When the Law Becomes a Tool of Abuse
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of delivering Hague Mothers training to social workers and practitioners hosted by Coordinated Community Response (CCR) team at Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse. I delivered the session alongside Ruth Dineen from FiLiA Hague Mothers, who is an absolute expert and a legend in this field.
Standing Together do fantastic work. Their Coordinated Community Response brings agencies together so that survivors are met with a joined-up, consistent response. A huge thank you to the team for giving us the platform to share this work with their practitioners.
You can watch the session in the video below
October is Domestic Abuse Awareness Month, and this year I want to talk about a form of abuse that most professionals have never heard of: abuse carried out through an international treaty.
When we think about domestic abuse, we often picture what happens inside the home. But for some women, the most frightening part begins after they leave. They flee with their children, often back to the country where their family, language and support network are. And then a court order arrives telling them to send their children back.
This is the reality for the women known as Hague Mothers. And it is something every safeguarding professional should understand.
What is the Hague Convention?
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction was signed in 1980. Its purpose was to protect children when one parent takes them to another country without the other parent's agreement.
At the time, the typical case was a non-resident parent. The Convention was designed to get that child home quickly, so that decisions about their future could be made in the country where they normally lived.
The process is meant to be fast. Most children in Hague cases are returned within around six weeks. And crucially, the court does not look at WHY the child was taken. The motive is not the question. The only question is whether the child should go back.
When protection becomes a weapon
Forty-six years on, the picture has flipped. Around 75% of the parents now brought before the courts in Hague cases are mothers with primary care of their children, and many of them are fleeing domestic abuse.
Think about what that means in practice. A woman moves abroad with her partner. The abuse starts, or gets worse. She is isolated, far from family, perhaps without the language or her own income. When she finally escapes, she does what so many survivors do: she goes home, to the people and places that feel safe.
Under the Convention, that can be treated as abduction.
Domestic abuse on its own is not a reason to refuse a return. The bar for proving "grave risk" to a child is high, and mothers often don't know the Convention exists until the return application lands. The speed of the process leaves little time to find a lawyer or gather evidence.
The result is an impossible choice, a double bind. Send the children back alone, or go back with them. Most mothers go back, and many face continued abuse, homelessness, poverty, isolation, or even criminal proceedings. Some children end up living with the abusive parent, losing their connection to their mother's family, culture and language.
And this is not a fringe concern. At the 2024 International Forum on Domestic Violence and the Hague Convention, the Hague Secretary-General acknowledged that domestic violence is the single biggest challenge countries face in implementing the Convention.
The FiLiA Hague Mothers approach
FiLiA Hague Mothers is a legacy project of FiLiA, a UK women-led charity. It brings together Hague mothers, lawyers, academics, domestic abuse specialists and children's rights advocates to end the injustices the Convention creates for mothers and children escaping abuse.
I will be delivering sessions for social workers in partnership with FiLiA Hague Mothers, and for many practitioners it is the first time they have heard of the Convention at all.
What this means for safeguarding practice
You don't need to be a family lawyer to make a difference here. But you do need to know this exists, because you may be the first professional a Hague mother speaks to.
A few questions worth holding in mind:
Is there an international element? .
Are we seeing the whole picture of the abuse? .
Whose definition of safety are we using?
Does she know where to get specialist help?
What does our assessment say, and who will read it?
This is professional curiosity in action. It means looking beyond the label of "abduction" and asking what the mother was running from.
Awareness is where it starts
Domestic Abuse Awareness Month asks us to see what is often hidden. Hague mothers are some of the most hidden survivors of all: caught between countries, courts and systems that were never designed with them in mind.
A law created to protect children is, in too many cases, being used to harm them and their mothers. Naming that is the first step to changing it.
If you work in social work, family law, domestic abuse services, schools or health, I would love you to book our sesison by emailing hello@risestrong.org.uk
Learn more about FiLiA Hague Mothers and their resources at hague-mothers.org.uk
Share this with colleagues who may come across international families
Get in touch if you would like to know about upcoming Hague Mothers training for social workers and safeguarding teams
Because when a mother flees abuse, she should be met with protection, not a return order.
