Parental Kidnapping in America
An Historical and Cultural Analysis
by
Maureen Dabbagh

About the Book
In 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice reported an average of 200,000 cases of parental kidnapping each year. More than just the byproduct of a nasty custody dispute, parental kidnapping--defined as one parent taking his or her child and denying access of the child to the other parent--represents a form of child abuse that has sometimes resulted in the sale, abandonment and even death of children. This candid exploration of parental kidnapping in America from the eighteenth century to the present clarifies many misconceptions and reveals how the external influences of American social, political, legal, and religious culture can exacerbate family conflict, creating a social atmosphere ripe for abduction.

About the Author
Maureen Dabbagh is a Virginia Supreme Court Family Mediator specializing in cross-border child custody disputes. She has been providing expert testimony in court on the issue of parental kidnapping since 1997, in the U.S. and in Europe. Her own three-year-old daughter was abducted from the United States and taken to the Middle East by her Syrian ex-husband. Mother and daughter had no communication for 17 years. In 2010, the two were reunited.

Table of Contents

Preface 1
Introduction 3

1. Parental Abduction: A Timeless Tradition 7
2. The Progressive Era and the Family 27
3. Culture, Blood and Borders 43
4. The Military, War, and Parental Kidnapping 62
5. Religion: Motivation for Abduction 67
6. Heroes and Outlaws 83
7. Nationalism and The Hague 92
8. Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, and Alienation 107
9. Law Enforcement and Parental Kidnapping 129
10. Reunification 136
11. Prevention 145
12. Politics of Abduction 155
13. Evolution of an Epidemic 161