Mandeep Gill: Parental Child Abduction On The Rise?

On 19 January 2012 reunite reported that they had seen a 47% increase in the number of child abduction cases reported to their advice line. The Central Authority for England and Wales the International Child Abduction and Contact Unit (ICACU) say that they see a year on year increase in the number of abduction cases that they deal with under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980 (the Hague Convention). Their preliminary figures for 2011 show that the ICACU dealt with 245 incoming Hague cases and 199 outgoing Hague cases.

These are remarkable figures when you consider that they only relate to cases where parents sought a return of their children under the Hague Convention and they do not account for non Hague cases as these are dealt with by the child Abduction Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (the FCO)

The FCO dealt with 161 new parental child abduction cases to countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention in the 2010/2011financial year compared to 146 cases in 2009/2010. This was...

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