Being the first female rapporteur of an HCCH convention was a milestone, although perhaps a minor detail in her career. “Thank you for remembering me,” Pérez-Vera began on the subject. That’s because her name resonates rather due to other feats, for which she is actually used to talking to the press.
Now, for example, Pérez-Vera observes how the Hague Convention which she helped draft fails to protect children if it does not take into account the violence suffered by mothers.
In more than half of the world, year after year, nearly 2,000 migrant women are accused of abducting their own children. This is a global phenomenon from the 21st century, as la diaria has previously reported, with stories of binational families trapped between the 1980 Hague Convention and a human rights limbo.
Foreign mothers like Maria make up 75% of international child abduction cases. That’s more than triple the rate of male parents, who account for 23%, according to the fifth and latest HCCH data. The gender gap has triggered warnings of biases and risks in the Hague Convention’s applicability.
From the United Nations, for example, three rapporteurs have denounced that the 1980 treaty currently violates women and children victims of domestic violence, forcing them to live with their abusers and contravening fundamental human rights obligations to be protected by its state parties. The situation has been deemed “inadmissible” in a joint letter sent to the HCCH in 2023.
Ninety-four per cent of abducting mothers are primary caregivers with guardianship of their children. The treaty’s authors did not foresee the current landscape, au contraire of when its text was conceived, Pérez-Vera stressed.
I believe that the fundamental element of change that was not taken into account was gender-based violence – it certainly existed but had not been made evident. We had not been aware that it was a phenomenon that was going to have such an impact on the lives of women and minors.