Protecting our children

Children suffer greatly from the breakdown in family relationships. Their distress can be made immeasurably worse if they find themselves caught in bitter and contentious custody disputes between parents of different nationalities.  And when these children are abducted to another country by one of their parents the turmoil, loss of trust, fear, and anger they must go through should not be hard to imagine. Suddenly removed from the security of a familiar environment, abducted children do not always understand what is happening or why. The only thing they realise is that there is a state of war between the two people they need and love most.

Some parents believe that their actions have an objective justification (for example, to rescue the child from domestic violence). But in all too many cases, the common thread is the sustained effort of the taking parent to deprive the other parent of any contact with the child.

Some abducting parents lead a fugitive existence. Others, will start to denigrate the left-behind parent, or tell their children that their other parent is dead, or no longer loves them.

Existing research suggests that children are severely affected by these experiences. But, opinions vary on how they should be treated. One of the problems is that there is a lack of rigorous research on this issue.

Listen to Sarah Cecilie as she tells us about her experience here.

Read about Pamela Richardson's story  to understand what can happen when children find themselves caught in the intolerable situation of having one of their parents systematically denigrating the other.