Dislocated lives: the experience of women survivors of family and domestic violence after being ‘Hagued’

ABSTRACT

This article reports on interviews with ten women who had experienced the legal process of the 1980 Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (the ‘Hague Convention’ or the ‘Convention’). We refer to that experience as being ‘Hagued’. All the women were subjected to a Hague return order after fleeing family and domestic violence perpetrated by their previous partner, because they fled with their children across international borders. Subsequently, all women were ordered to return their children to the country where their abusive previous partner lived. Nine out of the ten women also returned with their children. On return the women experienced further harms: they were vulnerable to, further intimidation and controlling behaviour from previous partners; they became homeless; and they felt punished in ordered from returning country’s courts through reduced contact and custody arrangements. The article concludes by suggesting if the Convention, the domestic implementation laws and ultimately the courts assessing return applications, placed greater emphasis and understanding on family and domestic violence, then the women interviewed probably would not have been ordered to return their children and they would not have experienced further post-Hague harm.

KEYWORDS:

• The Hague child abduction convention
• international child abduction
• family and domestic violence
• post-separation violence
• post-separation homelessness
• women’s stories

Acknowledgments

The authors are deeply grateful to the women who participated in the study to share and discuss their private and personal experiences of post-Hague abuse.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. # Note ‘To Australia’ means the woman had left Australia with her children and was in another country when the previous partner in Australia made the Hague application. As such the courts in the other country ordered her children to be returned to Australia ‘From Australia” means that the women left the other country with her children to come to Australia. The previous partner made the Hague application from the other country, and an Australian court ordered her children to be returned to the other country.

2. P5ʹs experiences are important because this is her experience of the Hague process. It should be noted that in jurisdictions such as England and Wales, in some circumstances the Hague courts can condition a return order that the child remain in the care and control of the women until there is an inter partes hearing. In Re H (and others) Minors [1997] UKHL 12. However, this capacity is dependent on both states being signatories to the Hague Convention of 19 October 1996 on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Co-operation in Respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children 2204 UNTS 95 (entered into force 1 January 2002). It is significant to note that the requesting country of many of the women we spoke with had not signed the 1996 convention.