The purpose of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is to deter international child abduction and to provide a mechanism for the prompt return of abducted children to their home country where the courts there can resolve the custody issue on the merits. The convention, which only applies between contracting states and this country, is available only when a child is wrongfully removed from a signatory country and retained in another signatory country. It only applies to the wrongful removal or retention of a child in the responding jurisdiction. The procedure, which is summary, does not contemplate a custody hearing on the merits in the responding jurisdiction.
Limited defenses are available at the responding state.
Marie-Eline, age 7, and Francois, age 2, were the children of petitioner Felix Blondin and respondent Merlyne Marthe Dubois. Blondin, a French national, petitioned the District Court for the return of his children to France pursuant to the Hague Convention . The District Court found that in the years that he lived with Dubois, Blondin repeatedly beat her, often in the presence of the children. He also beat Marie-Eline. Blondin repeatedly hit Dubois with a belt, spit on her with their daughter watching, and twisted an electrical cord around Marie-Eline's neck.