Issues in Resolving Cases of International Child Abduction

• NCJ Number: 182790
• Author(s): Janet Chiancone M.S.; Linda Girdner Ph.D.
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 393 pages
• Grant Number(s): 93-MC-CX-0007
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Corporate Author: American Bar Assoc
• Sale Source: NCJRS Photocopy Services; American Bar Assoc
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The parent who abducts a child to another country is the most successful of family abductors. Parents who are left behind are almost never reunited with their child, even when they know where the child is.

Abstract

International abductions are most often carried out by parents in their 20s and 30s, with young children. The abducting parent maintains strong ties to the country to which the child is taken and few economic ties to the community that they leave. About 60 percent of the children who are taken outside the U.S. are not returned, even though their whereabouts are known. Many of the left behind parents were concerned in advance about possible abduction by the other parent. Many of these left behind parents expressed despair and disappointment in the legal system and the government over the lack of meaningful assistance in recovering the children. There is a lack of uniformity in the application of the Hague Convention across countries. Also included are case histories; survey design and findings on left-behind parents; survey of central authorities of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction; selected practices in international family abduction cases; and recommendations for the judicial and legal systems.