If you are worried about your child being abducted overseas by the other parent or a relative, you should contact our Child abduction section on 020 7008 0878 (or our switchboard on 020 7008 1500 outside office hours).

Convention on International Child Abduction

If your child has been abducted, we can tell you whether the country which your child has been taken to has joined the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. If it has, we can put you in touch with the relevant authorities in the UK which can ask the court in the country concerned to make an order for the child to be returned to the UK.

If the country to which your child has been taken has not joined the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, we can give you a list of overseas lawyers who speak English. Some may be specialists in family law. However, we cannot pay any legal fees ourselves.

We can give you basic practical information about the customs and legal procedures of the country. We can also provide travel information and, if necessary, offer guidance on finding accommodation locally. We can help you contact the relevant local authorities and organisations when you are overseas.

Interpol

If you want us to, we can contact Interpol directly for help in tracing your child. If your child is found, and if the other parent agrees, we may be able to check on your child’s welfare for you if the country’s government cannot do this.

If you do not know where your child is, we can contact the relevant authorities overseas to check what progress has been made in finding him or her.

Courts

We will consider whether it is appropriate to ask a court overseas to handle any case as quickly as possible in the best interests of your child. With the UK court’s permission, we can tell the courts overseas about any UK court orders in place. But often, UK court orders cannot be enforced overseas and similar orders have to be applied for in the local courts.

We can consider ways to help establish and keep open lines of communication between you, the other parent and your child. Grandparents may also be involved in custody cases, for example, where one parent has died.

Local law

You should be aware that, in some countries, local law can favour the paternal grandparents (the father’s parents) over the mother. That makes it even more important to have formal residence arrangements in place before giving permission for the child to leave the UK.

We cannot rescue a child or get involved in any abduction.

We have a leaflet called International child abduction (with more general information) and a separate leaflet on Child abduction in Pakistan (with details of an agreement with Pakistan about handling these cases).

International parental child abduction is a human rights issue and one that we take very seriously. We appreciate the distress that child abduction and the difficulties obtaining access can cause to both the child and left-behind parent.

Our Child Abduction Section offers assistance to British nationals affected by international parental child abduction. You can contact them on 00-44-207 008 0878, or out of hours on 00-44207 008 1500.

You should contact the police if your child has been taken from the UK overseas without your consent.

We deal with 3 broad categories of child abduction:

• Abduction - where a child has been taken overseas without the other parent's consent - this is a criminal offence under UK law
• Wrongful retention - where a child has been retained in a foreign country following an overseas trip
• Threat of abduction - where there is a risk that a child will be taken overseas.

What we can do to help:

• provide you with a list of English-speaking lawyers and interpreters, and provide information on travel and accommodation
• contact relevant authorities overseas to check on progress made in locating your child if you do not know where they are
• once a child has been located, carry out a welfare check with the other parent’s consent
• help you to get in touch with the relevant authorities overseas
• where appropriate, express to the courts overseas our interest in the case and ask about progress
• offer advice if you feel your child is at risk of being abducted

What we cannot do:

• 'rescue’ a child or become involved in any illegal attempts to bring the child back to the UK
• locate your child if you do not know where they are
• offer legal advice or interfere in the legal system of another county
• pay for your legal, travel and accommodation costs.

Dual Nationality

If your child has been taken to a county where they hold dual nationality, the local authorities may view the child as a resident of that country. This will limit what we can do.

The Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction

This is an international agreement which seeks to return abducted children to the country where they normally live so the courts of that country can decide on issues of custody and access.

Central Authorities in the UK are responsible for all cases that come under the convention. If your child has been abducted to a country which has signed the convention, you should contact the appropriate Central Authority (please see 'useful links' to the right). The Reunite website has a list of countries which have signed the Hague Convention.

The Ministry of Justice lead on Hague Convention cases, and we do not usually become involved, unless requested to do so by the Central Authority

Non Hague Convention Countries

Finding a solution is especially difficult if your child has been taken to a country which has not signed an international agreement on child abduction. We will however continue to provide practical advice.

The UK-Pakistan Judicial Protocol

If your child has been taken to Pakistan the UK-Pakistan Judicial Protocol may apply.

In January 2003, senior judges from the UK and Pakistan signed the UK-Pakistan Judicial Protocol on Children Matters.

This is an understanding between the judges of each country that the courts of a child's home country are best placed to determine the welfare of that child. 
When a child is wrongfully removed from or retained in the UK or Pakistan, the courts in that country won’t normally make decisions about residence (custody) or contact.  Instead, they will order the child to be returned to his or her home country, so that the courts there can hear the case.

A system of liaison judges in the UK and Pakistan facilitates the workings of this understanding.  The liaison judges ensure that the courts in each other's country are aware of any pre-existing court orders from the child's home country.

See the ‘Useful documents’ link to the right for:

• the text of the UK-Pakistan Judicial Protocol on Children Matters (January 2003, London)
• the Supplemental Judicial Guidelines on the UK-Pakistan Protocol (September 2003, Islamabad)
• the agreed points from the Panel Session Meeting with the UK-Pakistan Judiciary (February 2006, London)

If you choose to pursue the return of your child to the UK under the UK-Pakistan Protocol, you’ll need to commence legal proceedings first in the UK courts and then in the Pakistani courts.  Your first step should be to consult a lawyer in the UK.

We have produced a short leaflet on the protocol available in English and Urdu.