Some Colorado residents may be interested to learn that the two men whose former spouse fled to Europe with their children have been reunited with them after authorities tracked the mother to a town in France. The men traveled to the town of Divonne les Baines along the Swiss border, where a French judge ordered that the children be placed into their fathers’ care after the mother was arrested. The 32-year-old woman had been the subject of an international search after she left the United States with the children last summer and a U.S. District Court filed an arrest warrant in September.
The incident began after she was granted permission to take the children on a trip to Slovakia and the Czech Republic last June. After she did not return, both fathers filed child concealment complaints, after which they were granted sole child custody. The woman was found to have enrolled the children in a French school under fake names in an effort to avoid being found. The men have returned home with their children, and their mother could face up to six years in jail when she returns to the United States.
Enforcing a child custody order can sometimes be a difficult proposition. While most cases do not necessarily involve someone fleeing the country as a whole, some parents attempt to resist a custody agreement and deny the other party the right to enjoy a relationship with their child and influence their development.
If parents are unable to resolve such child custody disputes on their own, an attorney representing the aggrieved party may need to review the terms of their agreement and ascertain where and how one parent is failing to abide by it. In order to act in the best interests of the child, it may be necessary to initiate some form of legal action to obligate compliance with the custody agreement.
Source: Huffington Post, “Fathers Reunited With Their Kids 18 Months After Kidnapping“, Brenda Gazzar, December 30, 2013
