A family conflict becomes international in various scenarios involving more than one country. It could happen, for example:

• when there is a conflict in a family where the parents have different nationalities;
  
  
• when a family is not living in its country of origin;
  
  
• where the parents live in two different countries;
  
  
• where one of the parents wants to go and live in another country.

 

"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


"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


"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