Sally: Hi, I'm really pleased to be on the FiLiA podcast today. This is Sally Jackson. I'm one of the trustees and director for Ending Male Violence Against Women. And today, we have the absolute pleasure of speaking with Roz Osborne from Global Arc. Hi, Roz. 

Roz: Thank you so much for having me on. 

Sally: Oh, it's absolutely our pleasure.

We've, here at FiLiA, and particularly with FiLiA Hague Mums, we've worked with you for some time now and seen some of the brilliant work that your organization is involved with. So it's really nice to have a little bit of time to sort of explore that a bit and share some information about Global Arc and what it can do.

So, I mean, perhaps we can start with that sort of, like, general introduction. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and about Global Arc? 

Roz: Yeah. So it's, first of all, it's been so brilliant to have FiLiA Hague Mothers, on the scene, as it were, for the last three or four years now. It's flown by and prior to that, Global Arc really were the only organization really working in this area.

There was lots of little ones, but when FiLiA came along, Ruth Dineen, who is the coordinator of FiLiA Hague Mothers, Ruth came along and she said, "I'm going to do something about this." And I said, "Fantastic." We've had quite an amazing few years working on The Hague Convention and supporting victims of domestic abuse.

 But maybe that's a different podcast. So thank you so much. 

My name's Roz Osborne. I'm the founder and CEO of Global Arc, which originally I set up after I was a stuck parent, and I will explain what that means in a bit, back in 2012. So originally, I'd found myself in a situation where we'd moved as a family from England over to Portugal with two small children.

 And unfortunately, I had to leave the relationship quite suddenly with a bin bag of things and two small children. And I said, "Well, I need to go back home, back to the, the UK with the children." Single mum. I had no means to stay in Portugal. And it was at that point that I was told I can't legally move back home.

I have to stay in Portugal, otherwise I could be charged with child abduction And, you can imagine that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, "Oh my God, how am I gonna survive? How am I gonna cope?" And I thought to myself, "I wonder if anyone else is in this situation." And so this is back in 2011 actually, when Facebook was just getting started.

Facebook groups were just getting going. And so I set up a Facebook page. I'd never done that before. So I just set it up and I thought, "Well, if anyone else is out there, maybe they'll find us." And I called the Facebook page Expat Stuck Mums. And it was absolutely crazy because with no publicity, nothing apart from this Facebook page called Expat Stuck Mums, I had mums contacting me every week.

And in the, the first year, there was 100 mums that just got in contact, and they all had like a very similar story to my story. Like they'd moved abroad, they'd experienced domestic abuse, they'd had to leave, but they couldn't go home back to their home country with the children. And I thought, "My gosh, we have something here.

 This is happening. It's not just me that this is happening to. It's happening to hundreds of other mothers all over the world, maybe even thousands of other mothers."

 So anyway, I had to go through the family court in Portugal to get permission to take my children back home to the UK to live It took about two years, and during that time was probably the hardest period of my life because I didn't really have the resources that I needed to survive in a foreign country.

But the application was successful. And so after two years, I was allowed to come back to the UK, and I just felt so lucky because I was, by this point, in touch with mums all over the world, Australia, New Zealand, US, Europe, everywhere, and they were not getting permission to go back home. So they were just stuck.

And so I thought, I can't actually abandon this group. I can't. So what we decided to do was actually formalize it and put into place some proper support because there was, in those days, there was nothing out there for stuck mums. So in 2016, we registered with the Charity Commission as a charity, and we called it Global ARK, which stands for Global Action on Relocation and Return with Kids.

And since then, I mean, we usually hear from around 300 new mums, and a few dads as well, every year. We did decide to open it up to dads as well, because actually they were facing similar situations than the mums, a lot of them. And we also wanted to count the percentage of mums and dads. And so because we opened it up to everyone, we now know that this issue primarily affects mums.

 About 98/99% usually per year are mums. It's been really interesting. 

So 10 years later, here we are. We're still supporting stuck mums and a few dads, and I can talk about our services and things a bit later maybe. 

Sally: Thank you. And it's really comprehensive, and thanks for sharing your own experience around that as well.

And it struck me as you were talking that nowadays actually, it's not unusual at all that a couple will decide to move abroad. Maybe work takes them there, or blended families from different countries, and they decide to go and live in one of the countries of the other partner's family. And often it's seen as a very positive and exciting start to a, a life together. And of course, then with children coming along.

 There is no sort of pre-warning about what your rights may or may not be. And like you, I think most people, certainly mums, would assume that if it got to a stage where for my safety and the children's safety I needed to come home, then of course that's fine. That's just the common sense thing to do, isn't it? 

But unfortunately, perhaps if you could explain, without too much of the technicalities, but exactly what The Hague Convention on abduction is, and why that stops that common sense approach from happening. 

Roz: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more, Sally. So many families move abroad each year, and I think the statistics are telling us that younger families now as well are moving abroad more because they see better living conditions in other countries, better working conditions than in the UK, for example.

 But it's happening globally. It's not just the UK. It's how people are moving from the US to Italy or Singapore, Australia to... It's a global issue. But it's definitely a lot of people, a lot of families are leaving the UK, and they're not being told about the law before they go. 

Really, the Ministry of Justice should indicate on their leaflets that they give out about moving abroad that once children move abroad, or if they're born abroad, then there's a technical term called ‘habitual residence’ updates very quickly.

So for example, if you were to move abroad with your children to, say, the US, within around about six months, their habitual residence is likely to update to there. And at that point, you need both parents' permission in order to take the child back out of the country, whether that's back home or anywhere else.

And of course, in an abusive relationship, you're very unlikely to be able to get that permission from the other parent. Because what do they want- They want to be able to control their ex, don't they? The person they're trying to abuse. The best way to control someone is to keep them somewhere against their will, isolated often so they can't get support from anyone without what they need, for example, finances.

So if they are financially abusive, which a lot of them are, they will prevent them getting the financial resources that they need to be safe, which puts them in a vulnerable position. If you don't have money, you can't, for example, afford to rent a house. You can't afford to get food, the basics really.

We've had mums who couldn't afford to buy nappies for their babies, things like that. And once you don't have those basic needs met, you can spiral in a very vulnerable place. And without that support around you that you would normally have in your home country, whether family, friends, work colleagues, if they're not there to kind of go, "Ooh, actually, that's not an okay situation to be in- you're living abroad, you haven't got all those support networks there.

Can lose track really easily of what's okay and what's not okay. 

Sally: That really resonates because we're talking about, the majority of the cases, we're talking about a relationship where partners realize that actually this is abusive, either directly to them and/or to their children. And for those reasons of safety, and what we know about domestic abuse is it's like an onion, isn't it?

There's so many layers and different ways that abusers will use to manipulate and control the person that they want to. What you're saying there about the isolation, but also that very process, it's kind of the state is handing so much power to the perpetrator, and denying it from usually the mum and children, which, which kind of enables the abuse.

 Roz: Yeah. So when that mum, for example, who's moved to the States, when she realizes that she can't go back to her home country, and she is totally isolated and without the things that she needs in the US, the legal system at the moment is such that it makes it very difficult for her to get the help that she needs and to move back home, because what will happen is if she takes the children back to her home country, the father, that we're calling the abusive father, for example, can easily use this treaty called the Hague Convention on Child Abduction 1980, to take the mother to court, where in, say, the UK, her home country, and the system around that is set up that it's very difficult to win  that court process, and you have to satisfy very particular defences in order to not have the children returned to the US.

 And maybe we wanna just explain a little bit about how The Hague Convention works, where it came from. Because people might, right now, might be going, "What the heck? This can't be right. Why would that be child abduction when you're escaping abuse going back- Yeah ... to your home country? It doesn't make sense." 

Sally: Yeah, I think that might be helpful. It's something that now, as it's being used, does seem to defy any common sense, and certainly any level of human rights protections for women and children that have been subjected to abuse. 

But originally, it was set up for a good purpose. So perhaps that, that would be helpful if you could tell us a little bit about how it started and then what's happened. 

Roz: So The Hague Convention on International Parental Child Abduction is an international treaty that has been signed by over 100 states, and it aims to return children who have been abducted out of the country they were living in, or they were habitually resident in, by one parent against the wishes of the other parent.

And this does make sense in theory. Most of us mothers can imagine if our child was taken away to another country by the father, for example, we would want there to be an international mechanism to get them returned home However, what we know now is that in over 75% of Hague Convention cases, it's a primary or a sole carer mother who is taking the children back to their home country or their country of origin after a relationship breakdown, usually involving domestic abuse.

So what we often see as well is that a mother will bring the children home for a holiday. And because it's the summer now, this is a problem that's happening currently. We're getting a lot of phone calls at Global Arc with people saying, "I've come back home to the UK from Australia, from Italy," whatever. "I've realized now I'm safe at home that actually the relationship was abusive abroad. I don't wanna go back into that relationship. I don't wanna go back there. What will happen if I stay?" And unfortunately, The Hague Convention also applies in those circumstances as well. So if you bring the children back to your home country for holiday and you don't return, that is also counted as child abduction in the same way. It's called a wrongful retention. 

The problem that we see is that so many of these ‘child abduction’ cases, and I say so-called because we at Global Arc, we don't call it child abduction. It doesn't feel like the right term when you've got a petrified mother, terrified often, needing to escape dangerous person, a father in the other country.

That isn't a child abduction. That's an action taken to safeguard your child. And what we call that is protective abduction. And I think we really need to make that distinction between protective abductions and harmful abductions. Because of course, sometimes there are those situations where you will get somebody taking the children just to get back at the other parent, for example.

 Perhaps they've been denied their child contact, or there's been a safeguarding issue with them, say, in the UK, and they're trying to avoid the authorities essentially. And that's what the convention was set up for originally. And in some cases, rarely we think, that is the case. So it's needed, the convention is needed. But what needs to happen is it needs to be reformed and changed so that it's not putting children and vulnerable families at risk, which it is at the moment. 

Sally: I think it's really telling that the convention came into place, as you said, in 1980. And if I think about our understanding of domestic abuse, and perhaps in some ways particularly of coercive and controlling behavior, and the impact that has not just on mum, but also on any children in a relationship. We are in such a different place now than we were in the 1980s.

It's understandable that it wasn't taken into account when the convention was drawn up. But it does kind of beg a belief that now we have all this information and knowledge about domestic abuse and we know what that looks like in an international context, that we're not updating those procedures and ensuring that it actually fits the world that we're living in now.

Roz: Yeah. No, absolutely. It hasn't been updated since 1980, and it's very difficult to update it because it's an international treaty with 103 signatory states. And my understanding is that every state would need to agree to an update before the actual convention is changed Which is very unlikely to happen, to get a consensus across all of those states.

 Change, I think, can happen country by country, and also in the guidance. But of course it would be wonderful if they did all agree to change it and update it so that it was in line with current knowledge and understanding about how domestic abuse impacts survivors, which has completely changed. And also the impact, of course, on children.

We didn't know back then that children even witnessing, not witnessing, in the house, you know, the lifelong devastating impact on children's mental health and wellbeing, and the generational impact as well. Just, it just wasn't, we were not aware of it. I mean, certainly we think that the way that these cases are run is nowhere near trauma-informed.

When you've got such a high number of victim-survivors going through the High Cour- in London, 'cause we're talking about the UK, the court, the systems around the court, the procedures, it really needs to be looked at with a trauma in- informed lens, and with a domestic abuse expert lens as well. Because the overwhelming number of cases in the High Court are victim-survivors of domestic abuse, and they don't really know what they're doing.

We really want to see independent domestic violence advisors, IDVAs, in the High Court supporting survivors going through this, doing proper risk assessment, looking at, okay, in the UK, what's the risk in the UK, but also what would be the risk if the child or children were returned to the other country.

Really, what are the risks in that situation? And they need to be really, what we call, risk-led, in the High Court. 

They're nowhere near it at the moment. It's horrendous, the sorts of stories that we hear. As I was saying at the beginning, it's been wonderful working with Ruth Dineen, FiLiA Hague mothers, as well as Narkis Golan Initiative in, in New York, in the US, The Hague Network in Australia and New Zealand, Japan.

There are groups now around the world working really hard to raise awareness and campaign for the rights of children and victims. And I do think as a result of everyone's passion and hard work- Awareness is starting to come, and we have seen a shift, certainly in the UK and a little bit around other countries as well, and an awareness around things like protective orders which have been used over the last sort of 10, 15 years as a way to return victims even if the court has found that they have been subject to abuse in the other country, and they have satisfied the defence on grave risk of harm. I'm sorry, I don't wanna get too technical. But there's a defence that can be used, it's called Article 13B, and it's about if the child was to return to the other country, would they face a grave risk of harm?

 Traditionally, this has been really hard to win. The bar has been really high, and the evidence needed has been really high, and they used to not allow it. Then they started to allow it, but then they said, "Well, we're still going to return the children, but with protective measures or protective orders."

But the problem that we were seeing is that these protective orders didn't work for a variety of reasons. And Ruth and I spoke about this at a big meeting in October in Brazil, and we spoke about the lived experiences of parents and children that had been returned to the other country with orders of protection, and the sad reality on the ground when they landed when they weren't protected as they thought they were going to be, and actually what happened to them. 

So yeah, we were given about 10 minutes to talk about that. They did listen, I think, and the message was loud and clear that protective orders don't often work. Perpetrators, on the whole, are not law-abiding people. So even if they have a bit of paper in their hand that says, "Don't go near this person," or, "You must pay such and such maintenance," or whatever it is, often it's meaningless to them. So then the victim is still very much at risk. 

And the other problem that we see is that when you have a UK undertaking, it's not legally binding in another country. When the mum takes a bit of paper, "I've got this undertaking from the UK court. This is to the police. This is gonna keep me safe." The police in the US, they go, "Well, no, that was made in the UK. What's that got to do with us?" Multiple problems that we highlighted in our presentation. 

And so we have seen a bit of a shift lately over the last couple of years, where the UK courts are, first of all, listening to survivors a bit more, understanding domestic abuse a bit better, and then being a lot more cautious with these protection orders.

So we hope that this continues, and we want to see actual systems in place to really ensure that victims are safer, not just this is what we happen to be doing at the moment. There actually needs to be protocol. 

Sally: Yes. It's all very well if you've got a judge that gets it and is very sensible in the approach.

But as you say, you need it embedded in the system so that anyone coming before that, with those processes are clearly in place to protect mums and children. 

Roz: Yeah, absolutely. There needs to be proper child protection and vulnerable people protection laws and processes in place. 

I mean, for the first time, the Ministry of Justice have committed to collecting data and research on domestic abuse and The Hague Convention cases that they see in the High Court in London.

And this happened as a direct result of the forums on domestic abuse and The Hague Convention that FiLiA Hague Mothers and Global Ark were involved in campaigning to make happen. And we both sat on the steering committee, and as a result of that We have now convinced the government to do this research.

So what we're hoping is once they get the results of that research in a, I guess a couple of years' time, we think it's gonna be quite stark, the results that they get. They're gonna be looking at all of the cases from 2024, 2025, and they're gonna be really drilling into certain pieces of data and information, and then producing a report.

So we're really excited about this, 'cause we've been asking them to do this for for the last 10 years. So it is great, and we hope that as a result of that, then they will then put into place some of those legal changes and processes and protocols that they need to protect vulnerable families. 

Sally:  Thank you for your work on that, because it is so true, isn't it? If it is, if it's not measured, it doesn't get done. And if they don't even know what they're measuring, 'cause the data's not being collected. So that's a real step forward, and you can see the possible sustainable change that will occur as a result of the gathering of that data and the learning that comes from that.

And as you say, from your frontline knowledge of speaking to mothers, you know what some of those cases look like, you know what the data is gonna show up, and that's hopefully will be really persuasive in moving the government forward. 

Roz: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's good. First, they say they need that evidence base.

It needs to be evidence-based, which, you know is absolutely true. They should listen to frontline organizations. They have, to a certain extent. I mean, they are doing it, and it is really satisfying, because we've been knocking on the door for the last sort of 10-plus years. So it does feel like there is a bit of a shift in the right direction currently. 

Sally: And I think as well, that shift, as you say, just in, in sort of general awareness about The Hague Convention, and certainly a few years ago, I worked within the violence against women and girl sector, and domestic abuse organizations were really unaware of what The Hague Convention was, what the impact was. And that could lead to, with all the best intentions, sometimes not great advice being given because of not being aware of the legal concept. 

And I wonder, perhaps, I'm sure there isn't an average case, but could you take us through perhaps if someone gets in contact with you, some of the things that they might be concerned about, and some of the support that you can offer and help women when they've kind of got to the point where they've realized they're in this situation, that they're either stuck or maybe they've come home, as you said earlier, they've come home for a holiday and they've realized they can't go back and they’re not sure what to do about it.

Roz: Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think a lot of domestic abuse organizations will have one or two cases, maybe more if they're large, per year, where they get either you've got usually a British mum who's been living abroad, and she's come back to Britain, and she's come into the organization to report domestic abuse. And she may or may not be aware of The Hague Convention, which of course could be, and is likely to be, used within, sometimes within weeks. 

So it is really important that domestic abuse organizations are aware of what The Hague Convention is. 

The other type of case that they might see is a foreign mum who's coming to them after experiencing domestic abuse, and she says, "I want to go home, back to my home country."

What we see is quite often domestic abuse organizations will say, "Well, just go. Just go with the children." But of course, then The Hague, it puts them at risk, 'cause The Hague Convention could then be used, and they would have to go through court in their home country. 

So for example, if they're a German mum, they've been living in the UK for a while, they've got children, goes back to Germany, Hague Convention be used in Germany, and then very likely she would have to return to the UK with the children. Or the children would be forced to return. 

She would have this option of returning with the children. I mean, it's just a joke, isn't it? But legally speaking, that is, that's what it is. The children are being returned, not the mother. But yeah, so a typical case, I've sort of looked back and I've anonymized one.

We had a mum, a British mum, had been living in the States, and she had experienced severe domestic abuse there. In fact, the father had a gun, which he's legally allowed to have in the US, and she was absolutely petrified. She tried to get help there, but couldn't find any. So she came back with the children, back to her home country in the UK.

And then, and she actually wasn't aware of The Hague Convention at all, which many mums are not aware of it. And then she got a letter from the court to say she was being accused of child abduction, out of the blue. And she was absolutely shocked, mortified because she had never broken the law before, and was just in need in that moment of protection and safety.

And she thought she'd found that protection and safety. She's living at her mum's house. She thought she and the children were safe, but no. She's being charged for child abduction. She found us. She got in contact. So we did our initial phone call, which is kind of like a triage phone call. Listening, first of all. Reassuring that we understand, we get it. We get the situation. Lots of other organisations don't, but we really do. And then trying to work out with her what does she need next. What does she need to do? So does she have a lawyer. Does she have the right kind of lawyer.? Does she have any emotional support? Does she understand what The Hague Convention is. 

 So we work with worked with her to sort of figure out what she wants next. And it's really important, I think, to share that choice of what she wants from us. How we can help her, rather than us say, "Right, you need to do this. You need to do that.

You need to do the other." 

She's already spent five years being controlled by somebody, she doesn't need that from us. So it's all about choice. 

So we helped her to find an expert in The Hague Convention, a family lawyer. We have a legal network, and they all give a bit of pro bono, for free. So all of the parents that come to us can have a free consultation. 

So if there's a parent listening at home, the best thing is to come and have a chat with us. But if that's not possible, you can go to our website and find a lawyer there, and reach out to them and say, "You've come from Global Arc, and please can you have your free consultation."

She also came to our legal clinic, which is a monthly legal clinic, which helped her to understand more about the law and what the process is and what's going on for her. We also gave weekly phone calls because in Hague Convention cases, things can move really fast like you can get your notification at the weekend, and then on the Wednesday you might be in court.

And then in another five weeks you might be in court again. So it's quite quick-moving, and there's a lot to process. So we offer, in those more complex cases, weekly phone calls. Sometimes with myself and sometimes with Kat or Amy, who also work here. And, and we also added her to our peer support group. We've got about 400 mums on our private Facebook group. And so day a- day and night, they are there. Bless them. And actually, they're really knowledgeable and really supportive. it's a moderated group. We have a group of volunteer moderators that keep a really close eye, so it's really compassionately moderated.

So we recognize that sometimes people's emotions can get the better of them, and things can be quite triggering. So our group, we look after our members quite a lot, and we speak to them. If we recognize someone's not feeling good from something that they've said, we will say, "Can we have a quick phone call?" Because everyone's on our books, so we can pick up the phone to them and go, "What's going on? You sounded really upset today." And we will do that. Basically, after all of this support, this mum, Jessica I'm gonna call her, she actually won her case. Actually, the court understood the risks with returning the children to the US, because she was able to present the evidence. She was able to convince the judge that returning the children was gonna be a grave risk of harm under Article 13B and she was able to get through that court case, which is extremely stressful, with that sort of emotional support, and the support of peers as well-  who are now friends, of course. And the support of a good lawyer, and the information. That sort of combination of support allowed her to get through it, and to win at the end.

And of course, that doesn't happen for everyone. I wouldn't wanna say that is the case. But what we see is that if you do have that sort of combination of right information, support from others, us, peers, good lawyer, and yeah, emotional support, you can get through it, and in the best possible way. 

Sally: Yeah, it's really important you say that, 'because I think in this area, quite understandably, because the results are devastating for women and their families. But we hear how difficult it is, what goes wrong, and et cetera. So, it's really important to understand that with all of those things in place, there is no guarantees, but there is an opportunity for a successful result, and it can be done. 

Roz: Yeah, absolutely. And I think because the courts, especially I think the UK High Court, has become more aware of the problem, the plights, the domestic abuse, and how devastating that can be for a child long-term to be returned into an unsafe situation.

I think they are more enlightened now, and there is some case law now coming through that supports that better. I would've said 10 years ago it was a completely different landscape. When we first started, it was extremely rare to win a Hague Convention case on a grave risk of harm. And in fact, lawyers used to say, "Well, don't even raise it 'because it makes you look like a liar unless you can provide evidence."

I would say for somebody that has just received their paperwork, it's really important to get rapid support. So please, I think what I would say is get in contact via our contact form on our website. Fill in the contact form. We work Monday to Thursday and we will reply Monday to Thursday within 24 hours, and we'll set up a phone call ASAP with you to figure out sort of next steps with you and put in that support that you need. 

And I know it's hard actually sometimes to ask for help, especially when you maybe you've been let down by other people, authorities. It's really hard to ask for help, and you don't know the organisation. You don't necessarily trust that your details are gonna be confidential or whatever, but because we're a registered charity, we have to adhere to really high standards of confidentiality, and we work in a trauma-informed way.

We're all trained in domestic abuse and trauma. We've come a long way from when we sat up 10 years ago. It's been a learning journey. But we get amazing feedback from our mums that are in contact, and so I would say it's just a conversation. Even if you're not sure what you wanna do, get in contact and just give it a go. 

Sally: And at least then you've got an idea of what your options might be, wouldn't you? It's about giving you that information, isn't it? 

And it's interesting to me 'cause that, that process which you are part of in pulling together the lawyer with the knowledge and experience of this area of law and the support and et cetera, it's easy, I think, to imagine Global Arc as fairly substantial access to all of these resources and et cetera. But as is often the way in this sector, that's not quite the case, is it? 

Roz: No, we're a really small charity. We're what we call a micro-sized charity. A small charity is often £300,000 a year turnover, £500,000. But we're, we've increased our turnover and we're increasing it, but it's, it's only about £50,000 a year. We've got three very part-time members of staff, myself included, and 10 volunteers, and our legal network, which all work for free and do the pro bono work. And as I said, we are contacted by over 300 new parents every year And of course we've still got most of the old ones as well because it takes so long to get through a case.

 On our books we’ve got parents that were in contact eight years ago, still in contact, still needing support. Some of them, of course, they come through it and then they wanna help out and they want to give back, and that's amazing. And so that's where our volunteers come from.

But yeah, we're really small and we still struggle with funding. It's always, every year it's hand to mouth. Are we gonna have enough funding to keep the helpline open? Are we gonna have enough funding to keep three members part-time? And we're overstretched. We all volunteer hours on top of our paid hours.

I do about double. So it's hard. It's really hard. And then you've got the trustees, which are obviously all volunteers as well with jobs and lives and other things that they've got to do. So I'm incredibly proud of our team, we do, to support people. They're incredible, and it's because we're so passionate.

But in order to be sustainable, we need to have proper funding over multiple years to give us that stability and be able to plan. 'Cause when you don't know, are we gonna be here next year, are we gonna be here the year after, you can't plan services that way. So it really limits what you can achieve. 

Sally: And the positive about a little bit more awareness and the work that, the education work and et cetera that you've been involved in means that that number of 300 new cases a year, if anything, is likely to rise, isn't it?

We're becoming more aware, and so those cases have an opportunity to come forward and ask for support, whereas maybe five years ago they wouldn't have known there was support available. So that need for, for funding to continue, but also that sustainability, recognizing this is not an issue that's gonna go away in the short term.

I mean, we obviously hope that it goes away in the longer term, that we sort these issues out. But there's gonna be a number of years where mums and children are going through this. And of course, having gone through it, for those that are successful, there's still the healing from the trauma that it's incurred.

And not everyone is successful, so sometimes mums have gone through it, and they're then living with the ramifications of whatever that judgment has been and how they deal with that. And of course, a lot of support is needed at that stage as well, there's not short-term fixes here, is it?

 We need some really good sustainable support for organizations like yours to, as we said earlier, put all those things in place so that women get the best chance of justice.

Roz: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And we also see the need, as part of being trauma-informed, of having really good systems in place, and having enough capacity to be able to, if somebody's in a crisis, give them a ring that day or as soon as poss- Do you know what I mean? You can't leave people hanging when they're in a crisis. And that's why we say we always reply within 24 hours, Monday to Thursday. We're really clear about that.

 But we can't continue to work on such a sort of high level of support, and in such a professional way, unless we have the resources in order to do that. And ideally, we would even increase our professionalism, if you will, with all these things. If we had better funding, we could have more staff hours, we could have better support for victims. We could have an IDVA service. We could have, have an IDVA on our team who's able to go to court and sit with victims in court, and deliver those risk assessments for the court, and liaise with other court officials on behalf of the victim, and make sure that those systems are in place.

For example, the family court systems, in order to protect victims within the court if the perpetrator is also in the court, so that they're not bumping into them in the corridors and things like that, which happens. But in order to do that, we need proper funding to put professionals like that in place.

We shouldn't be scrabbling around getting 2,000 pounds here, 3,000 pounds there. It needs to be commissioned from the Ministry of Justice, and they ne- need to give us five years. This is what we're going to do to commission this domestic abuse service within the high court for a number of years, and that's when you can really make a difference.

Sally: Yes. Absolutely, and it is recognizing the specialist nature of the support because of The Hague Convention, and with absolutely no disrespect to other domestic abuse organizations. But because they're not gonna be seeing it that often, they're not gonna have built up the specialty in dealing with it. And the numbers nationally do call for a specific organization that's funded sustainably to be able to provide that support.

We'd absolutely support you in trying to persuade the Ministry of Justice that that's where some of their coffers should go to. 

You talked a couple of times, and I can see from the way that you work, the trauma-informed approach that you take, and the recognition of where a woman is if she's in crisis or recovering from something.

But I wonder as well, this is hard work, this is difficult, emotional work, and how do you look after yourselves and the team, and what sort of things are put in place for them? The whole sort of like the, the vessel has to be full to be able to pour out from it, doesn't it? 

Roz: Yeah.  I know exactly what you mean, because I think, to a certain extent, when you're supporting people, you have to get in their shoes and you have to sort of sit alongside them. in that moment. And to a certain extent, you're always gonna be absorbing some of that trauma into yourself. And we have had a problem with that over the years, where people who have spoken to the stuck parents especially on the front line, on the phone, have suffered with vicarious trauma.

And that, you can see that showing up in ways like they're very tired, or they're very detached from the issue, or feeling depressed, or Not able to enjoy life anymore and things like that. And we have unfortunately had volunteers and staff members suffering with that. And so over the years we've learnt that we really need to put things in place for people doing this work.

I think it's particularly difficult work because sometimes there are no easy answers. 

Like, you can't just wave a magic wand and say, "Oh, everything's gonna be okay now," because the system has been against, not against perhaps, but it hasn't been set up for, to deal with victims. In a way, The Hague Convention treats these mothers as people that have done, acted wrongly and against the law. And so it's been, I think, extremely difficult to help people through. And you can end up feeling a little bit powerless sometimes, because you really want to make it better for somebody, but the system is so awful.

There's no solution, and that's a horrible place to be if you're a support worker, 'cause you're naturally a caring person, and you want to help. And if there isn't anywhere to signpost people, it's just kind of like a desert of help it's really difficult. 

So what we do now is that we really prioritize self-care within our team, and it's like a culture that we've built up over the last three years or so, I would say.

After sadly losing, not permanently, but just people resigning and people not being able to cope anymore. We were like, "Oh, my God, we can't just keep losing people like this. We really need to do something." So we prioritize self-care. We encourage people to work flexibly according to the sort of, their lifestyle.

for example, it's holidays at the moment. Everyone's got children on our team. Bless them, they're getting up and working at 6:00 in the morning and getting through all of the emails before, you know, 10:00, 11:00, and then they can sort their children out. But anything to make it less stressful working here is what we do.

We also talk every month about how we're feeling, and we do a reflective practice. How has the month been for us? What's been challenging? Are we coping? What do we need? Yeah. What could be done better? We also have clinical supervision, which means that everyone working frontline gets to talk to a counsellor once a month and just offload, and that counsellor also offers up strategies for coping with vicarious trauma. A game changer. So that’s probably the biggest thing. Unfortunately, we don't have funding for that to continue past February. We're applying for funding so that we can continue that, because without that, I feel like it's gonna be much harder for the team to cope basically.

 Sally: Yeah. And it is, with this sort of work, it's not a nice to have, is it? It's an essential that, again, really frustrating that you have to apply for separate funding to be able to get those things when it should be recognized it's just an essential part of the service that you're offering.

Roz, it's been fabulous chatting to you and finding out a bit more about Global ARC and the work that you do, and I'm really aware that, of like the raising awareness around the convention. So there may be women listening to the podcast that either themselves may have been impacted or have a family member or friend there who is currently living abroad in an international family, or they may be aware that they are thinking about coming back home.

What would you suggest is concerns, what's the best next step to take? 

Roz: If you want to help somebody or you yourself need a bit of support, the best thing is just to reach out. So our email address is info@globalarrk.org  and our website is www.globalarrk.org  And it's A-R-R-K, Action on Relocation and Return of Kids.

That often confuses people, obviously. 

Roz: just reach out, have a phone call. We're supporting people not related to the UK currently by email, just because we've run out of funding. But if you're related to the UK, so you're British abroad, or you're living in Britain, we can offer a free of charge phone call.

Everything we do is free of charge. So do, just reach out for help. It would be lovely to hear from you. And just thank you so much, Sally, for spending the time today chatting, and also for all your support over the years with FiLiA Hague Mothers. 

Sally: It's absolutely our pleasure, and we'll make sure on the notes for the podcast we've got all those contact details as well.

So It's easy for women to be able to find you. But thank you for the work you do. It's making such a significant difference, both individually to the women that you work with, but also nationally in the way that we're changing some of the practice and improving things for those coming forward in the future.

So thank you, Ros. It's been an absolute delight, and look forward to catching up soon. 

Roz: Thank you.