Hague Conference Forum on Domestic Abuse
Dr Ruth Lamont participated in a global Forum on the severe difficulties women experience leaving a country, to escape domestic violence, when taking their child with them.
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980 normally require that the child is automatically returned to the state from which they were taken. For their mother, this means being separated from their child or returning with the child to situations of potential danger, visa issues, insecure housing and poverty.
In response to campaigns by and , the Forum enabled the voices of those with lived experience of using the Convention to be heard. Judges, lawyers and academics practising and researching in the field, provided the opportunity for the trauma of domestic abuse to be identified, and specific problems of lawful movement of children to be identified.
, concluded the Forum by considering the need for further research into these issues to which the University of Manchester has already made a significant contribution and will continue to do so, including helping to secure GlobalARRK鈥檚 contribution.