What Can I Do If My Child Was Taken to Another Country?

An interstate abduction is a crisis. An international one is a crisis with a passport, a foreign legal system, and a clock that punishes hesitation. What you do in the first days matters enormously. The Law Office of Chad Foster helps Snohomish County clients with child custody, support, and parentage matters.

If your child has been taken to, or kept in, another country without your consent, you have several tools that work together: a Hague Convention return petition if the destination country is a treaty partner, filed through the U.S. State Department's Office of Children's Issues; enforcement of your Washington custody rights under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, which treats foreign countries like states under RCW 26.27.051; criminal referral, because international parental kidnapping is a federal crime; and immediate preventive measures for any children still here. Speed matters more in these cases than almost anywhere else in family law. Here is the map.

First Days: Report, Document, and Call Counsel

Start three tracks at once. Report the abduction to local law enforcement and get a case number; ask that your child be entered into the National Crime Information Center missing person database. Contact the U.S. State Department's Office of Children's Issues, the federal hub for international abduction cases, which coordinates Hague applications and can flag passports. And gather the paper that every later step will require: your parenting plan or custody order, the child's birth certificate, passport information, photos, and a timeline of the taking. For related guidance, see Can Child Support Be Taken From Tax Refunds.

If the child has not yet left, or the other parent has threatened removal, tell law enforcement and your lawyer that too. Courts can order passports surrendered, restrict travel, and require supervised exchanges, and the State Department's Children's Passport Issuance Alert Program can notify you of passport applications for your child. Preventing departure is vastly easier than reversing it. For related guidance, see Can My Child Keep Contact With Siblings Adopted by Another Family.

The Hague Convention: The Main Return Tool

For children taken to one of the many countries partnered with the United States under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, the Convention supplies the central remedy: a petition for the child's prompt return to their country of habitual residence. Implemented in the United States by the International Child Abduction Remedies Act, 22 U.S.C. 9001 and following, the Convention deliberately avoids relitigating custody. The foreign court asks only whether the child was wrongfully removed or retained in breach of your custody rights, and if so, orders return so the custody case can proceed where the child actually lived, here.

Two realities shape Hague cases. First, defenses exist, including grave risk of harm, and abducting parents use them. Timing matters too: under Article 12 of the Convention, a return case filed within one year of the wrongful removal must result in a return order unless another defense applies, while a case filed after one year can be refused if the child is shown to be settled in the new environment. That is why delay is dangerous: waiting a year or more can convert a strong return case into a losing one. Second, the Convention only works where it applies. If the destination country is not a Hague partner, or is one with a poor compliance record, the path runs instead through that country's own courts and diplomatic channels, a harder road where experienced counsel and the State Department matter even more.

Your Washington Orders Still Count Abroad, and Here

The UCCJEA does not stop at the border. Under RCW 26.27.051, Washington courts treat a foreign country as if it were a U.S. state for jurisdictional purposes, and foreign custody determinations made under substantially conforming standards are recognized here, with narrow exceptions where a country's child custody law violates fundamental principles of human rights, or where its laws punish apostasy, religious belief, or homosexuality with death and a parent or child faces a real risk under them. The practical consequences run in your favor twice over. Washington remains your child's home state for six months after a wrongful removal as long as you keep living here, and a Washington court that has already entered a custody order keeps exclusive, continuing jurisdiction under RCW 26.27.211, so the custody case belongs here, and you can obtain or firm up orders while the child is gone. And the abductor gains nothing legally from the abduction: under RCW 26.27.271, a Washington court must, with narrow exceptions, decline jurisdiction that a parent tries to invoke through unjustifiable conduct, and when it does so it must assess the wrongdoer with the other parent's expenses, including attorney fees and investigative costs, unless that would be clearly inappropriate. Foreign courts applying the Hague Convention routinely look to the left-behind parent's home-country orders, so a clean, current Washington order is ammunition, not paperwork.

Domestic enforcement tools stay live as well, including the contempt, civil damages, and expedited enforcement remedies described in custodial interference and abduction remedies in Washington, and the jurisdictional framework covered in which state decides child custody.

The Criminal Track, Used Carefully

Taking a child out of the United States, or keeping a child outside it, to obstruct a parent's lawful parental rights is a federal crime under the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act, 18 U.S.C. 1204, punishable by up to three years in prison, and state custodial interference charges can apply too. Criminal referral can generate arrest warrants, Interpol notices, and real pressure. But it is a tool to deploy thoughtfully, with advice: some countries resist returning children to a parent whose other parent faces prison, and prosecutors, not you, control a criminal case once it starts. The decision about when and whether to push the criminal track belongs in the same conversation as your Hague strategy, not ahead of it.

The Cost Question, Answered Early

International recovery has a reputation for ruinous expense, and the reputation deserves nuance. Hague proceedings in many partner countries move through streamlined dockets, and some countries provide counsel or legal aid to petitioning parents; the State Department maintains attorney referral resources, and some U.S. lawyers handle Hague cases at reduced rates. On the domestic side, Washington's UCCJEA fee-shifting provisions can put investigation costs, travel, and attorney fees on the abducting parent, and the civil damages remedy for concealment under RCW 26.09.255 reaches any relative who took, enticed, or concealed the child, not just the other parent. None of that makes recovery cheap, but it changes the planning conversation from "can we afford to try" to "how do we sequence the spending," and it is one more reason to involve counsel in the first week, when the case can still be shaped, rather than after months of improvised effort.

What Recovery Actually Takes

Successful recoveries share a pattern: a parent who moved within days, a lawyer coordinating the Hague application, the Washington custody case, and local counsel in the destination country, and relentless documentation. They also share realism, because even winning cases take months, and the parent who maintains contact with the child where possible, keeps records of every communication, and stays scrupulously lawful themselves, no self-help counter-abductions, finishes stronger in every forum.

The Law Office of Chad Foster helps left-behind parents in Snohomish County move fast on every track at once, and helps at-risk parents put prevention orders in place before a threatened removal becomes a Hague case. If your child has been taken abroad, or you fear it is coming, call 425.785.8679 today.

If an abduction is in progress, call 911 immediately.