An Overview of Parental Child Snatching in 2013 in San Diego: Is This a Possibility in Your Divorce, Paternity or Legal Separation Case?

In San Diego, many children are taken by force or deceit every year. Unfortunately, 2013 does not seem like it will be different. Emotions running high, such as in legal separation, divorce and paternity cases, are part of these abductions. Child-snatching has been reported to have reached epidemic proportions in the United States with cases being reported every day.

The tragic part of the exercise is that even though lawmakers, parents and the general public– Judges, lawyers, legislators, diplomats, and the police ceaselessly endeavor to find a solution to the problem, it still exists in San Diego and around the entire country. The issue, if the abduction lasts any period of time and the “Stockholm Syndrome” is present is how to re-unite a child with the custodial parent in the quickest time possible. Though many cases of child kidnapping in and out of San Diego occur because of a custody decree which is unfavorable to one parent, in other cases of parental kidnappings take place before the issue of custody has been decided by the Courts.

Parental kidnapping is abducting or concealing a child from the other parent without consent. Parental kidnapping or abduction is synonymous with “child stealing” and “child snatching” in many publications.

One study reported that in half the cases the abducting parent intended to permanently alter custodial access by hiding the child or removing and taking the child away from the state or even taking the child out of the country. Another study reported 350,000 cases of child abduction annually in the United States. About ten thousand of those cases involved American children being held in foreign countries and used for leverage in custody disputes between one parent with American citizenship and the other being a foreign national.

No one knows if these statistics are completely accurate or not. Whether they are accurate or not, the incidence of child abduction is higher than it should be which is none. Children should not be the victims and should have their interests placed ahead of their parents according to the law in San Diego.

The numbers of kidnapping in international child abduction might be ascribed to the rising incidence of marriages and subsequent divorce between couples of different nationalities. Intrinsic to such bi-national marriages are differences in culture, ethnicity, and religion. Abductions are considerably easier with the ease of international travel and the fact that many of the children holding dual-nationality and two passports. In San Diego, it is easy to walk across the border into Tijuana with no customs or inspection and then go to the foreign embassy in Mexico to obtain a passport for parents with dual nationality or even single foreign nationality for their children or child. Once the new passport has been issued from the child, then travel can be arranged from Mexico directly without the parent or child ever coming into contact again with US soil. Mexico is a member of the Hague Convention but this my not give protection if the travel is simply originating from Mexico with a foreign passport.

The other problem is with the incidence of kidnapping by non-custodial parents who believe that their actions are driven by the best interests of the child. The motives of most parents who kidnap their children are not always altruistic. Parents are often able to conjure up a multitude of reasons to justify theft of a child from another parent. Some parents look to a minor transgression as a validation of their action while others might have revenge as the underlying motive. In any event, all have to comply with lawful court orders.

If you are fighting an issue of child kidnapping or abduction or are involved in a child custody dispute you can contact the family law firm of Doppelt and Forney, APLC which practices in San Diego, CA. This is an established law firm with considerable expertise in this field.