British mothers who bring their children with them when returning to the UK after fleeing from domestic abuse abroad – which can lead to them being accused of abduction – could be given greater legal protection and support. The government has agreed to examine how domestic abuse features in international child abduction cases, with a view to giving survivors of domestic abuse more help fighting partners’ demands that they return children to their home countries. The changes would come too late for Claire, who lived in the US with an abusive partner and their two small children for more than a decade.
But they could help mothers like her. I was in near-constant fear for my life,” she said. Approximately 500 Hague-convention applications for the return of a child are filed each year in England and Wales.
Between 10% and 20% of children affected end up being separated from their primary carer owing to a formal court-ordered return. Claire was fortunate: she used all of her savings to instruct a barrister, and her children were able to stay in the UK. The convention requires signatory countries to return children who have been unilaterally removed abroad within six weeks so that courts in their home countries can decide on future arrangements.
Campaigners hope the analysis, the first of its kind, will disprove the four-decade-old assumptions, baked into the convention, that all child abduction is harmful and that children must be returned immediately for overseas courts to decide their futures. Ruth Dineen, international coordinator of the Filia Hague Mothers campaign, said the convention had been introduced in 1980 to protect children from the harmful effects of their wrongful removal from their home country. We also have a far greater understanding of the impact of domestic abuse and coercive control.” Roz Osborne, head of the charity Globalarrk, said she hoped the government analysis would help level the playing field for victims of domestic abuse.
Summary hearings do not allow sufficient understanding of the risks victims face, often underestimating the risks. Children’s safety is inseparable from their primary carer’s safety, most often the mother, and this is not recognised.” In addition, she said, children were not acknowledged as victims in their own right, as they are under domestic abuse legislation in the UK. Dr Adrienne Barnett, the director of Right to Equality, said there was a “dearth of basic data” around these cases.
Alison Shalaby, the chief executive of Reunite, said it remained vital that children were returned immediately to their parents when abducted. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732.
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