Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Child Abduction Section at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is very pleased to have been invited by reunite to contribute to its new Legal News Page.
We take the policy lead on parental child abductions involving British nationals to countries that have not signed the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (which aims to return an abducted child to the country where he or she normally lives, so that custody and access can be decided by the local courts). Since our section was created in 2003 we have dealt with over 950 cases of parental child abduction. Abductions to non-Hague countries tend to be harder for all involved as the left behind parent may need to start legal proceedings in the local courts overseas if they cannot come to an agreement with the other parent concerning custody and access. Click here to read our leaflet on International Child Abduction which explains what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office can do to assist in child abduction cases.
We work closely with reunite to raise awareness of the problem of parental child abduction and are working together on a number of joint initiatives to help achieve this. These include a Seminar for Imams which we plan to hold at the Islamic Foundation in Leicester in October 2008. This will help spread awareness of the problem amongst the Islamic community. We also hope to hold an international conference in Islamabad in 2009 to help promote awareness of the UK/Pakistan Protocol on Children Matters. This is a judicial agreement which aims to return abducted children to the country where they normally live, so that issues of custody can be decided by the courts of that country. Click here to read our leaflet on the Protocol. This will be an important conference, particularly as we deal with a large number of abductions to Pakistan each year. We hope the conference will be attended by judges, lawyers and non-government organisations from both countries. We have also provided reunite with funding to conduct a research project studying Pakistani and UK court orders so that we can obtain a better understanding of how effectively the Protocol is working. We hope to have the results of this soon.
We are collaborating with reunite on other initiatives and our Embassy in Cairo is providing funding for 2 members the charity to travel to Egypt to give mediation training to a women’s non-governmental organisation. We decided to support this project because we have seen an increasing number of child abductions to Egypt. It is hoped that mediation will help parents come to an agreement on issues such as custody and access. We are also working with reunite on a joint review of abduction cases to non-Hague countries. This will help highlight the main problems parents experience getting their children returned and any patterns or trends relating to a particular country.
If you wish to speak to our section to discuss a case or any other issues concerning abductions to non-Hague countries please call: 0207 008 0878. You can also access information on our website: http://www.fco.gov.uk/childabduction.
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