Notes from a ‘left behind’ mother……

Notes from a ‘left behind’ mother who has not seen her 3 children in 9 years after they went on holiday with their father and never returned.......

“Custoday orders made in one country are not necessarily recognised in another. When non-custodia…l parents abduct their chidren from a state which custody has been given (usually heading to their home country), the chances of recovering them through the judicial process is slim to none. The effect of children can be devastating. But the ‘left behind’ parent themselves are also plunged into a bewildering world where helplessness, dispair and disorintation compete. The emotional trauma is compounded by the daunting practical obstacles to retrieving the children, or to even gaining access to them. Simply finding out where to get help can be very difficult. Parents often face unfamiliar legal, cultural and linguistic barriers. Their emotional and financial resources can be stretched to the limit. In the meantime, the abducted child is often lead to believe that the left behind parent has abandoned them, so leading the child, in it’s anger and hurt, to assert that it does not want contact with the left behind parent.” “I have come to terms I will never see my children again.”
The purpose of the Hague Convention was to provide a simple and straightforward procedure. In this, it has largely failed. Different national approaches to implementing the Hague Convention, the slowness of procedures, the lack of legal aid in some countries, and the excessive recource to the loop-hole clause, has meant that some cases of International Child Abduction have been unresolved. Many children are never located. Others are simply not returned to their country of origin. www.childabductionrecovery.com