This Must Not Stand. Our Letter to the Australian Attorney General

A mother who fled domestic violence with her daughter has been forced to hand her 2-year-old over to a father who has made death threats to both the mother and the child. He will take the child - who, until a few days ago, was still being breastfed - back to his own country on the other side of the world. This is the brutality of the Hague Convention.

We have written to the Attorney-General to ask that he urgently intercede.

Dear Attorney-General

Yesterday we wrote on behalf of the international Hague Mother's Project to ask that you urgently intervene to protect an indigenous Australian mother and her two-year-old daughter. 

Since writing we have been contacted by a number of international experts who are working in this field and in related areas of domestic violence, child protection, child development and human rights. They have asked us to add their names to this renewed request.

As you are aware, under the Hague Abduction Convention, a return order has been granted to the mother's abusive ex-partner. The order has been made in spite of the fact that her former partner has made threats to kill both her and her child, and that he has an ADVO against him. It also ignores the significance of the child's indigenous heritage: the ex-partner is European and has no connection with, and no interest in, that heritage. 

Had your recent, welcome, changes to the Convention been retrospective, it is very likely that the judgment in this case would have been decided differently, and that both mother and child would have been protected by the Australian judicial system.

Instead, the mother is now facing the 'choice' of giving up her child to her violent father, or attempting to return to Europe with her daughter and facing further, potentially life-threatening, abuse, and economic hardship.

We call upon you to urgently intervene. If the return order is implemented there is a clear and profound risk of physical and psychological harm to both mother and child. 

We realise that an intervention is not straightforward. However, in all conscience, this judgment cannot be allowed to stand. 

Yours sincerely

Dr Adrienne Barnett (UK)

Reader in Law, Brunel Law School

Lisa Blakemore-Brown (UK)

HCPC Regulated Practitioner Educational Psychologist 

Yvette Cehtel (Aus)

CEO, Women's Legal Service Tasmania

Dr Elizabeth Dalgarno (UK)

Founder and Chair SHERA Research Group

Michelle Dörendahl (Aus)

Law clerk & advocate for women escaping violence

Ruth Dineen (UK)

International Coordinator, Hague Mothers 

Samantha Fill (New Zealand)

Co-founder, New Zealand Hague Collective

Anita Gera (UK)

Co-founding Trustee, Hague Convention Mothers

Louise Godbold (US)

Executive Director Echo Training, #MeToo Silence Breaker

Janine Hendry (Aus)

Spokesperson, Her Hague Story 

Dr Rima Hussein (UK)

Assistant Professor, Northumbria University

Sally Jackson (UK)

Violence Against Women Lead, FiLiA

Donna F. Johnson (Canada)

Domestic Violence Counsellor

Dr Emma Katz (UK)

Senior Lecturer in Childhood and Youth, Liverpool Hope University 

Miranda Kaye (Aus)

Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UTS

Anna Kerr (Aus)

Principal, Feminist Legal Clinic

Dr Gina Hope Masterton (Aus)

Research Fellow, QUT Centre for Justice

Ali Morris (UK)

VAWG social worker, trainer & consultant

Lydia Randall (New Zealand)

Co-founder, New Zealand Hague Collective

Rosa Saladino (Aus)

Principal, Hague Convention Legal Practice

Kathleen Simpson (Aus)

Principal, Domestic Violence & Family Lawyer, Queensland

Lisa-Marie Taylor (UK)

CEO, FiLiA

Dr Katarina Trimmings

Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Aberdeen University

Breffni Wahl (US)

Director, The Hague Collective