Child abduction

“ Offences under Law of England and Wales
Offence of abduction of child by parent etc. 1.— (1) Subject to subsections (5) and (8) below, a person connected with a child under the age of sixteen commits an offence if he takes or sends the child out of the United Kingdom without the appropriate consent. ”

“ On National Missing Children's Day, we join with families, law enforcement officials, and child advocates to highlight our commitment to stopping the abduction and exploitation of children. During this year's observance, we celebrate the progress we have made in safeguarding children, and we renew our dedication to protecting our most vulnerable citizens and our most valuable resources. ”

“ Strongly condemns the recruitment and use of child soldiers by parties to armed conflict in violation of international obligations applicable to them, killing and maiming of children, rape and other sexual violence mostly committed against girls, abduction and forced displacement, denial of humanitarian access to children, attacks against schools and hospitals as well as trafficking, forced labour and all forms of slavery and all other violations and abuses committed against children affected by armed conflict ”

“ In proceedings against any person for an offence under this section it shall be a defence for that person to show that at the time of the alleged offence he had no reason to believe that there was in existence an order referred to in subsection (1) above.
(6) For the purposes of this section—
(a) a person shall be regarded as taking a child if he causes or induces the child to accompany him or any other person, or causes the child to be taken; and (b) a person shall be regarded as sending a child if he causes the child to be sent. ”

“ The safety and well-being of our children is a shared responsibility for all Americans and for Federal, State, and local authorities. My Administration is making the prevention and investigation of child abductions a top priority. We are working to use available resources to educate our citizens about how to prevent child abductions. We are also creating new lines of communication between authorities and the public to help find and safely return missing children to their families. We will continue to vigorously prosecute and severely punish those who would harm our children. ”

“ The Department of Justice estimates that more than 50,000 children will be victims of nonfamily abductions each year. While the rate of recovery in such kidnappings is approximately 99 percent, the trauma of abduction affects far too many. No young person in America should ever know the terror of abduction, and no family should ever have to experience the nightmare of having a loved one suddenly taken. ”

“ Kidnapping and buying and selling children for adoption increased over the past several years, particularly in poor rural areas. There were no reliable estimates of the number of children trafficked; however, according to media reports, as many as 20,000 children were kidnapped every year for illegal adoption. Most children trafficked internally were sold to couples unable to have children, particularly sons. Those convicted of buying an abducted child may be sentenced to three years' imprisonment. ”

“ Others joined the controversy by pointing out in the newspapers that abductions were sometimes motivated by revenge or spite on the part of persons quite unknown or unsuspected by the parents; that children were often stolen by irrational or demented men or women, and that there was at least some basis for faith in the abduction theory, but no evidence to support the idea of a runaway. ”

“ And does the horror of the system end here? do the sufferings of so many wretched beings close the catalogue of ills? Would to God it did! But we have seduction in all its forms; we have the dreadful crime of child murder, made more horrible by the punishment which follows its detection. ”

“ God forbid that killing should always be murder! It is only murder when it is executed with some degree of cool judgment, and wicked intention. When committed under a phrenzy from despair, can it be more offensive in the sight of God, than under a phrenzy from a fever, or in lunacy? It should therefore, [9] as it must raise our horror, raise our pity too.
What is commonly understood to be the murder of a bastard child by the mother, if the real circumstances were fully known, would be allowed to be a very different crime in different circumstances. ”

“ It is for them that we struggle to build a better world. They are the embodiment of our hopes and dreams. To have a child simply disappear strikes an incalculable blow against the spirit and soul of any family so afflicted.
In our efforts to address the nightmare of missing children, 1984 marks the year of a significant step forward. The Department of Justice has awarded a $3.3 million grant to establish a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Its purpose is to aid parents and law enforcement agencies in locating missing youngsters and preventing the exploitation of children. ”

“ There is no indication that ACS effectively and systematically pursues removal of the abuser before seeking removal of the battered victim's child. ACS has the power to petition the Family Court for an order that removes the perpetrator of abuse or neglect from a household if that would enable the children to remain with or return to the non-offending parent. ”

“ The mother who deliberately sets about to destroy this life by want of care, or by taking drugs, or by the use of instruments, commits a great crime, and is just as guilty as if she strangled her new-born infant. The crime she commits is child-murder. Women in their frenzy at finding themselves in this condition, and with no slightest idea of the sin that they are committing, are constantly guilty of committing abortions on themselves, or going to professional abortionists to have this crime of child-murder committed. ”

“ I am sorry to say that cases of abduction of young men and boys is sadly on the increase, and should be dealt with a firm hand. It is really a disgrace to a civilised country like this that such things should be possible. ”

“ Those who do this would not hesitate to kill them after they are born; for the state of mind that would justify and instigate ante-natal child-murder, would justify and instigate post-natal child-murder. Yet, public sentiment consigns the murderer of post-natal children to the dungeon or the gallows; while the murderers of ante-natal children are often allowed to pass in society as honest and honorable men and women.
The unwelcome child is ever before the mother. She regards it as a sacrilegious intruder into the domain of her life; an invader of the holy of holies of her being. ”

“ The reluctance of the authorities is understandable, however, when it is realized that to extradite for wife desertion would be to create a precedent for extradition for any sort of misdemeanor. There is in most states a law which makes the abandonment of a minor child or children a felony, punishable by a long term in state prison, and it is this law which is generally invoked when the man has been traced to another state. ”

“ From there on to the time when the child, as the father of the man, is a charge upon the State,—or on all men,—until it is able to take care of and protect itself, the murder of a child is theoretically as great a crime as the murder of an adult. ”

“ Time would fail us in attempting a complete exposition of the manifold evils of this system, and we will therefore confine ourselves to its influence on the education of destitute children. Now it is plain that whatever depraves the parent injures the child. ”

“ It is still more significant that the returns of foundling hospitals, from widely different countries, show that these institutions, however charitable and humane their object, are to be viewed as conveniences for murdering an infant without the actual violence at which humanity revolts. The proportion of abandoned children who live is so exceedingly small, that abandonment of a child to a foundling hospital is scarcely less than murder. ”

“ The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children would take the matter up at once. There would be on all hands the utmost detestation of whomsoever had been guilty of such cruelty. A heavy sentence would undoubtedly follow conviction. But our own actual society does worse itself, and to the child to be so treated by a strange abstract force, of whose claims it has no cognizance, is much worse than it would be to receive the same treatment from its father or mother, or someone it knew. ”

“ The provisions of the acts as to procedure and custody extend not only to the offence of cruelty but also to all offences involving bodily injury to a child under sixteen, such as abandonment, assault, kidnapping and illegally engaging a child in a dangerous public performance. ”

“ But it touched my heart so forcibly to think of parting entirely with the child, and, for aught I knew, of having it murdered, or starved by neglect and ill-usage, which was much the same, that I could not think of it without horror. I wish all those women who consent to the disposing their children out of the way, as it is called, for decency sake, would consider that 'tis only a contrived method for murder; that is to say, killing their children with safety. ”

“ Even ACS has at times indicated an understanding that accusing a battered woman of neglect is bad policy. A draft of the Division of Child Protection Domestic Violence Evaluation, dated September 14, 2001, suggests that while it may be desirable to hold batterers accountable by charging them with neglect when children witness domestic violence, charging the battered mother "further victimizes the non-offending parent." ”

“ Foochow—‘The Prefect and the local magistrates have within the last few days issued a stringent proclamation against the practice of female infanticide. It provides that all parents guilty of destroying a child shall be punished according to the law against the destruction of descendants, which, it seems, provides sixty blows and a year’s imprisonment, as the proper punishment. A midwife, who destroys a child, is to be punished by strangulation. Neighbours who know of the commission, and do not report it, are to be punished as accessories to murder ”

“ She told how the poor consumptive in the dark slum tenement, at whose bedside she daily read the Bible, could not die in peace while “the child they called Mary Ellen” was beaten and tortured in the next flat; and how on weary feet she went from door to door of the powerful, vainly begging mercy for it and peace for her dying friend. The police told her to furnish evidence, prove crime, or they could not move; the societies said: “bring the child to us legally, and we will see; till then we can do nothing”; the charitable said, “it is dangerous to interfere between parent and child ”

“ The reason on which the answers were based is that the direct murder of an innocent person in order to save human life is never allowable; and this applies to the murder of a child, which has as much right to its life as any other person. ”

“ By abducting and trafficking in a woman or child is meant any of the following acts: abducting, kidnapping, buying, trafficking in, fetching, sending, or transferring a woman or child, for the purpose of selling the victim. ”

“ Parents refused to allow their children out of doors without escort; rich men called up at all hours of the day and night, demanding special police to protect their homes; excited women throughout the city and later throughout the State and surrounding communities proceeded to interpret the apparition of every stranger as evidence of kidnappers and to bombard the police of a hundred towns and cities with frantic appeals. The absence of this obscure child had become a public catastrophe. ”

“ In this perplexity, and meaning nothing less than the murder of the infant, they are meditating different schemes for concealing the birth of the child; but are wavering between difficulties on all sides, putting the evil hour off, and [11] trusting too much to chance and fortune.—In that state often they are overtaken sooner than they expected; their schemes are frustrated; their distress of body and mind deprives them of all judgment, and rational conduct; they are delivered by themselves, wherever they happened to retire in their fright and confusion ”

“ Knowing that they may be investigated by child protective services, or charged with neglect, and that they may lose their children to foster care, battered mothers are more likely to remain in the abusive home, isolated and afraid, so that they can remain with their children. ”

“ And when violence fails to intimidate, many children are drugged to make it easier to force them to perform horrendous acts of violence and cruelty. Some victims are as young as 7 or 8, and many more are 10 to 15. Children who are orphans, refugees, or victims of poverty or family alienation are particularly at risk. ”

“ It is well known that child snatchers almost never succeed with this part of the business. The cases in which the kidnapper has actually got the ransom and made off without being caught and punished are so thinly strewn upon the long record that any criminal who ever takes the trouble to peruse it must shrink with fear from such offenses. Finally, it is familiar knowledge among police officers that professional criminals usually are aware of this fact and consequently both dread and abhor abductions. ”

“ The most recent reports from State child welfare agencies, however, confirm that one million cases of substantiated child abuse or neglect occur in our Nation every year. Of these cases, more than a thousand children-many under the age of four-do not survive; and most die at the hands of a parent or other family member. ”