International Family Law News & Analysis

China's blind dissident exposed horrors of 1-child policy enforcement

"Guest column: China's awful one-child policy must be exposed" - by Jennifer A. Marshall in The Province 15 May 2012 

via Vancouver family lawyer Kathleen Walker

England's Int'l Child Abductions Increase Dramatically, Eastern Europe cited

"International child flee cases on increase" - BBC 3 April 2012

Cases of a parent fleeing with their children to a different country are on the increase, a report has said. Head of International Family Justice for England and Wales, Lord Justice Thorpe, said most instances involved eastern European countries. His office dealt with 180 cases last year compared with 27 in 2007. ... The International Family Justice annual report said there were 27 cases in 2007, 92 in 2010 and 180 in 2011. [In addition to abductions to and from England in custody disputes,] Lord Justice Thorpe said: "The tendency of dangerous parents to bolt when social services are exercising legitimate protective powers is all too common."

The senior judge said that with almost two-thirds of children born in London in 2010 having a foreign parent there was "the potential for significant future growth" in cases.

 

Implementing abduction treaty in Japan no piece of cake - will violence issues devour it?

Solving parental child abduction problem no piece of cake | The Japan Times Online. A very thoughtful and insightful article from Prof. Colin P. A. Jones of Doshisha University Law School.

One issue he discusses is domestic violence claims in Hague Convention cases. But those have not even been raised as an issue in 99% of the Hague Convention cases I have handled or know of.  Second, the Convention already has exceptions for situations where return would mean a grave risk of physical or psychological harm to the child. Case law varies on whether this exception applies to cases of spousal abuse. But even when there are abuse allegations, the Convention lets the court  send the child back to the home country with the abductor instead of the petitioner.  So it is a doubly rare case in which return to the home country, by itself, would endanger the child or the abducting parent.

UK's first jail enforcement of Forced Marriage Protection Order

The Press Association: Woman jailed over son's return.
It's not clear from this news story how it is connected to a marriage, but it says "An east London woman has been jailed for eight months for her 'flagrant breach' of a High Court order to co-operate with the return of her teenage son from Nigeria", where his father lives and where he attended boarding school. The judge said information had beer received from the son saying he had been "forced or subjected to procedures which were meant to exorcise him from his disobedience to the will of his parents and to remove him from what they regarded to be unsatisfactory friendships".