UK: Parental child abductions from UK 'double in a decade' - 70% of abductions are by mother

Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2013-12-13 04:11

Article here. Excerpt:

'The number of parental child abduction cases has more than doubled in the last decade, new figures from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) suggest.

The FCO and charity Reunite say almost two children a day on average are taken out of the UK against a court order or without the consent of one parent.

There were 272 new parental child abduction and international custody cases in 2003-04, and 580 in 2012-13.

The FCO has released what is calls a "hard-hitting" film on the subject.

The film, Caught in the Middle, has been published on YouTube as part of a pre-Christmas awareness campaign to encourage parents to consider the "lasting damage" such abductions can do to children and families.

Reunite said it had already dealt with 447 new cases, involving a total of 616 children, in 2013 - with noticeable spikes after the Christmas and summer holidays.
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The most common Hague Convention countries for parental abductions from the UK in 2012/13 were the USA (32), Poland (29) and the Irish Republic (28), while the top non-Hague countries were Pakistan (35), Thailand (17) and India (16).

The FCO said that - "contrary to popular opinion" - about 70% of abducting parents were mothers.'

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