Let’s face it we are getting nowhere fast with the application of the HC in Brazil. SG battled for years even after the mother had passed away and he would not have succeeded if it were not for the immense publicity, political pressure and big dollars at stake. For the rest of us I can’t see the Brazilian courts sending kids from a Brazilian mother back to a foreign country despite what some HC document says. As we have seen time and time again, they will just play the game and hide behind the Brazilian legal system – and that’s that.
The only way we stand a chance of having children returned is if there is very strong pressure from a powerful country like the US (as per SG case) or from a united international front. Meeting HC targets should in fact be a condition imposed on countries bidding for the Olympic games, world cup football events etc. along with meeting other human rights records. But that sort of thing is a long way off in my mind (sorry for the pessimism).
Just wondering if there may be a different more amicable approach that may result in better return rates of children from Brazil in the short to medium term until we eventually become persuasive enough to drive changes through and the HC is applied as intended.
As soon as a HC is lodged, and the mother decides not to return the children voluntarily, that’s when the fight starts and fear sets in. To me it seems that at this point there is a radical change in the attitude of the mother (often urged on by family members) who then becomes vindictive and couldn’t care a damn about the father. This seems to me an almost cultural trait of Brazilians (sorry to generalise), that once they decide to fight it is more pronounced than other cultures and things really get ugly and reasonable discussions between father and mother go out the window. This is despite the father having perfectly valid arguments (in his mind) in that the best interest of the child/s is to have them returned. There seems to never be a spirit of “let’s agree to disagree” or respect a different view is possible on where the children should live, and in the meantime we will be “adults” and try and make sure the children have as much access to the father as possible etc. etc.
This dramatic change in attitude in the mother is interesting to me as prior to the abduction, the relationship between father and mother is generally not that bad. So much so that fathers are often caught out not suspecting a thing and allow the mother and children to travel to Brazil on holiday or have even travelled with them and returned at an earlier date (like me!) and then bang the news hits them!
Perhaps taking the fight to the Brazilian mother swiftly under the HC is currently a poor strategy (although appreciate it shouldn’t be and may be the only option). Right now the HC is a toothless tiger over there anyway. Maybe we need to spend more time patiently and calmly trying to negotiate a return solution with the mother before lodging the HC and use up just short of a year doing so – rather than rushing to get the HC application in. Perhaps this may lead to better results than immediately getting the mother into “fight” mode by immediately submitting an HC application?
I think somehow we need to try and deal with the cultural differences a bit better.
Anyway food for thought – shoot me down !!!!
