page_title: Child abduction
section_title: International
hierarchical_section_title: Child abduction / Laws / International
caption_attribution_description: English: Photographs of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.
context_page_description: Child abduction or child theft is the unauthorized removal of a minor from the custody of the child's natural parents or legally appointed guardians.
  The term child abduction includes two legal and social categories which differ by their perpetrating contexts: abduction by members of the child's family or abduction by strangers:
  Parental child abduction is the unauthorized custody of a child by a family relative without parental agreement and contrary to family law ruling, which may have removed the child from the care, access and contact of the other parent and family side. Occurring around parental separation or divorce, such parental or familial child abduction may include parental alienation, a form of child abuse seeking to disconnect a child from targeted parent and denigrated side of family. This is, by far, the most common form of child abduction.
  Abduction or kidnapping by strangers is rare. Some of the reasons why a stranger might kidnap an unknown child include:
  extortion to elicit a ransom from the parents for the child's return
  illegal adoption, a stranger steals a child with the intent to rear the child as their own or to sell to a prospective adoptive parent
context_section_description: Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction
caption: Photographs of the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
exif: {"Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "E-500", "Image XResolution": "314", "Image YResolution": "314", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "PhotoScape", "Image DateTime": "0000:00:00 00:00:00", "Image WhitePoint": "[0, 0]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[0, 0, 0]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "0", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Image ExifOffset": "394", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Creative", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "[100, 100]", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "0000:00:00 00:00:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "0000:00:00 00:00:00", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "0", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "0", "EXIF ApertureValue": "0", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "0", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "134195853/31250", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3613281/1000000", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "14", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "0", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3340", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2504", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "0", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "0", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "0", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "0", "EXIF SensingMethod": "0", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "0"}