Sally: I’m Sally Jackson, I'm one of the volunteers and trustee at FiLiA, and I'm really pleased to be joined today by an amazing woman I've had the pleasure to meet and work with over the last year or so. Anita, good to see you, Anita. 

Anita: Hi, Sally. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to come and talk to you about my life and my work and the things I would like all the women out there to know about.

Sally: Oh, we really appreciate your time and all the work that you are doing. In fact, that feels like a really good place to start. You've got an organization called Hague Explained. Perhaps can you tell us a little bit about you? And Hague Explained?

Anita: Yes, I'd love to. Hague Explained is a non-profit, it's community interest company, A CIC or a CIC, depending on how people want to actually say the acronym.

So we are officially a non-profit and we were founded about two years ago. Myself and another mother, Sarah Kinnaird, who's also been through Hague cases. She was actually, I believe the first Mother in the world, to go through two Hague Conventions or Hague Abduction convention cases several years ago. So we understand what it's all about and how much trauma it causes to entire families and communities. 

Sally: Absolutely. And in some ways it's that brilliant, it does what it says on the tin, Hague Explained. But can you tell me a little bit about what the organization does? 

Anita: Yes. The name was Sarah's brilliant idea, she said, it needs to do what it says on the tin.

Explain it to people immediately. What do we do? We try and explain to people who need to know or who should know what The Hague Abduction Convention is all about that's The Hague Convention on the International Abduction and Retention of Children. First signed in 1980, so 40 odd years old now.

And what we want to do is to help illuminate how that convention works, sadly, to traumatize international families. 

Anyone who's moving abroad, thinking of moving abroad or has a partner from another country, is themselves from another country and moves with children across an international border. If you are in a relationship that goes wrong and you want to leave that country with your children, you can't do it without the permission of the other parent.

If you do, then you could run into the danger of falling into a Hague Convention case. And what that case will probably do to you is make sure that the children are sent back to where you've just tried to leave very quickly, ideally, according to the convention within six weeks. And you will then probably land up in family court in that other country where, if you go by the experience that myself and so many other mothers have made, you'll be treated as an immigrant without the same rights as a citizen. You will be an abductor, possibly seen as a criminal. Some of the mothers in my research have spent time in prison up to 12 months in prison for trying to keep their children safe.

And it's also highly probable that you will not get custody of your children even if you were previously their primary care or their sole carer. And you might have to leave the country if you don't have the visa. you don't have a job, you don't have financial support or family support, and you might not see your children again for many years.

And that's something people don't realize when they happily move abroad with their children or have children in other country with somebody. 

The thing to think about is why would a mother pick up a child or her children and leave a home to go to another country? 

Now, statistics tell us that generally in these cases, the mother is trying to get to her home country. And why would a mother want to go home with her children without the other parent? 

There's a lot in the news over the last few years about domestic abuse, domestic violence, and we're all told if that happens, if the relationship is bad and there is some sort of abuse going on in the relationship, just leave. Where do you go? if you're in a foreign country? Where are you going to go? 

You may not understand the systems that could help you. You might not speak the language. You may not have financial resources, a home to go to, somewhere to stay, so you want to go home. Of course, you want to go home where your family is, where your friends are, where you understand a little bit better how to seek help and safety for yourself and your children.

And that's why The Hague Convention can step in and destroy all those dreams of security and freedom for you and your children. 

Sally: And I think one of the things and we've spoken about is it's one of those things that is so completely devastating, but actually not heard about an awful lot. So the reality is domestic abuse services, solicitors, family court advice services, et cetera, may not have come across a Hague case. 

It's not as if the usual support and experts that you would go to would be aware of what might be happening next and be able to give you the best advice. 

Anita: Exactly. That's exactly one of the big problems that a lot of these mothers, myself included face. I know in my own case, for example, here in the UK, I went to, I approached Women's Aid who offered me a place in a refuge.

I went to the police to say that actually my ex-husband was threatening to come and just take the children away from me. And they said, oh no, that you can't do that. You are all British. You live here. We're going to put a residents order or something in place and we'll keep you safe. 

What they don't realize is that they can't, because The Hague Convention is international, it trumps any domestic law.

And so what we're trying to do now with Hague Explained is to bring that awareness to the organizations that need to know as well as the families that need to know. 

So we've been very grateful to have the opportunity to work with FiLiA, with the FiLiA Hague Mothers Project in developing some training programs to offer to charities here in the UK and across Europe.

We worked with Wave in Europe already to help educate them on what The Hague Convention is so that if a mother approaches them looking for a way to keep herself and her children safe, they will be aware of the fact The Hague Convention exists. And if there's a risk of it coming into play or if it's already started, they will know that they need to look at different measures to keep that mother and her children safe.

Sally: Thank you. And you alluded there to the fact that one of the motivations for this for you is the fact that you've been affected directly, personally by The Hague Abduction Convention and just, whatever you feel comfortable with,  would you mind talking a little bit about what happened and how that's impacted on you?

Anita: Yes, of course. To cut a very long and very complex story down to one sentence, what it's meant to me is that I haven't seen my children for almost exactly 10 years. I've lost their entire childhoods, their entire teenage years. Haven't been able to see them. My son just turned 20, so that was it. From 10 to 20. No. No chance to see him at all. Very little contact. 

Just to go back to the beginning of all that, my children were born in Germany where I'd lived for many years. They were entitled to German citizenship, so they were born with triple citizenship, which is quite rare and quite fortunate.

They had British German and their father was an American citizen, so they also got American citizenship. We moved to the United States when my youngest child, my daughter was just about three months old. And we lived in the States for about seven years. Myself and my ex-husband as a family in Phoenix, Arizona.

It is quite nice. It's an interesting place to be. He was a pilot, a commercial pilot, so away most of the week. Which made life bearable for us because when he was around, he was very controlling, very abusive, and quite terrifying quite honestly. After seven or eight years, during which time I did not talk about any relationship problems I had with anybody because I was terrified of what he would do.

He made it very clear to me that if I did anything against him, he would make sure I never saw my children again. And I believed him knowing him. I believed him. He would do whatever it took to make sure I never saw my children again. So I did nothing. After seven years or so. I was allowed to come back to the UK every summer to visit my family.

But of course, during that time, he wouldn't provide any financial help for us. So all the money we had stayed in the US and I had to get money here from my family. But after seven years, we were allowed to come back to help my parents who needed assistance in finding more appropriate accommodation as they were getting older.

So he said to me. Take the kids, go back for a slightly longer visit. Of course, he got us the tickets as a commercial pilot. He was entitled to various tickets and arranged that, took us to the airport, saw us onto the plane, said to me, yep, put the kids in school over there. That's fine. They're British.

You're entitled to that. They can go to school. Yes, rent a house. Go to your government. Tell them that we're separated, so they'll give you social security money as they call it, welfare in America. So I did go because I had no other. financial resources, my salary, I had a little salary that I earned as a freelance journalist.

The first few months he kept that in the US and didn't let me have it until I was able to get to the publication I was working for and change my bank account details to my British Bank account. So we literally had nothing. We were dependent on the kindness of friends and family. Our British government, social services luckily did support me.

I got help financial help being a single mother with my children, they went to school. They were very happy. They saw aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents every week fitted in brilliantly. I'm half Indian, so even living in the United States, I'd made sure that my son went to cricket lessons. I was part of the Indian diaspora.

And there was a children's cricket club set up by some of the Indian families, and we went to that every week, so coming to the UK, we went to the cricket club, he fitted straight in and they were amazed. This American seeming boy could play cricket. Wow. And he was like, yes, but I'm also Indian. So that was great. The kids fitted in really well, made lots of friends. Did very well. 

What I didn't know about was The Hague Convention. And there are very few defences to The Hague Convention. Perhaps we could talk about that later if there's time. But one of the things is it does usually work very quickly, but of course you might move abroad with your children with permission from the other parent, which is what happened to me.

He visited a few times, came and saw the school and then suddenly after 11 and a half months. After 11 months, he said, right, you can come home now. And I thought it's the middle of Easter term. Maybe we can just wait till the end of term, if not the end of the school year would be better, but at least the end of term, not to take them off quickly.

You know, today's Tuesday off you go to school. Tomorrow's Wednesday, we're going to the airport. So that's not good for the children. It's not good for their education. They're halfway through the school year. His literal words to me were, I don't care about their education. I'm telling you to come home now.

I don't think you can do that. Actually. I'm finding a place where I'm not afraid that you're going to get me deported or shoot me because that happens with alarming regularity in the States that partners get shot. It's ‘terrible accidents,’ obviously every time. So I'm not so afraid of you now. I'm here in Britain.

I'm supported. It's my home country. It's the children's country as well. And I think people will help us here. So I'm not saying I won't come back. I just think we need to discuss when we come back, which is best for the children. And he said, no, I'm going to come and take the children. You can do what you want, but I'm taking the children. You can fuck off for all I care, whatever. 

Hang on a minute. I've been on my own with the children for many years, basically, and completely on my own for almost a year now. You can't just come and take the children. So at that point, I went to the police and said, my husband is threatening to just come and take the children.

Can he do that? No, of course not. Absolutely not. No. Can't do that. Can't take the children out of the country. What they didn't know about was The Hague convention, because unfortunately in general, you get 12 months to change your mind. So when you've given permission for your partner, wife, and children to go to live in another country saying, yes, rent a house. Yes. Put them in school. Yes. Tell everyone we're separated to get money from the government to show that you get no support from me. After 11 and a half months. You can change your mind said, but I want you back now. 

There was me thinking I was safe and the children were safe. And we'd made it. We got a cat in Arizona. I'd always said to the children; you can't have pets here. It's not fair on the pets. It's too hot. And if you had a cat that couldn't go outside, it could be eaten by a mountain lion or a coyote or something like that. And for dogs you had to be really careful and they had to wear shoes because it would get too hot for their feet and all sorts of things.

So I said, of course, if we ever go to live in Europe again. We'll start with a cat. So we had got a cat the day after my son's ninth birthday. We got the cat and they just loved this cat, like all children. They just loved animals. They were so happy to have a pet. So we were starting to feel settled and happy and comfortable, and then we were landed with this case.

I knew nothing about it. I didn't understand what it was. I had no idea what was going to come. Of course we had to go back. It was a very long, complicated case. More complicated than most I think.

 The children refused first time to go, but I was told they had to go. The court will send tip staff to take the children and put them on a plane if the mother won't go.

So I said, of course, I'll go. And I was told, get them on the plane, otherwise we will come and take them. So I had to explain to my children, we have to go back. So we went back. My legal team got me an order protection because my ex-husband had also been arrested in this country for raping me for marital rape which I didn't understand.

Funnily enough, I'd left this country to live abroad a year before marital rape became a crime in the UK, in England and Wales. So I guess I missed out on all that being in the media. I knew it was wrong. I didn't know that it would be viewed as a crime, which of course it should be. So when the police did a dash assessment and went through all these questions, which I just answered, I was like, whatever information you need, yes, you're the police.

And they said, oh, you've reported a crime. And I went, have I? What is it? I said, marital rape. I went, oh, it's a crime. Oh. Yes. Good. Yeah, fine. Completely. So because of that, they had arrested him. The case never went anywhere because of course there's no evidence is there. Most people don't have crowds of camera crews watching, so, no.

But my legal team did get an order protection and various undertakings. Including things like he was not to be at the airport when we got back, he was to provide secure accommodation, financial help, transport and so on. We got back, of course, he was at the airport. So we were terrified right from the get go.

What I didn't realize, what my legal team didn't explain to me is that these orders of protection have to be domesticated in the other jurisdiction in the other country. So I didn't know this. So I got to the States with my piece of paper order protection. It's going to keep me safe because everyone knows a piece of paper is the best security you can have. It's like an armour, it's like a force field around you. You've got this piece of paper; it's absolutely fucking useless. 

The domestic violence agency I contacted in the States did say to me, you need to go to the family court the day you, or the day after you arrive. Obviously, get there, work out where you are staying, get the children settled, and the next day go to your local family court, show them your order of protection and get them to give you a local one.

And I went, oh. Okay, so this is not a force field in America. It's only a force field in England. because we all know that here, once you get your order of protection, you're safe. Right? It works. So I said, okay. So I went off to the family court the next morning. And I spoke to a lovely judge. He said, I've got this from England. And he went, right. He said: you did live here before? I said, yes. Yes. Over a year ago, about 16 months ago since we left. But the English court gave me this order of protection. He says, so where did you live? I explained, he said, and where is your ex-husband? I said he's in the house. He said no. You and the children go back to that house. That's where you lived. So he has to leave and you have to live in that house. I said I'm not trying to cause any problems. I don't want to upset anybody. I don't want to make him even angrier than he already is, so it's fine. We can just stay with friends.

He said no. Here's an order of protection. It's not just for you, it's for your children as well, and you get to stay in the house and everything. 

What I didn't realize is that while I was talking to this very nice judge in one family court, my ex-husband was already in another. One of the other undertakings or orders, I forget what they were now, was that he was not allowed to file anything in court until I was safely on the ground in Phoenix, and that would mean there would be a gap between him filing an application and any sort of hearing, which would give me time to get over the jet lag, to get the children settled and to find myself a lawyer.

He had tried to meet us at the airport the evening we landed and there'd been someone called a processor, that's someone who gives you legal papers in America, with him who tried to give me this big envelope, which I was like, I'm not taking it. I don’t know what it is. And I don’t know anything about the laws here or anywhere really. I wasn't, I'm still not a lawyer. I said, I, if I take this paperwork, does it mean I'm accepting something? Agreeing to something said no, I'm not going to take it. 

He threw it at my feet and I walked off with the children and they called the police and said she needs to take these papers. And the police went, you should take these papers. And I was like no. Leave me alone. You know, I know that I've got to get an order protection here, now I've got to find a lawyer. I've got to find someone who will explain to me what's happening. I'm not going to take anything from anyone until I understand and have someone to help me. 

So when I was in family court the next morning, getting my order protection as I now understand it, domesticated, he was at the first hearing in family court.

My wife abducted my children. She's just brought them back to Arizona. Obviously the children should be with me. She needs to fuck off. The Children stay with me. And we all live happy ever after. And the judge, in her wisdom went of course, evil foreign wife, foreign mother, her dreadful poor children. Of course, they must be with you and only with you. You must have everything you want because she hasn't even bothered to show up to court, has she? 

So that's basically how I ended up losing everything, including my children, because I hadn't bothered to show up for court. 

Sally: As dreadful as it is, and there's so many moments as you were explaining there, where you know, you can imagine for all of you, for you and your children, just their world being sort of torn apart and what's going on.

And each of those moments, I think the thing that is difficult sometimes for people to get their heads around are state sanctioned. So this is, you know, and I suppose in some ways to be fair to The Hague Convention, when it was originally bought in, the purpose behind it was very much about protecting women.

And, they were aware that fathers were taking children and abducting them. And so that piece of legislation was designed to be protective. But unfortunately one of the things we know about domestic abuse perpetrators is they will use all means necessary. And so having worked out how they can make the most of this law, as you say, isn't it interesting that the proceedings and the court order to come back home was just under the year that is required with The Hague Convention?

Anita: And that happens to an alarming number of mothers the ones who've had permission from the partners. It's like, it is it's a form of torture really. I think they enjoy watching us think that we've found freedom and blossoming again in the children. I mean, God, the children just blossomed here. They were so happy. And then they reel you in like a fish on the hook. 

They've seen you jump away and think you've got freedom and whooosh, pull you back. 10 months, 11 months. You think I'm going to make it? You don't know. You don't know that there's this year. You're thinking, I've been here. pretty much a year. Obviously things are okay now. We're safe, we're settled. Children, when we left, the children were seven and nine. That age a year is an awfully long time and they're completely settled in their new home. So saying that it has to be exactly 12 months. It's really nonsense. 

And to go back to what you said, Sally.

Yes. When the convention was first drafted, obviously it was drafted in the late 1970s. The world was a very different place, wasn't it? We didn't have global mobility in the same way that we have today. It's not as easy, it wasn't as easy for people to move abroad, although my mother moved to marry my father in India. But it was, she was quite an unusual case in those days.  

And in the late seventies and early eighties, yes, it was nice. Mothers were meeting these for charming foreign gentlemen who would sort of, after a few years of having a family with them, we said, oh, take the children back to see my family. You can have a bit, couple of weeks off, dear, you've been working so hard. And she'd say, oh, how wonderful. You are such a charming gentleman. Thank you so much. And off he'd go and he'd bugger off and go, that's it. Never coming back. 

So yes, it was drafted for excellent reasons and with excellent intentions to safeguard the children, bring them home to their primary carer.

But today it's mostly used the other way around, as he said, where the fathers find out that they can use this to bring the children back. And of course, in general, the mother goes with the children.

Sally: Yes, as you said, so she's uprooted as well, in a country where there may be very heavy restrictions on actually how she can live her life there because of visa requirements and whether she can work, not work, own property, not own property.

And equally those requirements, it may be that her visa's removed and she doesn't even get the option of staying there with the children she's returned back to the home country and separated from those children 

Anita: Separated from the children, definitely. But if she does manage to stay in the country and a lot of mothers stay, working under the table, cash in hand. because they can't legally work. They're struggling to survive in the countries and taken away from their entire support network. So their chances to actually have a career have contact with their own families is removed. We talk about freedom of movement and that people should have the opportunity to live wherever they want to live. But if you're a mother with children and the father says no, you don't have that freedom of movement. 

Sally: And again, you alluded to, you mentioned, obviously this was, it's been 10 years. So we're talking about not an event that's happening that's traumatic for children, but something that's impacting more or less their entire childhood. And it again, just with what you feel comfortable with, but I know recently events have, things have happened again that have shown some of the craziness of the way in which this impacts on mothers and on children as well. And I wondered if you felt able to tell us a little bit about that.

Anita: of course. Absolutely. But I'll just backtrack a little bit. In my divorce settlement, I think they called it, the judge in her wisdom said that the children their primary residence should be with their father. But every school holiday, they were to spend the time with me. So 12 weeks of the year with me and the remainder living under his roof.

I was to see them in the school holiday time, but we were to work together to decide on schooling, on healthcare, religion, you know, all those important factors. We were to decide together. Shared custody basically. But in her wisdom, and I keep stressing to ‘her’ because it was kind of a shock to me. She also said if we couldn't agree, he got to make the final decision.

So it's not really joint custody, is it? So what he did, almost immediately, he wrote me an email and said, yeah, it shared custody. You have a right to be involved in everything, but I get to make the final decision. So I'm not going to talk to you about anything. I'm just going to make the decision and there's nothing you can do about it.

And there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't stay in the US for a variety of reasons. I did have a green card so I could legally have stayed, but I had no job history, no support, no finances, no healthcare, nothing. So I had to come back to the UK where I had all those things and had support and a wonderful NHS, which I would always be grateful.

The children were supposed to be permitted to visit me in the UK and see their maternal family. And again, he said, no, you can come to Phoenix. I was homeless for a year. I was on Universal credit for four years when I got back, I didn't have the money to go flying backwards and forwards to the US.

He could have brought them over here. Free of cost, or very cheaply, of course, as a pilot. And I had a flat with family support. You know, we could have travelled around and seen friends and family in the UK, had little holidays. I had little car that I'd managed to save up and buy so I could have looked after them and given them some kind of a holiday here.

But how could I do that in the States? I would've had to go back there for several weeks for their holiday time, rent accommodation, rent a vehicle, have health insurance for myself, feed them, entertain them, couldn't work while I was out. You know, it was absolutely impossible. I just didn't have the resources.

So the children grew up without me, without their maternal family. There was no real paternal family involvement. He did move his mother out to live with them. She had Alzheimer's, so that was a difficult time, I believe. But no aunts, uncles, cousins, anything like that were seen regularly at all. Not like when we were back in England.

And he actually stopped communicating with me at all in 2016. So after about three years, that was it. No more contact. I did have contact with my children on electronically, so on WhatsApp, mostly, texting, video calls and so on. So more with my daughter than with my son. 

(with my daughter) We had a little book club going with my mum, their grandmother and with my new partner, we tried to cook together, but she had no help. So she'd go to the shops and buy completely the wrong things. I go, mom, I've got this. She had to do something, take some treats into school once, and she was very proud of being part Indian, a quarter Indian.

And some kids at school were also Indian, so they knew how to say her name, how to pronounce it correctly, and she would say, oh, you know, they understand what my name means and everything. And she said, I want to make something Indian. So she went to shops and she came home with a Thai curry paste. I was like, ah. I was like, why can't someone just help her just once be there and just give her that assistant? But no. So we tried, but it was difficult, obviously, Christmas, birthdays, we had video calls, sent gifts as much as I could, as much as I could afford. Tried sometimes to do online shopping with my daughter. We'd look at H and M, the catalogue online and choose a couple of things. But I couldn't help her if it didn't fit and she had to take it back. She didn't know what to do and nobody would help her. This went on and on. I had very little contact with their schools because obviously they were told I was an evil abductor.

Suddenly, last year, my ex-husband who'd continued to be a commercial pilot, so out of State most of the week. My kids grew up with girlfriends that he moved in and out and then au pairs just so they could be driven to school. And once my son was old enough to have a driving license, then they didn't need an adult in the house anymore because he could drive them both to school.

So that was that. 

So suddenly last year, my ex-husband passed away tragically. Very unexpectedly. He was on a break in the Caribbean having flown. He was a captain of an aircraft, so having flown the aircraft out, he was having a break, his girlfriend was there, they went swimming or snorkelling, and he unfortunately died unexpectedly and suddenly, so my first thought was my children are now completely alone. I've got to get out there somehow by hook or by crook and see them because as an adult, you know, there's a lot more to a house than just, here's $10, go and get yourself a smoothie. You know, there are taxes to pay, there are utility bills to pay. The car's got to be serviced and maintained. Insurance has got to, you know, so many things. 

So I thought apart from anything else and the emotional support. Which will be difficult because we haven't seen each other now for almost nine years. But I have to be there for them. So I borrowed money, managed to get permission to enter the US. It wasn't easy because I'd had a green card, so that was a legal obstacle to have to jump over. Got to the US finally, and my children suddenly did a 180 degree turn and refused all contact with me. So we'd gone from chatting on WhatsApp to no contact. I got told, you're not a mother. We don't ever want to see you or speak to you.

I spent two and a half weeks there and I didn't get to see them. I went to social services and said, can you help me? My daughter is still a minor. She needs an adult. I'm her parent, I'm here. And they said, no, there's nothing we can do to help. I went to the police, I said, can you help me? And they said, oh yes, we can help. Yep. I said, great. Brilliant. 

So they said what we can do is we can put out an Amber alert, which is a nationwide alert for a missing child. They said if you report her as missing because you don’t know where she is, I didn't know where she was, we were issue an amber alert. So every police force across the entire United States will get the details. Whichever police officer spots her will stop her. Remember by this stage, my daughter is 17, she has her own car. They will stop her and bring her to Phoenix if she's not in the city, and to juvenile detention where she will wait until you can pick her up. I said, what? I said? I said if she doesn't want to go with you, oh, put her in handcuffs and bring her.

I said no. You cannot do that to my daughter. Now my ex-husband now deceased, was African American. So my children are half African American, one quarter Indian and one quarter British White. In the United States they're black. There's no nuances. They are black. So to pick up a beautiful 17-year-old girl and put her in handcuffs and bring her back to juvenile detention no.

So he said, that's all we can do. So I spent two and a half weeks trying to make contact. Offering ways to see them. I would sit in cafes and say, look, I'm going to be in this cafe for three hours. You can come and look through the window, you know, come in. If it was a public place, it's safe. I can come to wherever you are, I could meet you, whatever you want to do. But nothing.

So in the end, I had to come home without having seen them. I didn't want to force myself on them. I didn't go to the house and ring the doorbell because I. If they really are, they're obviously very traumatized. They've just lost their father, who's the only parent they've known for the best part of 10 years.

I don't want to further traumatize them by forcing myself on them. If for some reason they're feeling uneasy. I don’t know what lies they've been told for nine years. Yes, we've spoken on WhatsApp, but suddenly having the person in reality is a different thing. So I came home. 

Then, I started being abused and threatened by the father of one of my daughter's friends. It was quite surreal. While I'd been in the States, I'd actually phoned him. I've never met the man. I don’t know him, I'd phoned him because my son, when I said, I need to know where my daughter is, I'm going to go to the authorities. My son had said, here's a name and address. She's with this family, you can call the father.

So he'd given me the phone number and the name and address. So I phoned up and said, you know, thank you for looking after her. How is she? can you help me? Of course I want to see her. What can I do? Do you need anything? Is there anything I can help you with? And he basically just shouted at me and said.

You are not her mother. You're just biological, you just happened to give birth to her. You're a biological parent. You were never a mother. You've never cared for your children. You've never been …  what? Who are you? And he hung up on me, and I thought who is this man? And it turns out that he had been given my ex-husband's laptop and all the passwords he had all the paperwork, he had my children's passports, birth certificates, driving licenses, health insurance cards. He had everything. I don’t know why. He'd actually said to one of my ex-husband's cousins, I had some contact with them, that he'd never been a close friend of my ex-husband's.

So why did he have all this? I don’t know. He started threatening me. Quite unpleasant, very nasty abuse and writing essays on WhatsApp, just going on and on, and phoning me 3, 4, 5, 6 times in succession late at night here. It was so triggering and traumatizing. I mean, I'm a victim survivor of quite unpleasant domestic abuse and violence.

And to have this man shouting at me and not stopping, not giving up, trying and trying. I felt so threatened and terrified and so I got in touch with the police and the courts and what can I do? I applied for an injunction in America, excuse me, an injunction against harassment. And I actually had a hearing, a virtual hearing, and the judge looked at all the evidence of all these messages and said but you've never responded.

I was like no, of course not. I've not responded. No. I would, no. And he said how's he supposed to know that you don't want these messages? I what? He said he might think you like it! .. what being threatened and abused? and the judge who was quite pleasant really, but he said legally you have not told him not to contact you or communicate with you. So I cannot give you an injunction because as far as he's concerned, you've not said anything. He's like, oh, I'll just continue then. And I said, so if someone threatens you, you have to tell them not to. Otherwise, it's okay. Who knew. So, okay. I then didn't hear from him for a while, so I thought okay. At least it stopped. And then it suddenly started again and I got this long email. One of the things he tried to do over several months was to get me to sign power of attorney over my daughter for him or his wife. Or for a friend of theirs. And of course I said, no, I'm not giving my daughter away. I don't know you. You are threatening me. I'm not going to sign away my daughter's rights to you. I don't know who you are. 

So he wrote me a very long email. I. Honestly, it's about five pages of text threatening me and explaining in great detail that he would be contacting social services. He would be reporting me as an abusive and neglectful mother who'd abandoned her children again, and my daughter would be taken away from me and I would lose all my parental rights.

So at this point I thought, right. I got back in touch with the court went, there you go. I've told him not to contact me. He's done it. I got the injunction immediately. They went, yes, absolutely, here's the injunction. But he did go to social services. He did tell them that I'd abused and neglected my children. Hadn't even bothered to see them for nine years. 

Social services took my daughter into care. Immediately because she was a minor, she was 17. She couldn't be just left on her own. And yeah, to cut a long story short, I basically lost most of my parental rights, which I hadn't been able to exercise anyway.

She was taken into foster care, first of all, with one of these friends that he'd wanted me to give power of attorney to. It was all very complicated. I still can't really get my head around it. But then she wasn't very happy there. I wonder why. And so they found another foster family. So she had to find a foster family.

She'd been living in her father's house, this beautiful big house that he bought the minute our divorce was almost finalized. So she'd been living there with her brother, but her brother threw her out of the house. And so she couldn't live there anymore, so she had to go and live with the foster carer, foster family.

I was not given any contact information for the foster family. I was told, first of all, by social services, if they want you to be in contact, they'll get in touch. So I waited. And then finally after about three months, social services said Oh yeah, of course you can have their contact details here.

This is about four weeks before my daughter's 18th birthday, so really fucking useless. I was landed in family court again. Having spent months in family court almost 10 years prior to this, going through my divorce and custody proceedings then with my ex-husband, I was suddenly in family court again fighting for my daughter who was taken into the care of the state because I was ‘abusive and neglectful.’

Now, fortunately, I was given a pro bono attorney lawyer who was actually a really decent guy. In the beginning, he was like, oh, you horrible foreign mother. You've abused your children all these years. This is a terrible thing. Thank God you're not there. By the end of it, he was like, oh, thank you. You do great work.

You know, keep doing what you're doing and I'm so sorry this is happening to you. So he's a really great man. He said he had three daughters, so he said, I can only imagine if this was happening to one of my daughters. So he fought for me in court and he had this ridiculous allegation that I was abusive and neglectful and refusing to provide a home for my children, thrown out of court.

I said, of course. I've got a house here now, thanks to being with my wonderful partner. I've got a home, I've always made sure I've got spare bedrooms so that if they ever do come back, there's room for them. There's space for them. We've got two extra bedrooms; we've got an extra bathroom. There's room, their cat, I've still got their bloody cat.

Whatever problem she's caused me, I've still got this bloody expensive cat. So, you know, we've got a home here. Her grandmother, her uncles, aunts, cousins extended family will go back to celebrating all the Indian festivities that we always did celebrate when they were kids that they've lost out on.

We'll celebrate things here. And then the court said yes, but she doesn't want to be in England. But I can't live in the US. I now legally do not have a green card. I have no way of being in the US more than 90 days. So I can't provide a home. I have no job. I have no money to come there. I'm still not rich.

I'm still dependent on other people's largesse for a lot of the time. But I can provide a home here. Free education, free healthcare, you know, they can be looked after. No, but the courts decided I was not neglectful or abusive. So she was taken into care because of her own behaviour, which is not great, but I guess she was kind of looked after. I don't know. 

They talked about things like alcohol, substance abuse, adult dating sites and all. I've got a Master's I went I spent the last 10 years trying to educate myself and understand what happens and why and how. I've got a master's now in Women and Child Abuse and hearing things like adult dating sites and my daughter's 17, absolutely terrifying as well as substance abuse and alcohol.

Of course, alcohol is completely illegal in the US until you are 21, so really concerning. But there was nothing I could do, so my daughter went into foster care. She turned 18 earlier this year. I have absolutely no contact whatsoever. I wrote to the family, the foster family. As soon as I got the contact details, I sent an email offering, you know, whatever help information I could give, and hoping they would help me have contact. I never got a response. 

She's now 18, so any contact obviously is only up to her. Nobody else. My son just turned 20. I have no contact with him. I sent him a birthday card. Obviously I still have the address at the house they've spent 10 years in. For my daughter, I couldn't even send her a card for her 18th birthday because, I don’t know where she is. 

Family court is finished because she's 18. So that was just for the child part, but we're now back in court because one of her lawyers, court appointed probate attorney, my ex-husband died intestate without a will, without a trust, without setting up anything for our children. He was fairly wealthy, so there's quite a lot of assets there.

So my daughter was appointed a probate attorney by the family court. He became very concerned about her assets and her inheritance. Both my children are going to be very rich once probate is through, they probably already have access to quite a lot of funds from insurance pay-outs and so on, there'll be more once probate is complete.

And this lawyer talked to my daughter and said, you know, you are just turning 18. You are on your own pretty much now because you are refusing to have contact with your mother. You should not have -  I don’t know how much money it is, but it’s a lot -  It's not a good idea for you to have this. Why don't we put it into a trust for you? You'll get a lump sum to go and have a nice time to start with, and then you'll get a regular amount to live off. So you won't be poor, you won't be desperate for money, but the majority of it will be safeguarded. And she's a very intelligent girl. She wants to study medicine. She said, oh, yes, that's a good idea.

So she'd agreed. They'd talked through what sort of trust it was going to be. She'd agreed to it all. And on or just after her 18th birthday, she was going to come and sign it all. A few days before her 18th birthday, she got back in touch. And said - Nope. Changed my mind. Not going to do that. So he was absolutely aghast.

I had a nice conversation with him. He said, you know, this is, there's something going wrong here. I haven't set up proceedings for guardianship of your daughter because she was agreeing to everything. She seemed sensible and intelligent and she was agreeing. She could see where the problems are. And now we've only got a few days.

So we had a final, a family court hearing the week before her 18th birthday, and then they're absolutely final one the day before her 18th birthday. But there was nothing anyone could do. And so he filed for an emergency conservatorship hearing for an adult. 

So those proceedings have begun and what he wants to do is to put in place some sort of conservatorship.

I don’t know all the details. I'm not privy to most of the information obviously because my daughter's an adult, but I am still her mother. I am still legally her next of kid unless and until she gets married, I remain her next of kin. So I was invited to attend the court proceedings. Her brother is her next of kin after me, so he was also invited.

He did not attend. It was all virtual, so I was able to come to the hearing from the UK. It was an interesting hearing. She's obviously not happy about it, but I did have a chance to see her on camera for the first time in many months. Actually, probably more than a year. She was accompanied by someone from social services who was a coach.

The interesting thing in the hearing was it was mostly lawyers and financial people, my daughter and me and the judge, and the clerk of the court and so on. But there are also two men in this hearing. And the judge wanted to know who everybody was. Obviously you are allowed to phone in so you don't have to have a camera on. So there were two numbers, which was just the phone number. One of them gave his name and the judge said, and who are you? He said, oh, I'm her cousin. Oh, no you're not. I know who you are. You are her father's cousin. It's a very different thing, isn't it? It's a completely different generation. I've met this man. He seemed very pleasant. I met him and his wife while I was in Phoenix and encouraged him to have contact with my children who he'd met once before, despite living in the same city. So he was the father's cousin. He's the father of grown up sons, his, I think two or three, three sons perhaps in their late twenties, thirties.

So, saying he's her cousin sounds like the same sort of generation, maybe a couple of years older, aunts and uncles are nearby family connections. No, it's this 50 something year old man. Why is he so interested? And then the other man in the case was this man, I've now got an injunction against harassment against the father of this friend who threatened me.

Why is he so interested in the finances and what happens to my daughter's finances? So the next hearing is coming up soon. And one thing the judge did say at the end of the hearing was I want everyone in the hearing to remember and be very aware of my words. Everything we are talking about has purposes It's her money and nobody else's. And that's how the hearing ended. 

So we're going back soon to hear about what the lawyers and financial people have sorted out regarding her assets and safeguarding them. But it remains that it's almost exactly 10 years since I last saw my children, 3rd of August, 2015, and I don’t know when I'm going to see them again.

Sally: Yeah. And it really speaks to the legacy of trauma that the convention causes, isn't it? This is, you know, and if in best case scenario, something happens this summer and you manage to get in contact with them and you build relationships again, they still will have had this 10 year and obviously the impact that has on individuals. 

So I think one of the things that, when I've spoken to some of the people about The Hague Abduction Convention, is they see it as an act that happens in a period of time. They don't recognize it's something that impacts families for the rest of their lives.

And clearly, that's one of the reasons why, understandably, you've put an awful lot of time and effort and around a building your knowledge around it. But then as women so often brilliantly do, so what can I do about it? How can we improve things? And hence, Hague Explained. And you mentioned the training earlier on.

What are your sort of hopes for the near future in, in what happens next? 

Anita: I'd like to be able to just continue disseminating this information. International families need to understand what this is. What I'd really like is for The Hague Convention, the way it stands now, certainly, where domestic violence is not recognized as a defence when that's another thing that we're all working on to try and change.

But in the meantime, I'd like it to be as well-known as marriage and divorce. When people get married today, everyone knows that divorce is a thing that can happen. Obviously most people get married hoping and believing that they will not get divorced. It's not something you go into wanting to happen, but if the D word does come up in your marriage, you have some understanding what it is.

You know where to look for help, who to talk to. You've got friends, family probably who've been through it who could come and help you navigate what happens in divorce? If you've got children, you know how to start looking at joint custody, sharing custody, what's important. If you are in a relationship in which there is abuse, there are so many wonderful organizations who will help and guide you and your children.

If, going into marriage you've got substantial assets, you will probably know or be told about prenuptial agreements. Again, you'll be told they're not watertight, but they show intent and they will help, should a divorce come in to view on the horizon, it will help to sort things out and to safeguard your assets.

And I believe The Hague Convention should be just as well-known as divorce and prenups, so that if you are crossing borders ever with children, you know The Hague Convention exists. You have some idea of how to protect yourself and your children from landing up in one of these cases. Sadly, that's another thing we need to work on.

There are very few ways in which you can safeguard yourself, but we have some ideas. So I'd really like it to be as widely known as marriage, divorce and prenups international family, children, and crossing international borders Hague Convention. That's what everyone needs to know about and talk about and let people know about. 

Sally: Absolutely. Thank you. And yeah obviously what we want is to prevent this from having as well as supporting those that have been affected by it. But best case scenario is that it doesn't happen at all, isn't it? And we can prevent these cases from occurring. 

Anita: Absolutely. Absolutely. Because the trauma stays with the children forever.

And with the mother of course, and with the entire maternal family, it's a community. We always say it takes a village to raise a child. Take that child out of the village, the entire village is traumatized. You know, depending on how it's happened, obviously. And I know so many mothers where the children, mothers who've won their cases even, it's rare, but it has happened and the children are still traumatized by it.

It stays with them sadly, forever. 

Sally: Yeah, it's, I mean, it is just such a huge act to be removed from your primary carer and, you know, the country and family and et cetera that you know, that you are used to. So it's such important work that you're doing, and thank you so much. I know it's been a delight for us at FiLiA to be working alongside you.

Really enamoured with the work that you're doing and grateful that you're there and doing it and wish you and your children the very best and a path to finding some healing and eventually being able to be together, and then to be able to access the fantastic mum that they have. So, thank you, Anita.

Anita: Thank you Sally Again, thank you for giving me this opportunity and I hope it will help some families out there, some mums and some kids, and help them not fall into this trap. 

Sally: So we'll put details of Hague Explained and et cetera alongside the podcast. So if anyone wants to find out a little bit more it's easy to get in touch.

Thank you