MP Lisa Smart’s contribution to the debate on international child abduction

We very much appreciate MP Lisa Smart’s contribution to the debate. This clarified the domestic abuse context which lies at the heart of the majority of abductions, including two cases in her constituency:

“It has long been argued—the evidence bears this out—that one of the convention’s most significant shortcomings is that it failed to anticipate that some so-called abductors could be domestic abuse victims fleeing their abusers. A parent—often but not always the mother—who escapes to this country to protect themselves and their children from violence should not find themselves faced with a legal mechanism that treats them as a wrongdoer. Yet that is precisely the situation too many find themselves in.”