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August 2011
News
With the recent news reports concerning the possible discovery of Daniel Morcombe’s remains, our heart goes out to the friends and family members and we hope that they find some of the answers to the questions they’ve been asking since his disappearance. The disappearance of a child is especially upsetting not only to friends and family members but also to the public.
People often identify with the victims as well as their families because we consider children to be sacred, we see our children as “innocents” who haven’t been corrupted by outside influences. So when a child disappears, we can identify, because we are all children, we may also be brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, grandparent, aunties, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews or friends of that child. For this month we will be focusing on child abduction in Australia, in future editions we will also consider children who become ‘runaways’.
Parental Child Abduction
Child abduction is a disturbing but real threat in our fast paced society, most if not all of us would have heard about child abductions/murder no matter what country we live in. In Australia the case of Daniel Morcombe has highlighted this for the Australian public. But there are many different types of child abduction and today we will be focusing on one that people may not be as familiar with that is Parental Child Abductions. What many people may not know is that the high proportionate of child abduction cases are because of child custody disputes, with the increase in marriage break ups and ease with which people can travel overseas and emigrate means that the problem will only get worse.
Some may ask, is it really child abduction if a parent takes their child without telling the other parent, they are after all the child’s parent. In Australian law the answer is not a case of black and white it is indeed a ‘gray area’. This is because it all depends on whether there is any valid parenting orders or custody arrangements in place. There is also the problem of parents who take their children abroad, in an attempt to prevent access by the other parent. More often than not, these cases are difficult to process because it depends on what countries the children were taken to.
Australia is a signatory of the Hague Convention which is an international treaty that tries to ensure that children who are wrongfully removed or wrongfully retained by a parent, will be returned as quickly as possible to the country in which they habitually reside so that issues of parental responsibility can be resolved by the courts in that country. However, if the country that the child has been taken to is NOT part of the Hague Convention, then the parent must pursue the return of their child through the legal system in that country. This is often an expensive and time consuming process.
If you are interested in finding out more information regarding International Parental Child Abduction, and how the Hague Convention operates please visit the Australian Government’s Attorney-General’s Department.
If you or someone you know needs to discuss this issue or issues relating to child custody matters, we have a number of qualified counsellors and psychologist who would be able to help to implement strategies, in dealing with this problem.
Thought of the Month
The abduction of a child is a tragedy. No one can fully understand or appreciate what a parent goes through at such a time, unless they have faced a similar tragedy. Every parent responds differently. Each parent copes with this nightmare in the best way he or she knows how. – John Walsh