Under The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980, a child is considered abducted if they are removed by one parent without the other parent’s consent. The motive is not relevant. Over 100 countries have signed the treaty.
The Convention was intended to deal with a parent taking their children across national borders without the permission of the other parent. It was particularly aimed at fathers. However, in over seventy percent of cases the legislation is being used against mothers, many fleeing domestic violence and sexual abuse. The cases are brought by the perpetrators of that violence with support from the state. The outcomes are invariably catastrophic for the abused victims and for their children.
The Hague Mothers FiLiA Legacy Project aims to amplify the voices of the women who are victims of The Hague Convention, to raise awareness of the issues, and to work with lawyers, domestic violence experts, children’s organisations, women’s groups, and Hague victims to put right the injustices perpetuated by this legislation.
Source: Announcing Hague Mothers – a FiLiA Legacy Project — FiLiA
How do you stop SOME women from having babies to men who are going to abuse them and/or their kids? How do you stop SOME men from thinking they have a right to abuse women and children? How do you stop SOME lawyers from being more attracted to making bucket loads of money by acting for perpetrators, than working for a justice system intended to protect the innocent and punish the guilty?
We don’t need another cog (Hague Mothers) which ignores the underlying cause – and thereby perpetuates the problem. I think there is a word for it. Help me out JKR, is it ‘respect’? Perhaps this is what happens when nobody respects anybody, and nobody takes ownership of their own lack of respect.
Are women born with Stockholm Syndrome, or is it part of their nurturing, or is it only those who have children – and is it passed, via the placenta, from foetus to mother? Women who don’t have children seem to have less of a problem identifying dickheads – and extricating themselves from them. But that still doesn’t account for SOME men who insist on behaving like predatory animals – and SOME lawyers who enable them. I reckon Blackstone was the cause of this problem (with his ‘better to let guilty men go free’ bollocks), so I have revised his Ratio: Better to lock up an innocent lawyer than let a guilty one go free.
How about starting with a National Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme so women can do “due diligence” before entering into a relationship? Or even just making it possible to search court matters retrospectively since they are intended to be matters on the public record?
The Hague Mother’s Project is set up to raise awareness of a specific problem with the operation of the Hague Convention on Child Abduction. This convention is now being used to prevent women from escaping violent perpetrators rather than keeping children safe from abduction by fathers as originally intended. It is not another cog, it an attempt to put a spanner in the works of the patriarchy.