A Guide For Action When A Spouse Steals Your Children

The Washington, D.C.-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the American Bar Association, including its Young Lawyers Division, recommend taking the following steps as a guide for lawyers and clients handling these cases after the child has been snatched by a parent. 

• Hire an aggressive family law attorney, preferably one with experience in parental-kidnapping situations.
• If you have not already filed for divorce, DO SO IMMEDIATELY. File for divorce and full custody of the children.
• Assemble your documentation of court decrees and custody orders, if any.
• If you do not have custody, use the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, which established rules help courts determine jurisdiction, to petition for custody in the local family court.
• Ask local police to issue a warrant for the arrest of the kidnapping parent.
• Insist that a missing person’s report be posted immediately on National Crime Information Center and Interpol computers. Many local police departments will mistakenly tell parents that they need to see a final custody order before issuing a missing child report or that a waiting period is required, but this is no longer true. Such delays are prohibited by the National Child Search Assistance Act (P.L. 101-647; 42 U.S.C. 5779, 5780), which requires law enforcement to immediately enter a missing child report into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).

• Contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE LOST or 703-235-3900. The Web address of its international branch is www.icmec.co.uk. The center maintains a missing children’s data base and publishes a booklet on preventing and reacting to abduction.
• Contact the local FBI office. If the FBI tells you that you first need a state warrant, point out that the 1993 International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act ended that requirement.
• Ask the state prosecutor or district attorney to request the local U.S. attorney’s to issue a federal Unauthorized Flight to Avoid Prosecution (UFAP) arrest warrant. The Federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act of 1980 provides for the issuance of this warrant.
• Once you have the UFAP warrant, ask the FBI to assist in the investigation and to use the services of the federal Parent Locator Service.
• Investigate possible civil remedies and consider the viability of a tort suit against the kidnapper, including anyone who may have assisted in the abduction.
• Use whatever information you have about the abducting parent in your investigation, such as names of family members or friends who may know of his or her whereabouts.
• If you suspect an international kidnapping, after you have the UFAP warrant, ask the FBI to request the U.S. Attorney’s office to have the passport of the kidnapping parent revoked.
• Call the State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues (1-202-736-7000), and request the booklet, “International Parental Child Abduction“. The booklet outlines what you should do and what the office can do for you.
• If you have to to litigate the matter in a foreign country, contact the State Department’s office of the Overseas Citzens’ Services of the Bureau of Consular Affairs for a list of attorneys available for such cases.
• Contact ABP World Group Ltd. for free counseling – We can recover your child – Child Recovery Services World Wide.

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Parental Kidnapping: Be On The Lookout For These Red Flags

Source: Schneider & Stone

Parental kidnapping accounts for the vast majority of missing children cases in this country, and often there are both warning signs and some preventative tips parents may wish to take.

Of course, sometimes it happens without warning and by parents that others would not have thought capable of such a crime. Divorcing parents should be on the lookout for the following red flags for parental kidnapping:

• Threats of kidnapping (they must be taken seriously)
• Mixed religion, mixed cultural marriages
• Parent has ties, connections or family out-of-state or abroad
• Parent lacks ties in the current place of residency, is unemployed, self-employed, and/or does not own real estate
• Parents are in the midst of a contested custody battle (orders of protection may be issued)
• History of domestic abuse, violence or mental illness

Upon filing a divorce petition, Illinois institutes an automatic stay that prevents either parent from taking the child across state lines without prior approval. However, if you believe your spouse may take your child, there are a few steps to try to prevent such an action:

• Tell your attorney. He or she can give you advice and bring up the matter before the judge, who should take the allegations seriously.
• If you have court-ordered child custody and visitation, follow the order exactly. Most parental kidnappings occur out of a parent’s extreme frustration and desperation from not seeing a child.
• Keep the child’s passport if you can, or if the other parent has it, the court can demand it be held at one of the attorney’s offices while the divorce is pending to prevent the child from leaving the country.
• Keep a copy of a custody or visitation order with you in the event you need police assistance when exchanging the child in a volatile situation.

Windy City Law Group– Skokie divorce attorneys

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One key to ABP World Group`s successful recovery and re-unification of your loved one is to use all necessary means available

Contact us here: Mail

Join the Facebook Group: International Parental Child Abduction

NOTE: We are always available 24/7

U.S Phone Number: (646) 502-7443

UK Phone Number: 020 3239 0013 -

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

Three out of every four children who are internationally abducted are never returned to the parent left behind.

Three out of every four children who are internationally abducted by one of their parents are never returned to the parent left behind.

Despite violating US custody laws, parents who manage to run away with their children across national borders often find it relatively easy to hide behind complicated international conventions and bureaucracy. The Japanese abduction cases highlighted in one of our previous blog posts provides an excellent example of just how difficult it can be to resolve international abduction cases. These discouraging facts emphasize how fortunate one father is after being recently reunited with his 5-year-old daughter who was taken to Europe by her mother 10 months ago.

The young girl and her mother were found by authorities in Germany, after the child’s father was alerted as to their whereabouts by an informant. The father had published information about his missing daughter on the Internet, which promoted a German citizen to recognize the child’s face and contact her father.

The 5-year-old’s mother violated the couple’s custody agreement last June, when she reportedly told the girl’s father that they were taking a vacation to Arizona. The father first became concerned when he found himself unable to contact his ex-spouse and the police started investigating the case after the mother sent an email confessing that she had taken their daughter “somewhere else.”

Fortunately, thanks to the informant’s tip, authorities were able to track down the mother-daughter pair and placed the child with a temporary German foster family while she waits to be extradited back to the US. The girl’s father described their reunion as an emotional, joyous event for both himself and his daughter.

The girl’s mother will face felony charges for breaking the family’s legal custody arrangement.

Source: KWGN, “Abducted Littleton girl, 5, found in Europe, mother faces charges.” Tammy Vigil, 12 April 2011

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International child abduction to Mexico

Mexico is amongst the world’s most popular sources and destinations for international child abduction while also being widely regarded as having one of the least effective systems of protecting and returning internationally abducted children within its borders.

To help protect abducted children Mexico signed on to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in 1991,^[1] and the Inter-American Convention on the International Return of Children

Since adhering to the Hague Abduction Convention, the world’s most recognized and utilized instrument for addressing international child abduction, Mexico has been repeatedly criticized for enjoying the benefit of having its treaty partners protect Mexico’s own internationally abducted children, while being consistently non-compliant in fulfilling its reciprocal obligations to protect and return children abducted to Mexico. To date its procedures for enforcing its treaty obligations are unpredictable and entirely ineffective. The Centre for International Family Law Studies in Cardiff, Wales compared seven jurisdictions, including Mexico. The conclusion was that Mexico was by far the worst offender in its failure to return abducted children.

Merely because a country is a party to the Hague Convention does not mean that it will effectively enforce its treaty obligations. For example, the U.S. State Department has asserted that Mexico is “non-compliant” with the terms of the Convention. U.S State Department Report on Compliance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, 2004. Mexico’s noncompliance results from the following problems:

• Mexico has not enacted any legislation to implement the Hague Convention, which has not been integrated into the Mexican legal system.
• The Mexican Central Authority has no law enforcement powers and Mexican law enforcement agencies make no serious efforts to locate parentally abducted children.
• The burden of finding an abducted child in Mexico is left entirely to the left-behind parent. Mexican authorities provide no effective help and if the child cannot be located, nothing happens.
• There is an apparent lack of understanding of the Convention among the judiciary in Mexico.
• The Mexican Central Authority does not have adequate resources to perform its functions under the Convention.
• The “amparo” (a special appeal in Mexico claiming a violation of constitutional rights) is used by taking parents to block Hague proceedings indefinitely.
• Mexican courts are able to reconsider the facts of a Hague at any stage of the proceeding, which allows proceedings to be prolonged substantially.

Accordingly, custody orders concerning parents with strong ties to Mexico must be drafted so as to minimize the risk that the child will be taken to that country. It would be reckless to permit a Mexican parent who has expressed a desire to move to Mexico, and who has strong family or business ties to Mexico, to take a child into that country for a visit, regardless of the conditions that may be imposed to encourage the parent to bring the child back to this country.

The State Department’s 2004 report establishes that similar concerns exist with respect to Austria, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mauritius, Turkey and Romania and, to a somewhat lesser extent, several other countries.

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Parental Abduction – When Parents Kidnap Their Own

By: Carma Haley 

An estimated 355,000 children are abducted from their homes each year, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). These children can go days, weeks, months or even years with no contact from anyone except their abductor. And many of these children are not taken by strangers: They are abducted by their own parents.

There are some who claim kidnapping their own children is the only option they have, but what about the other parent — and what about the child?

Mark Samrodan, spokesman for NCMEC, says parental kidnapping is the practice of a noncustodial parent taking a child from the custodial parent from one state to another without court permission or in violation of court orders obtained through a divorce or custody hearing. The practice of parental kidnapping is forbidden by both federal and state laws in the absence of a provable emergency situation and can result in the noncustodial parent being charged with felony kidnapping. But often this threat does not stop parental kidnapping from occurring.

Who Kidnaps?

Research completed by the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Thrown-away Children (NISMART), which was founded by the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, states there are many reasons parents may resort to abducting their children. These reasons include using a child as a “pawn” in contentious divorce proceedings, as an extension of battering, to control their spouse or ex-spouse by depriving them of custody or visitation of the child, or to protect the child from abuse. 

“My husband and I obtained legal custody of our granddaughter when it was determined that her mom was unable to take care of her,” says Shirley Sunderland, from Altoona, Pa. “When the baby was 3 months old I was working at the local hospital and often had difficulty finding a sitter for the evening shift. [My daughter] offered to take care of her for that one night. When I got home, the baby was gone and so were some of her belongings. I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach and then realized that the baby had been kidnapped by her own mother.”

The Missing Children’s Registry of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada has developed an overall profile of parental abductions. The profile was constructed to assist those whose child has been abducted by a parent and includes facts such as:

• Either parent, mother or father, will abduct his or her own child.
• Mothers tend to abduct children after a court order is completed while fathers do so before the court order.
• Mothers who abduct their children will keep the children for a longer period of time then fathers who abduct.
• The “average” age range for parents who abduct their child is 28 to 40 years of age.
• The fathers who abduct their children are likely to have employment while the mothers who abduct are more likely to be unemployed.
• The majority of children who are abducted by their own parent but kept within the United States are between 3 and 7 years of age, but children who are taken out of the country tend to be 8 years of age or older.
• Both male and female children are abducted equally.
• The majority of children abducted by their own parent are done so from the home and not from areas such as a babysitters, daycare or schoolyard.
• The abductor, both mother and father, typically makes contact within 48 hours of abducting the child to inform the searcing parent of the child’s well being.

The Other Side of the Coin

The typical reasons are not the only reasons a parent may feel they have no alternative but to kidnap their own child. Many believe the justification of parental abduction go beyond any of the reasons listed above as well as beyond the courtroom.”Dispelling typical myths that parents who kidnap their own child are doing so to get even with society and/or hurt their ex-spouse has proven quite difficult,” says Bonnie Russell, advocate for parental abduction prevention and former victim of a parental kidnapping from Solana Beach, Calif. “While some cases of parental abduction are due to this, it is more the exception then the rule. Other reasons include abuse, neglect, endangerment, unjust hearings or simple injustices. Until the underlying reason parents resort to kidnapping is addressed, no one will understand the subject.”

Some parents feel they have been treated inappropriately before, during or after a custody battle and this treatment played a role in losing custody of their children. For some of these parents, taking their child was their only option.

“My husband physically abused me for years,” says Carolyn Hawkins, a mother of two originally from Medina, Ohio. “And even though I reported him to the police numerous times, had a medical record as thick as a dictionay and had left him twice before, he was awarded custody of my children because he had more money and could hire a lawyer where mine was court appointed. The abuse I suffered led me into a depression and that was used against me in court. What else could I do but get my kids away from him?”

Alternatives to Kidnapping

Many services are available to help in the event of a situation that may be dangerous or harmful to a child. Social service departments, health departments and area chapters of Child Abuse Prevention agencies or even a school counselor can all help a parent who fears for their child’s welfare and safety.

In the event of a disputed divorce or custody order, a parent can move up the chain of command to find assistance or to have additional evidence heard, Samrodan says. If a parent is not in a financial situation to afford an attorney, local chapters of Legal Aid or free legal assistance can be found through social service offices.

“There is always something else that should be tried or attempted before a parent resorts to kidnapping their child,” says Samrodan. “Whether a local, state or federal organization, if a parent truly feels they need assistance, then they can and will find it — all they need to do is ask.”

If a parent suspects the noncustodial parent may abduct their child, they should file an order with the court to investigate a possible parental kidnapping which can assist them in getting a visitation order held until the threat has passed. In the event of a continued threat or possible attempts to abduct the child, the custodial parent should file an order with the court to have the noncustodial parent’s visitation revised to prevent an abduction from taking place, Samrodan says.

“It only takes a few minutes and a little bit of effort to et help when a parent fears their child may or will be abducted by their noncustodial parent,” says Samrodan. “If they need assistance, anyone at the courthouse would be happy to help — again, all that needs to be done is to ask.”

The Effects on the Child

Recent research conducted by NISMART states children endure adverse consequences from being abducted. Besides emotional turmoil, children may suffer from inadequate schooling, poor nutrition, unstable lifestyles and neglect. Some are abandoned, only to be discovered living in foster homes. In the most egregious cases, children suffer long-term harm that may leave them scarred for life. The belief that a child is safe with a parent lessens the chance of aggressive investigation by law enforcement, NISMART states. Yet one study reported 49 percent of abductors have previously established criminal histories and 75 percent of abducting fathers have a history of violent behavior.

After the child is located, researchers suggest that the police encourage both the parent and the child to receive a psychological and physical evaluation.

While Samrodan says parents may feel there is no other alternative, parental kidnapping only adds to the problems. He says parents can often avoid the situation if they are willing to work together and through the courts to find what the best schedule or routine that offers the child time with both parents.

“The system is not perfect and may not always offer the perfect solution the first time around,” says Samrodan. “But taking a child away from what they know as home; what they know as friends; and what they know as stability can and will only add to the hurt and trauma of all those involved. There are other ways and there are people to help you find them. Think before you take your child.”

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Protecting Kids: Rethinking the Hague Convention

By MIRELA IVERAC, TIME Magazine

In 1980, an international treaty was designed to return children who had been abducted by a parent who moved to another country.

Back then, the people drafting the treaty thought the typical abductor would be a noncustodial father skipping town with the kids, leaving mom with little recourse to try to get her children back. So what happens, three decades later, when research indicates that 68% of the abducting parents in cases under this treaty are mothers — and that many of them are fleeing abusive spouses?

The Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, dubbed the Hague Convention after the place where it was finalized, has been adopted by 82 countries, which are expected to help return abducted children to their habitual residence within six weeks of a parent filing a petition. But Jeffrey Edleson and Taryn Lindhorst, lead researchers on a new study of Hague Convention cases, argue that the treaty is often used against women seeking safety for themselves — and for their children — from violent husbands. “We always thought that child abduction is a bad thing,” says Edleson, a professor of social work at the University of Minnesota. “But in some cases, mothers are taking children to protect them from greater harm.”(Read about countless Chinese children who have been kidnapped and sold to strangers.)

Building on a previous study by Nigel Lowe, a law professor at Britain’s Cardiff University, that found more than two-thirds of alleged abductors in Hague cases filed worldwide were women, Edleson and Lindhorst looked at the more than 300 Hague Convention decisions that were published in U.S. courts between 1993 and 2008. Their new study, which was funded by the National Institute of Justice and will be published next year by Northeastern University Press, analyzed the 47 published U.S. Hague Convention court decisions involving allegations of domestic violence and included interviews with 22 battered mothers who responded to Hague petitions in U.S. courts. The majority of those women had their children ordered to return to another country.

The result in several cases was that the children — and their mothers, who generally accompanied them — faced renewed physical abuse upon their return, researchers found in interviews with the mothers. “Judges want to trust our treaty partners will provide protection for our children and mothers,” says Merle Weiner, a law professor at the University of Oregon and one of the nation’s leading scholars on the Hague Convention. “But sometimes that protection is not real. Sometimes the batterer is so dangerous that only geographical distance can make a difference.”(Read about the abduction of Elizabeth Smart in her own words.)

To raise awareness of the issue, Edleson has organized a Dec. 10 event, timed to coincide with Human Rights Day, in Minneapolis, where actresses will read battered mothers’ testimonies from Hague Convention cases. The readings will be interspersed with conversations between lawyers, legal scholars and social scientists on domestic violence and the Convention, which contains provisions that allow judges to refrain from returning a child if doing so puts him or her at “grave risk” of “physical or psychological harm.” But too often, scholars and lawyers say, judges are not sufficiently steeped in the law to know that they have discretion to accept this as an applicable defense. Additionally, since the treaty’s goal is to have children returned to their habitual residence within six weeks of a parent filing a Hague Convention petition, lawyers may not have enough time to assemble evidence that domestic violence occurred in the other country.

“I don’t think the treaty is wrong,” Edleson says. “It was put in place for the right reasons.” But he and other experts say it’s time to update how the Hague Convention is being implemented, to make it easier for battered mothers to argue that their kids should not be returned to a country where their violent husbands live. The U.S. could also act independently and add a similar provision to the International Child Abduction Remedies Act that Congress passed in 1988. “We’ve only recently realized that the great majority of taking parents are mothers,” Edleson says. “It’s important we make these adjustments so that the Convention fits this new reality.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2036246,00.html#ixzz1J3eBbq48

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Sharp rise in international parental kidnapping cases

By: Emily Babay

One year ago, Douglass Berg, of Reston, said goodbye to his son and daughter before they boarded a flight with his ex-wife on what was supposed to be a three-week visit to her native Japan. He has not seen the children since.

Stefanie Gardner, a native of Germany, traveled to that country with the two young sons she had been raising in Northern Virginia with her estranged husband, Gregory. Since then, she has refused to allow them to return. He accused her of kidnapping the boys, and a warrant for her arrest was issued in the United States. But a German court has awarded her sole custody.

For an increasing number of parents in the Washington area, child-bearing relationships with a foreign partner are deteriorating into charges of child abductions, and in many cases legal struggles in which the deck is stacked against Americans fighting the laws of another country.

Nationwide, the number of cases is rising dramatically. There were 1,135 international child abductions in fiscal 2009, according to State Department statistics. That’s nearly double the 642 cases reported in 2006.

Foreign travel, military operations and immigration have spurred an increase in international relationships, experts say. And an international city such as Washington, full of embassy personnel and staffers for global companies, is fertile ground for such abductions. But parents of different nationalities raising children together can lead to “cultural differences that people may not be willing to compromise on,” said Donna Linder, executive director of the nonprofit Child Find of America.

Berg told The Washington Examiner that his ex-wife “felt like I was invading her turf” by sharing custody of Gunnar, now age 10, and Kianna, 9, after their divorce. She thought child care was a mom’s responsibility.

“That may be her culture, but that’s certainly not mine,” he said.

Gardner’s attorneys say tensions grew between Gardner and her husband, and he consented to her taking the children to Germany in 2004.

German court documents show that, in 2005, she was awarded custody of Alec, now age 8, and Dominic, now 7. In 2006, a federal warrant was issued for Gardner’s arrest. Her attorneys are trying to get the charge dropped. One of them, Steven Gremminger, said they’ve given authorities information from German courts and the prosecutor “has indicated that she’s having the FBI review that.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria and the FBI declined to comment.

“There’s nothing easy” about international abduction cases, said Stefanie Eye, a State Department division chief for abductions. “You’re dealing with the laws of two or more sovereign nations.” Resolutions are often hard to find.

In 1994, the ex-husband of Catherine Meyer — who would later marry British ambassador Christopher Meyer — abducted her sons to Germany. While in D.C., Catherine Meyer became an advocate on parental abduction issues. Over nine years, she saw her children for just a few hours. The case was only resolved when the boys became adults and free to reunite with her.

That’s the moment Berg is waiting for, he said. He has created Web sites he hopes Gunnar and Kianna will find so “they realize that their father loves them very much and realize I was trying to get ahold of them.”

No one keeps statistics on how often criminal prosecutions are pursued in such cases. But even that doesn’t guarantee a child’s return. The FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction overseas, so it must rely on foreign authorities. Many cases reach an impasse, where children remain with the parent who has them. Often, no one can force an abducting parent to give up a child or return home, said Preston Findlay, a lawyer with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

For the parents on both sides, it’s a frustrating wait.

Gardner is “not a kidnapper, she’s a mom, and a good mom,” Gremminger said. And Berg said he continues to lose sleep wondering if he’ll see his children again. ”It’s all you can think about,” he said.

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Parental Abduction – The Philippines

Parental child abduction is not a crime under Philippine law.

Custody disputes are considered civil legal matters that must be resolved between the concerned parties or through the courts in the Philippines. Philippine authorities advise the American Embassy that generally the Philippine courts will give custody of children under the age of seven to the mother, provided there is no evidence that would indicate that the mother is unfit to raise the child. Although there is no treaty in force between the United States and the Philippines on enforcement of judgments, the Philippine courts will also take into consideration child custody decrees issued by foreign courts in deciding disputes regarding children residing in the Philippines.

General Information: The Philippines is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, nor are there any international or bilateral treaties in force between the Philippines and the United States dealing with international parental child abduction. Therefore, there is no treaty remedy by which the left behind parent would be able to pursue recovery of the child/ren should they be abducted to or wrongfully retained in the Philippines. Once in the Philippines, the child/ren would be completely subject to Philippine law for all matters including custody.

Note: If your child is abducted to The Philippines, you will have very small chances to win the legal dispute there. The Philippines never returns abducted children. The only way is to re-kidnap the child or to make a deal with your ex spouse. It`s all about money in The Philippines.

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Six warning signs of possible child abduction

The incidence of international child abductions is greater than official figures reveal.

Some of the warning signs of impending abduction include:

1. The other parent is planning a trip out of the country with your child;
2. Your ex-spouse is coming from overseas, and you are worried they plan to abduct your child;
3. Your ex-spouse wants you to co-sign your child’s passport without good reason;
4. Your  child is a citizen of a country which allows one parent alone to apply for the child’s passport and you have a fear of child abduction;
5. The other parent has a home, a family or other connections overseas and you are concerned that there is no reason for them to stay in your country;
6. The other parent has no substantial property or employment in your country, and nothing keeping them here.

In addition, you should obtain urgent legal advice if:

1. The other parent has already left the country with your child;
2. You are not sure if they plan to return or if you believe they will not return;
3. There is a link to overseas family or property;
4. There is no other significant link to your country.

If any of the above applies to you, you should make an urgent appointment to see a family lawyer for further advice specific to your situation.

How to search for an abducted child

What steps can you take if you want to know the location of a child who you believe has been abducted? Under the Family Law Act, certain people can apply for a location order in relation to a child. A location order is an order made by a court that requires a person to provide information about a child’s location to the court.

The following people can apply for a location order: (Australia)

• a person who a child is to live with in accordance with a parenting order;
• a person who a child is to spend time with in accordance with a parenting order;
• a person who a child is to communicate with under a parenting order;
• a person who has parental responsibility for a child under a parenting order;
• a grandparent of a child;
• any other person concerned with the care, welfare or development of a child;
• For the purposes of the Child Protection Convention, a person (including the Commonwealth Central Authority) may apply to a court for a location order.

If you suspect a child is about to be abducted and taken out of the country you need to act quickly.

Source: Armstrong Legal

 

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Norwegian/Maltese Child Abduction -Maltese father wins child ‘abduction’ case

Friday, 4th February 2011

Toddler to stay with dad after mum claims abduction

The young son of a couple who met on the internet will remain in Malta with his Maltese father after a court dismissed his Norwegian mother’s claim he had been abducted.

Madam Justice Anna Felice ruled the island was the child’s habitual residence after the couple had travelled to Malta intending to establish their residence here.

The child’s parents met over the internet in 2008 and the mother travelled to Malta and remained here until January the following year. On her return to Norway she discovered she was pregnant and the father moved to Norway to be with her.

Following the birth of the child in September 2009, the father found out the mother had another child from a previous marriage. This child had been removed from her care and placed in a foster home, the court heard.

The second child was born suffering from withdrawals from the medication the mother used to take and the Norwegian Social Services intervened. This led to both parents fearing the child would be taken away from them and they decided to leave Norway and come to Malta when the child was only a few days old.

They immediately had the child registered as a Maltese national and established a home together. However, their relationship ended last year and the father was awarded care and custody of the child in January 2010. The mother returned to Norway.

Claiming the father had abducted the child, she submitted a request to the Department for Standards in Social Protection for the child to be returned to Norway.

The father argued that, as he and the mother had come to Malta when their son was only a few days old intending to establish their residence here, this was not a case of child abduction.

The Family Court heard that, in terms of the Hague Convention on child abduction, no court was obliged to order the return of a child if the contesting parent had consented to the child travelling. Nor was the court obliged to order the return if this could expose the child to physical or psychological danger.

Madam Justice Felice noted it resulted from the evidence the couple had intended to establish their residence here and that this country constituted the child’s habitual residence. It also resulted that the mother suffered from mental illness and that her state of health was poor.

The court, therefore, refused the mother’s request to order the return of the child to Norway.

Source: Times Of Malta

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