General Secretariat
Protecting Children and Uniting Families Across Borders for 90 years
Cross Border Child Protection - International Conference
| 
Conference Pictures
You can now find all conference pictures on https://internationalsocialservice.wordpress.com/
Cross Border Child Protection - Conférence Internationale
|
Photos Conférence
Les photos de la conférence sont à voir sur ce lien: https://internationalsocialservice.wordpress.com/
Centre National pour la Médiation et la Résolution des Conflits - Lire les témoignages
| "Cross border family disputes are nowadays mostly law driven.
The party-parents apply to attorneys for advice and they lead them to require jurisdiction which is in favour of each of them. Consequently, the party-parents find themselves in an international battlefield over the children.
The handbook introduce, in a most clear and professional manner, to party-parents and family advisors, a different option to resolve their international family dispute through mediation. The reliable comprehensive guidebook, published by the expertise of the ISS, approves them that this option can serve the best interests of the children and also a trustworthy possibility for themselves"
Dr. P. Segal
Islam, Sharia and Alternative Dispute Resolution, Mechanisms for legal Redress in the Muslim Community - Lire les témoignages
| "This manual, written in simple language with input from some of the world's leading practitioners in the field, is very necessary today in explaining the values of family mediation to peoples of all cultures, traditions and backgrounds.
Often, when disputes arise, people get locked into adversarial positions where the primary issues get obfuscated.
The manual is aimed at socialising people throughout the world to the value of collaboration in developing conflict resolution arrangements among themselves and indeed finding solutions that are durable.
In today's resource- limited world with competing demands, such an approach is the only sensible way forward if we want to develop a functional and healthy civil society.
I fully endorse this endeavour".
Dr. M. M. Keshavjee
Conférence de La Haye de droit international privé - Lire les témoignages
| "The Hague Conference on Private International Law has a long history of working in the field of cross-border mediation in international child disputes.
The involvement in this area reflects the increasing importance of mediation and other alternative dispute resolution methods to bring about agreed solutions in international family law cases and most of the modern Hague Family Conventions explicitly encourage mediation and similar processes for finding appropriate solutions to cross-border family disputes.
The Hague Conference has been co-operating with ISS for many years on various matters related to the protection of children and strongly supports ISS in its goal to promote the use of mediation in international family disputes.
We are delighted to be a partner of ISS in this project which complements the efforts of the Hague Conference in this field in a unique way: the project targets international families which are often not aware that mediation may help them to find a solution to their conflict either aside from or instead of legal proceedings.
It thus responds to an urgent need to disseminate information on this conflict resolution mechanism world wide."
Dr. C. Bernasconi
Témoignages
| "Bien que nous ne soyons plus époux, nous sommes en mesure de nous occuper de notre fille. Elle a grandi sans amertume à l'égard de l'un et de l'autre. La médiation a cette capacité de réinstaurer du respect et de la dignité dans une famille, quand une relation de couple s'est malheureusement détériorée. "
Un père
"Les procédures étaient complexes et longues, avec beaucoup de va-et-vient entre les deux pays. [...] Nous avons choisi d'aller en médiation pour tenter d'accélérer
les choses. Là, nous avons réalisé que nous pouvions parler de tout et régler des questions qui allaient de toute façon surgir plus tard [...] par exemple, comment organiser au mieux les vacances. "
Une mère et un père
"Maintenant, c'est la guerre entre les législations. Les tribunaux ici me donnent la garde [...] mais ce droit de garde n'est pas reconnu dans le pays de résidence de mon mari [...] alors je suis bloquée, je ne peux pas emmener mon enfant dans le pays où vit mon mari, parce que je cours le risque de ne pas pouvoir le ramener dans le mien. [Mais] je ne veux pas empêcher mon mari de voir son enfant. "
Une mère
"Par exemple, on a convenu que nos enfants suivraient un cours d'espagnol une fois par semaine pour ne pas oublier ma langue et celle de leurs grands-parents, avec qui ils parlaient toujours quand ils habitaient ici."
Un père
"Cela me dérangeait que l'on me "donne l'ordre" d'aller en médiation. La première fois que l'administrateur m'a téléphoné, j'étais réticent parce que j'ignorais que le dispositif était aussi neutre."
Un homme
"Si les gens en savaient plus, ils essaieraient peut-être la médiation avant d'engager une procédure judiciaire, et ça leur permettrait d'éviter beaucoup de souffrance et de stress, surtout pour les enfants"
Une femme
"Il a été convenu entre nous que les enfants me rejoindraient ici pour l'école secondaire. Ce sera cet été et j'en suis très heureux. Nous n'en serions pas là si j'avais continué avec les procédures judiciaires contre mon ex-femme et j'aurais déboursé une somme astronomique depuis 2008. "
Un père
Testimonies
| "Today, though no longer husband and wife, we are still able to provide nurturing to our daughter and she has grown up without bitterness to either of us. Mediation has this ability of providing a family with respect and dignity, when a relationship has unfortunately broken down."
A father
"The proceedings were complex and long, with much back and forth between the two countries. We chose to attend mediation in order to speed matters up. Then, we realised that we could speak about everything and address questions that were going to come to the surface later anyway for example, how best to organise holidays."
A father and mother giving a joint report
"Now it's a war between laws. Lawyers in this country will give me custody [...] but that custody is not recognised in my husband's country of residence so I'm stuck in a situation where I cannot afford to take the child to the country where my husband is, in case I don't get him back. [On the other hand] I don't want to restrict my husband's access to the child."
A mother
"For example, we agreed that the children would attend a Spanish course once a week so that they would not forget my language and that of their grandparents, with whom they spoke daily while they were here."
A father
"I didn't like being 'ordered' to go to mediation. I was very aloof the first time the administrator phoned me because I didn't realise the set-up was so unbiased."
A man
"If parents knew about it, maybe they could start it before filing a court case and save a lot of suffering and stress, especially for the children."
A woman
"We agreed that the children would join me here when they were old enough to go to secondary school. This will happen this summer and I am very happy about it. I think I would not have reached this far if I had continued along the path of legal proceedings against my ex-wife. And I would have spent a huge amount of money in lawyers' fees since 2008. "
A father
The National Centre for Mediation and Conflict Resolution - Read Quotes
| "Cross border family disputes are nowadays mostly law driven.
The party-parents apply to attorneys for advice and they lead them to require jurisdiction which is in favour of each of them. Consequently, the party-parents find themselves in an international battlefield over the children.
The handbook introduce, in a most clear and professional manner, to party-parents and family advisors, a different option to resolve their international family dispute through mediation. The reliable comprehensive guidebook, published by the expertise of the ISS, approves them that this option can serve the best interests of the children and also a trustworthy possibility for themselves"
Dr. P. Segal
Islam, Sharia and Alternative Dispute Resolution, Mechanisms for legal Redress in the Muslim Community - Read Quotes
| "This manual, written in simple language with input from some of the world's leading practitioners in the field, is very necessary today in explaining the values of family mediation to peoples of all cultures, traditions and backgrounds.
Often, when disputes arise, people get locked into adversarial positions where the primary issues get obfuscated.
The manual is aimed at socialising people throughout the world to the value of collaboration in developing conflict resolution arrangements among themselves and indeed finding solutions that are durable.
In today's resource- limited world with competing demands, such an approach is the only sensible way forward if we want to develop a functional and healthy civil society.
I fully endorse this endeavour".
Dr. M. M. Keshavjee
The Hague Conference on Private International Law - Read Quotes
| "The Hague Conference on Private International Law has a long history of working in the field of cross-border mediation in international child disputes.
The involvement in this area reflects the increasing importance of mediation and other alternative dispute resolution methods to bring about agreed solutions in international family law cases and most of the modern Hague Family Conventions explicitly encourage mediation and similar processes for finding appropriate solutions to cross-border family disputes.
The Hague Conference has been co-operating with ISS for many years on various matters related to the protection of children and strongly supports ISS in its goal to promote the use of mediation in international family disputes.
We are delighted to be a partner of ISS in this project which complements the efforts of the Hague Conference in this field in a unique way: the project targets international families which are often not aware that mediation may help them to find a solution to their conflict either aside from or instead of legal proceedings.
It thus responds to an urgent need to disseminate information on this conflict resolution mechanism world wide."
Dr. C. Bernasconi
Une concertation professionnelle pour la rédaction d'une charte éthique internationale
| La création d'un réseau centralisé mondial de médiateurs permettra aux familles de trouver facilement des médiateurs professionnels spécialisés en conflits familiaux à caractère international.
Pour ce faire, le SSI cherche à fédérer les professionnels de la médiation familiale des cinq continents pour élaborer un système d'affiliation qui garantisse des standards de conduite professionnelle.
Le site multilingue permettra d'abriter un répertoire de médiateurs localisés dans les différents pays du monde. Le travail de préparation consistera à coordonner les acteurs de la médiation familiale internationale dans les différentes régions et à établir une base de travail en vue de l'adoption d'une charte internationale et d'un système d'affiliation reconnu.
A l'issue de ce projet le SSI organisera une concertation professionnelle à Genève avec tous ces acteurs présents.
