Parental kidnapping is an abduction of a child by a parent, disregarding and offending its and other parent’s rights. To be considered kidnapping taking of a child has to be determined by abductor’s intention, his legal status and presence of custody-related court orders. If there is no such order, both of the parents have equal rights, and though one may not be content with other’s decision to take a child for a weekend vacation for example, it can’t be marked as kidnapping.
Parental kidnapping happens for various reasons, often because of child-custody decree and one parent’s dissatisfaction with it. It also occurs in troubled homes with a history of domestic violence, in bi-cultural marriages, etc.
Those cases have a huge impact on every party, including the abductor. This kind of kidnapping is not usually pre planned and happens due to abductor’s belief that he is out of other options. In most situations there is somewhat of a trigger, some event that led the abductor to think that that is the best solution or to have irrational fears of losing a child, like awaiting custody decision. He is also unaware of the consequences of his actions and the fact that they can only worsen things. Only when the situation calms does the abductor realise what effects the kidnapping might have on the child, the other parent, himself, and moreover legal consequences. He becomes aware that his relationship with the child is jeopardized, that the court will take these new events into consideration when deciding who will be child’s legal guardian and that he even might go to jail. Many of abductors atone at this point and try to mend what is broken by returning the child home and facing the other parent and sometimes law enforcements. In numerous cases they do not face any kind of legal punishment for the kidnapping, as the parents find a way to deal with it on their own. They usually do not keep the child away for too long, so they don’t face large-scale psychological and emotional traumas. In other cases abductors new realizations lead them to further deepening of the problem by hiding a child, taking them to a different town or even to a different country, maybe even a country with a different jurisdiction, where his problem might have better solution. In these extreme circumstances child is torn away not only from the other parent, but from the whole family, friends, school and what used to be his every-day life, and that can lead to more severe psychological problems.
Parental kidnapping happens more often than reported, some parents are too scared to do it and the other ones solve the problem themselves. Society is rather indifferent about this matter, one of the most quoted sentences being that the child is not in trouble if he is with his other parent. Through social media people hear about this more often and increasingly start seeing this as a problem.