Parental Abductions

"Mary"

“Mary” took her 6 year old son to Europe in 2008. She says she had no other choice because her husband was sexually abusing her son and the Family Court was about to give him unsupervised visitation rights. She was found through the Hague Convention and ordered to return to Australia for custody hearings. She was then allowed to return to Europe with her son.

Vincent Papaleo

Vincent Papaleo is a Clinical Psychologist who has spent 25 years in the family court system. He says child abduction can be considered child abuse. He says abducting can have a long lasting effect on a child.

Aayesha

Aayesha says she hasn’t seen her three children since they were abducted by their father nearly four years ago. She says they were originally taken to their father’s home country of Algeria. Aayesha says she flew there twice but each time was unable to see them. She says she doesn’t know where they are now and has come to terms with the fact that she probably won’t see them until they’re older. Algeria isn’t part of the Hague Convention and Aaeysha says it’s virtually impossible to get children back when this is the case.

Matt

Matt is in Japan and says he is trying to get access to his two sons. He says his ex-wife moved back there with their children in 2009. He says it’s impossible to get shared custody in Japan because that arrangement is not formally recognised. He says Japan, which hasn’t signed the Hague Convention, has become a safehaven for parents who abduct their own children after a relationship has broken down.

Col Chapman

Col Chapman is a private investigator and says he specialises in international child retrievals. He says he recently returned from Algeria where he’s trying to negotiate the return of three children to their mother. Col says he‘s broken foreign laws to get children back and has used various methods including surveillance and sedation. He says he does extensive background checks on the parents who hire him. He says the majority of his cases involve non-Hague countries.