The international legal instruments on parental child abduction in private international law do not sufficiently cover the case of women who experience domestic violence. In fact, in this case, those women who, due to fear of their partners and absence or ignorance of the laws and mechanisms that can help them in their country of residence, have no choice and decide to flee with their children. This highlights the failure of this mechanism in this specific case.
This paper aims to analyze the legal and jurisprudential situation of the incidence of domestic violence on women in international child abduction and how the increase in abducting mothers who held the custody and custody of minor children at the time of abduction is causing the need to adapt the interpretation of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction to this new international social reality.
Furthermore, this article reflects on some practical aspects in both the current and future application of the provisions of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, particularly the interpretation of domestic violence as a type of grave risk, which constitutes one of the exceptions to the immediate return of children outlined in Article 13(1)(b) of the Convention.