THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 28, 1995 TAG: 9504280492
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
In this jet-age world of cross-cultural relationships, a custody dispute can turn into an international battle overnight.
Last year, the U.S. State Department handled more than 600 cases in which children were taken out of the United States by estranged spouses. That number doesn't include ongoing cases from previous years.
In many such cases, the abducting parent is originally from another country, or has family ties there. That leaves the so-called ``left-behind parent'' to fight a custody war with maddening barriers: Different languages. Unfamiliar legal systems. Lack of cooperation between governments.
Maureen Dabbagh, a Virginia Beach mother whose daughter, Nadia, was taken by her ex-husband to Syria 2 1/2 years ago, says she was convinced her husband would abduct their child in the months before he did. She took all the preventive measures she could think of: She put a block on her daughter's passport. She asked a judge for supervised visitation. She went to police and told them her ex-husband planned to take their child to the Middle East.
Still, her daughter was taken in October 1992 during a court-ordered visit with the girl's father in Florida. Dabbagh has not seen her since.
``There are no real safeguards,'' Dabbagh says. ``You can't punish a parent for a crime that hasn't been committed yet.''
Judges are often caught between limiting the freedoms and rights of parents to travel with or even see their children, and protecting the children from being snatched.
One of the biggest advances in the field came in 1988 when the United States signed the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction with 30 other nations, agreeing to honor child-custody orders of other countries and return kidnapped children.
Charles and Ania Blackwell's dispute over their son's travels centers on a possible trip to Poland, which is part of the Hague Convention. That means Charles would be able to retrieve his son, named Jan, more easily than in a non-Hague country, should Ania Blackwell not return. Still, Charles contends that the cost of getting Jan back would be more than the $10,000 a judge has ordered his ex-wife to post before making the trip.
Parents of children taken to non-Hague countries face even tougher battles. Some left-behind parents have resorted to hiring mercenaries to counter-abduct their children. The State Department strongly advises against such attempts. Not only are they illegal, but they also frequently result in botched attempts that quash any hope of seeing the child again.
Acknowledging the problem of parental kidnappings, in 1993, President Clinton signed the International Parent Kidnapping Crime Act, which makes it a federal felony to kidnap one's own child and take him or her out of the country a federal felony. But even with federal charges at stake, many countries don't honor requests for extradition.
Because of the rise in the number of such cases, and the high publicity of a handful of them, judges have become more sensitive to the risk of international abductions during the past decade, according to Teresa Klingensmith, manager of legal and legislative affairs at The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an advocacy group based in Arlington County. ``They're more aware of the scope and trauma of the problem.''
Ordering estranged parents who travel with their children to post bond and turn over custody to the other parent during the trip are common methods judges use.
Still, many left-behind parents feel the system does little to help them once a child is taken.
``If I had to do it all over again, I would take my passport and my child, go to the first international airport, head for the first non-Hague country I could find, and start my life all over again,'' Dabbagh says.
She recently received a photo of Nadia that had been ``age-progressed'' by a National Center for Missing & Exploited Children computer to reflect Nadia's current age of 5.
``I laughed and cried at the same time,'' Dabbagh says. ``She looks like me.'' MEMO: Main story on page B1.
KEYWORDS: CHILD CUSTODY PARENTAL ABDUCTION by CNB