protect children from the harmful impacts of abduction and retention by providing a protocol for international cooperation for their return to their country of origin.

According to a press release circulated by PR Web, the ABP World Group (which is an international leader in security matters related to child and adult abduction recovery) is warning parents worried that the other parent may illegally leave the country with their child to use new technology, such as GPS tracking devices, to protect their children.

Martin Waage, Managing Director of ABP World Group, stated, “With international child abductions happening at a record pace, ABP World Group urges parents to take every precaution to protect their children from this horrible fate.”

“Tragically, the number of global parental abductions occurring is an unknown due to failures by governments to keep accurate data,” he added.

However, using the situation in the United States as “microcosm” for the rest of the world, there could be as many as 125,000 children illegally abducted between now and 2020. In Canada, these numbers alone could reach 12,000-15,000, based on current reported cases with a modest 20 per cent growth factor, said Mr. Waage.

While Canada is also a signatory to the Hague Convention, though many countries in the Middle East and Asia are not. 

 

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Parents on alert: Child abductions rarely committed by strangers

October 13, 2012

Source:KDVR

According to the Department of Justice, 800,000 children are reported missing every year in the united states.  Out of that number, 69,000 were kidnapped. “I think anytime a child is missing it’s a big number.  Whether it’s one or 69,000, but yes, 69,000 sounds like a large number,” says criminal justice professor Stacey Hervey from Metro State College in Denver.

Our children are taught to beware of stranger-danger. “If someone you don’t know approaches you, that you yell and scream that this is not my mom or dad,” says Hervey.

But the likely danger is closer to home.  Of the 69,000 children kidnapped every year, 82 percent, eight out of ten, are abducted by a family member.  “In the case of Jessica Ridgeway the media picks up on it very quickly and of course it puts the fear in every parent’s heart.  But in reality they are a very miniscule  number as far as stranger abductions.  The likelihood  is someone that you know is going to take your kid.”

When it comes to anyone having regular contact with your child, don’t be paranoid, be prudent.  “Child predators are very manipulative, and do want to work themselves into your life and make you trust them.”

And the odds of your child being abducted by anybody?  That would be .02 percent.  Perspective is everything.

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Man gets 60 days in child abduction case

September 11, 2012

Source: napavalleyregister

A 31-year-old man, arrested this summer at San Francisco International Airport as he allegedly tried to fly to the Middle East with his two young daughters in defiance of a court order, was sentenced Tuesday to two months in Napa County jail.

On July 12, authorities said, Alwawi was detained as he allegedly tried to board a plane with his two daughters to fly to Chicago and then to Amman, Jordan, in defiance of a child abduction prevention order, according to court documents.

His wife, from whom he was separated, had obtained the court order because she had become increasingly concerned that her husband wanted to leave the country with their two girls, according to court filings.

In September, Ahmad Alwawi pleaded no contest in Napa County Superior Court to two counts of child abduction.

A no contest plea, during which defendants neither admit nor dispute a charge, has the same immediate effect as a guilty plea in sentencing hearings.

On Thursday, prosecuting attorney Holly Quate said the 60-day sentence was “fair given the circumstances.”

Alwawi, an unemployed certified public accountant, had found new employment in Saudi Arabia, according to court filings. But he wanted his wife to leave behind her two older children from another relationship, court documents said.

Alwawi was separated from his wife in July, when he allegedly took his girls’ passports  his wife had hidden in an air conditioning vent, according to the probation report.

Alwawi, according to the report, expressed remorse for his actions and stated he has “lost everything.” His plan, Alwawi told the probation officer, was to show the three $8,500 plane tickets to his wife and return them for a refund, according to the court filing.

“The defendant said he then planned on returning home to show his wife that he had the ‘opportunity’ to leave and take their children, but he did not leave because ‘that’s how much I loved’ her. The defendant said he was ‘thinking with his heart and not his head,’” the probation officers wrote.

On Tuesday, Napa County Superior Court Judge Mark Boessenecker also sentenced Alwawi to serve 140 hours of community service and remain under probation for three years. Alwawi also has to obey a family court order, which includes staying away from his wife and two daughters, the judge ruled.

A family court judge on Sept. 30 ordered that Alwawi can only see the two girls three times a week for three hours under supervision.

Alwawi, a former Napa resident who now lives in Benicia, reports to jail on Dec. 1.

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Child Abduction: Why British Law Means Parents May Be Powerless To Get Their Children Back

August 29, 2012

Source: The Huffington Post

When Alison Shalaby’s seven-year-old daughter was taken to Egypt by her ex-husband, she found it hard to believe that after just one week in the country, her child was now legally considered “an Egyptian”.

She told The Huffington Post UK, “Whoever I contacted in the country said she was not British. That I was asking them to extradite one of their own. She’s seven-and-a-half, she’s been in the country a week, but they said she was Egyptian.”

Shalaby’s situation is all too common. Last week, British 13-year-old Adam Jones was in the headlines, apparently held in Qatar by his late father’s family.

Adam Jones and his mother Rebecca, who says he has been held in Qatar since 2009 

His mother Rebecca Jones said she had been trying to bring him home since 2009 and has been lobbying the Foreign Office to reunite her with her son.

Adam wrote a letter to David Cameron, saying: “I think nobody cares about me. I beg you not to forget about me. Please let me go home to my family.”

He was apparently taken in 2009 when Ms Jones signed some documents in Arabic she was presented with by her late husband’s family. A Qatar court has denied her custody twice.

And this week, Leila Sabra organised a protest in Westminster to raise awareness of the case of her five year-old daughter A’ishah, who is in Egypt after her dad allegedly failed to return her after a routine custody visit in 2009.

She alleges that she won custody through the Egyptian courts, and had her daughter returned, but that she then went missing again on a second visit to her Dad in Egypt.

In the UK it is estimated more than 140,000 children go missing every year, one every three minutes, a statistic calculated by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre, which includes teenage runaways, parental abductions and kidnappings.

Estelle Clayton, who went missing for six weeks after she was taken abroad by her father, back home with her mother, Aneta, is one of thousands who go missing each year 

Shalaby, the director of charity REUNITE, managed to get her daughter back when her former partner eventually moved back to Britain, but left her daughter in Egypt. She then started court proceedings.

She told The Huffington Post UK: “He didn’t really want to be in Egypt himself. I had to get a court order to get him to bring my daughter home, and he went to prison because he refused, he was in contempt of court.

“Often when a parent runs abroad, it’s a knee-jerk reaction, about going back ‘home’, and thinking it will be completely fine to just bring your child along, without thinking of their needs or the terrible upset it can cause to the child’s other parent.

“You think you can’t live without your child close to you, but that’s exactly what you are doing to the child’s other parent.”

The legal system in the UK means that if a child goes to a country, like Qatar, which is not signed up to the Hague Convention, or does not have a bi-lateral agreement with the UK regarding children, then it can be extremely difficult and costly to get a child back, with the British government powerless to help apart from through political lobbying.

Shalaby said: “There is a misconception that the government can do something about it. But they have no power to dictate to a foreign country, to tell them to adopt the Hague Convention.

“The change has to come from grassroots campaigners in that country.”

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Providing assistance in cases of international parental child abductions

August 15, 2012

Source: The Washington Post

More than 1,300 children living in the United States were victims of international parental abductions in 2011 — taken to a foreign country and kept there without one parent’s permission.

As a member of the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, it is Scott Renner’s job to provide assistance to the parent whose child has been taken away without their consent to either Mexico or Canada.

 

In this role, Renner and his staff help aggrieved parents contact the proper authorities in Mexico or Canada, get legal assistance, locate their children, negotiate voluntary settlements or begin the judicial process for the child’s return so that the issue of custody can be resolved by a court in the U.S. Renner does not make decisions on who should have custody, but steps into the breach to help parents who often have nowhere else to turn.

“We don’t judge their cases. It’s not about who is a better parent,” said Renner. “A judge in Mexico is supposed to decide if the child is to be sent back to the United States, and a judge in the United States will decide which parent should have custody.”

Renner said the cases are often difficult, contentious and emotional. They involve navigating different judicial systems, different legal definitions of custody and many other obstacles.

“We don’t deal with happy families and the cases are often complicated,” said Renner. “It may not always turn out well, but we give them a voice, explain the laws and procedures and help them as best we can.”

About one-third of all reported international parental child abductions from the United States involve Mexico. According to the latest statistics, 1,367 children were reported abducted by parents and taken to foreign countries in 2011, with 465 of those going to Mexico. Mexico has been a focal point for a number of reasons, including strong cultural and social and economic ties with the U.S., many of cross-border relationships, a great deal of immigration back and forth and a very long border.

Renner said some abducted children are never returned, some cases take years to resolve and others are settled relatively quickly. He said improved cooperation with Mexican authorities has helped, with 180 children returned to the United States from Mexico in 2010 and 250 in 2011.

“One of the biggest problems we have is locating the kids. Mexico is a chaotic country,” said Renner. “Kids can be missing for eight to 10 years.”

In one case, Renner said, a child was abducted by a parent in the United States and taken to a town in Mexico that had barricaded itself from the drug traffickers. He said a local judge was “brave enough’ to pursue the matter, negotiated with the child’s grandmother and got an agreement to send the youngster back to the mother in the United States.

Renner became the first chief of a newly-created Mexico and Canada branch in September 2010 shortly after the United States’ relationship with Mexico on parental abductions hit a low point. The State Department had cited Mexico as “not compliant” with the provisions of the Hague Abduction Convention, a treaty designed to return an abducted child promptly to his country of habitual residence.

Colleagues said Renner promoted coordination and collaboration with Mexico, and helped improve a strained relationship, expedite new cases and resolve many of those that had been backlogged.

Beth Payne, director of the State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues, said Renner “worked on the diplomatic level to change way we dealt with Mexican officials on child abduction issues.”

“He traveled to Mexico, worked with different groups, met with government officials, established personal relationships and strong connections, talked about what was in their interest and ours, and got positive solutions to many cases,” said Payne. “He has created the model that we are now following in the rest of the office.”

Renner, a Foreign Service Officer, joined the State Department in 1997 and has had assignments in Nigeria, Chile, Columbia and Poland. This month, he will be promoted from his current job to serve as division chief for Western Hemisphere Outgoing Abductions.

Renner said his job, like many of his other assignments, have given him a chance to “help people solve their problems.”

“I have always been motivated to make a difference on a personal level,” said Renner. “It is really rewarding for me and I am getting paid to do it.”

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Or you can call our 24h Emergency phone number: +47 45504271