Drawn out, messy international custody disputes can leave families broken.
The actions of one parent taking a child (or children) without the others parents knowledge are often devastating, leaving the left-behind adult emotionally and physically exhausted from the fight to get their child back to Australia.
But how does all this affect the children who find themselves at the centre of these disputes?
When Amanda was just 11, her father knocked on the front door of her mothers Perth home. It was 6am, she was watching cartoons and her mother was asleep. Amanda had not seen her father for over a year when he threw her under his arm and took her to the US. She didnt see her mother for over 7 years after that day.
Gaudi was taken to Barcelona by his father when he was 18 months old. Not long afterwards, his Australian mother organised to snatch him back with the assistance of a television crew. The trauma of the incident has affected the rest of his life.
We often hear these stories from the perspective of the parents. This week on Insight, we hear from the people who were abducted as children.
Whats it like to have your whole world turned upside down? How do you learn to live in an entirely different culture? Whats it like when you reconnect with your left-behind parent after years apart?
And what happens to these kids when they become adults?
