If the child has been taken from Turkey, the DCA in Turkey is the Ministry of Justice: Ministry of Justice General Directorate of International Law and Foreign Relations Adalet Bakanlığı Ek Binası Namık Kemal Mah. As of 2018, kidnapping rate in New Zealand was 9.5 cases per 100,000 population. Telephone: +90 (312) 414 84 05 / +90 (312) 414 87 24 Fax: +90 (312) 219 45 23
Not only is it extremely distressing but it is also going to be difficult to fix the problem, particularly when you may be living many thousands of miles away from the place to which the child has been taken.With the increased mobility we find in the modern world and the increasing number of relationships formed between people of different nationalities and different cultures, it is not surprising that problems arise.During an ‘ordinary’ divorce, where both parents continue to live in the same town or area, the question of who should have primary responsibility for looking after the children and the arrangements for giving the other parent the right to see them often cause endless trouble, heated arguments and much expense.It is, of course, much worse when one of the parents will be living on the other side of the world and where, obviously, the opportunities for the parent who does not have day-to-day control of the children to see those children will be few and far between.
An Italian citizen who disappeared on a holiday to Turkey in 2016 made contact with his family, telling them armed men had taken him prisoner. It has been adopted by 93 states, so only roughly half of the countries in the world. If you discuss your worries you may be reassured or you may have cause to worry further – in which case, further action can be taken before the event happens.In almost all countries, if there is a problem or potential problem over child abduction, you should be able to get an appointment before a judge very quickly: a matter of hours or days, not weeks.The first thing to say is that you should try not to panic. It means that the child was normally resident in that country. It also requires them to do so quickly, with a decision being made within six weeks.Needless to say, that does not always happen in practice and the situation in Turkey is less than satisfactory.‘Habitually resident’ has its common sense meaning. In this case, the legal systems governing each of the parents and the child will be relevant and if (which is relatively rare) the child has been taken to a country which is not any of these countries, the legal system of that country will also come into play.You can imagine that these different legal systems could well take a very different view of what is in the best interests of the child and which parent should have the right to have the child live with them.In 1980, after years of debate and thousands of heart-breaking cases of abduction, an international convention was adopted to regulate how these cases should be dealt with around the world.This is the ‘Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction’. Knoema is the most comprehensive source of global decision-making data in the world. If a child spends 40 or 50 weeks per year in a country and only goes away on holiday they will be considered to be habitually resident in that country. Turkey has adopted the convention.It’s important to understand that the convention does not change any of the legal rights of the parents or of the child. Two Turkish agents — “diplomats” — conspired to kidnap a Turkish-Swiss businessman. It is important to understand that, with very few exceptions, if a child is taken unlawfully then they must be returned to their home country and the authorities in the place where the child is physically present must act swiftly to arrange this.Many parents fear that the other parent will do something rash and abduct their child or, more often, refuse to return the child at the end of an agreed period of visitation. This can be quite expensive and it can usually be done quickly if a problem arises, so it might be better left until then. the country to which the child has been removed or where it is being retained.For example, the United States’ DCA is the US Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs Office of Children’s Issues.