World Renowned Child Abduction Recovery Experts ABP World Group: Christmas is the Season for International Child Abduction - Parents Must Take Extra Precautions

Source: Yahoo

Press Release

As international parental child abduction surges throughout the world, ABP World Group, one of the world's leading child and adult abduction and kidnapping recovery security agencies is warning parents of the possibility of international abduction and urging them to take precautionary steps, including using newly developed, inexpensive GPS tracking systems for their children. Martin Waage, Managing Director of ABP World Group offers sound advice for targeted children and parents at risk of abduction.

New York, Los Angeles, Oslo (PRWEB) December 14, 2011

Martin Waage, the Managing Director of the internationally recognized security firm ABP World Group, and head of the firm's international child abduction recovery division is warning parents all over the world that the Christmas Holiday Season is considered one of the highest periods for international parental child abduction, and that parents, particularly those who are in volatile multi-cultural relationships and who feel the other parent may have intent to illegally leave the country with the children of their relationship must take extra precautions in order to protect their children's safety.

ABP World Group is one of the world's leading child and adult abduction recovery experts, and have participated remarkably in over 200 child-parent reunifications alone.

Mr. Waage commented, "International parental child abductions happens during the Christmas holidays as well as during the summer vacations. With international child abductions happening at a record pace, ABP World Group urges parents to take every precaution to protect their children from this horrible fate.

"Tragically, the number of global parental abductions occurring is an unknown due to failures by governments to keep accurate data; however, if we view the United States as a microcosm of the rest of the world, it is estimated that there will be between 100,000 and 125,000 children criminally abducted from now to 2020 alone. And Canada is no better as this nation's numbers could reach over 12,000 to 15,000 abductions when we consider the current reported cases of abduction, combine that with the forecasted unreported cases of abduction, and factor in a 20% growth factor, which is a modest factor in comparison to various government reports recently issued by various nations concerning abduction.

"Undeniably, Christmas presents a serious problem. As many targeted parents who have had their children abducted have said over and over, they were taken off guard and never knew or anticipated that their child would be criminally removed to another country by their other parent."

The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and many 'Western' countries are members of the Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Child Abduction, which is the international treaty that many nations have signed to address the issue of cross-border parental child kidnapping. However, many countries in the Middle East and Asia are not signatories to the international treaty, and around the world, many nation's who have signed the convention do not necessarily follow the spirit and intent of the treaty.

Martin Waage added, "The reality of international parental child abduction is that when we considered the reported and unreported cases, and also consider how our world governments consider whether a case has actually been closed or not, the truth is, what various non-government organization stakeholders are citing, such as ABP World Group, is that the actual percentage of children actually returned back to the country they were taken to is somewhere around 5%. This is a tragic number - but then all we have to do is look at countries such as Japan that have never returned a Western born child back to that child's country of original jurisdiction."

ABP World Group suggest that all parents be mindful that international parental child abduction is a growing epidemic. Accordingly, If a parents says they’re going to take the child out of the country, the targeted parent should immediately contact their local police and a lawyer that is specialized in family matters.

Still, clever thinking is a must. Mr. Waage commented, "It might be a good idea to consider equipping your child with a small GPS locator that can be hidden almost anywhere. The locator can warn you by SMS and e-mail if the child is taken outside a pre set area.

"By using a GPS unit, you will know where your child is at all times. And these GPS units can really be placed almost anywhere. Instead of receiving the information about the abduction after days when they have already left the country, you can by using a GPS tracker receive a warning immediately. This can buy you enough time, so you can warn the police and make them prevent your child from being removed out of the country.

"ABP World Group Ltd. has been assisting left behind parents, and recovering abducted children for more than 12 years. We have tested hundreds of different GPS tracking systems, but found that the majority of them do not work well. Either they have to short stand by time, or they have poor signal strength or user friendliness. Until now.

"ABP World Group strongly recommend the [Garmin GTU 10 Tracker. It`s small, light and have some incredible testing result. We have been successfully using this unit for some time now, and we recommend that every parent concerned with their child's safety use it. And in fact, the price is also reasonable (around 177 USD at Amazon.com)

"The GTU 10 is small, lightweight and waterproof. It easily attaches to a backpack, inside a teddy bear, inside a jackets pocket etc. When you purchase a new GTU 10, it comes with 1 year of Standard Tracking, so you’ll be ready to go once you register and activate it in your Garmin account. Then, you can view the location of your GTU 10 on a map from the friendly confines of your computer. For an added level of convenience, you can download the free Garmin Tracker app for your mobile device. Using your computer or mobile device, you can also create up to 10 geo-fences (virtual boundaries) for your device. When your GTU 10 enters or exits a geo-fence, an email or text message can be sent warning you that the GTU 10 is in a certain location."

For more information about how to prevent international parental child abduction please visit the official Website of ABP World Group. ABP World Group has operatives and agents operating in the many nations throughout the world, or visit ABP World Group's Contact Page. 

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Services

Follow our updates on Twitter and Facebook

One key to ABP World Group`s successful recovery and re-unification of your loved one is to use all necessary means available

Contact us here: Mail

Join the Facebook Group: International Parental Child Abduction

GPS Tracker for Kids / Children

1. Can GPS Prevent Child Abductions?

Want to know where your child is right now? You can… it’s easy! You can watch the movement of your child anytime, anywhere from your web-enabled Smart-Phone or computer.

(CBS)  The recent recovery of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was located 18 years after being abducted by a stranger, once again has parents thinking about how to protect their own kids. That’s one of the reasons behind a growing number of child locator products that typically use GPS and a cellular device to help a parents and authorities pinpoint a missing child to within a few yards.

Before getting into the technology, here are some important statistics to put this problem into context.

Stranger abduction is rare

A 2002 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice found that, in one year, 797,500 children were reported missing. That’s a lot, but most of them weren’t abducted. Of those, 203,900 were family abductions, which means the abductor was related to the child, often a noncustodial parent. Some 58,200 were “nonfamily abductions,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean strangers were responsible. And 115 children, a tiny fraction of those reported missing, were victims of what the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) calls “stereotypical kidnapping,” which involves “someone child does not know or someone of slight acquaintance, who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom, or intends to keep the child permanently.”

Garmin GTU 10

The potential loss of 115 children a year is a national tragedy, but to put it into perspective, there are 74 million children and teens in America; the odds of it happening are about 1 in 644,000, or about the same risk as being struck by lightning.

Still, it does happen and just because most abductions are carried out by family members or acquaintances doesn’t mean that they’re not potentially tragic. But it does mean that “stranger danger” is not the biggest threat to our children. In fact, because so many children are exploited by acquaintances and family members, NCMEC has stopped using that term and now refers to it as a “misguided message,” because “children don’t get it, adults don’t practice it (and) it doesn’t go far enough in protecting children from potential danger.” Plus, when a child is in trouble, sometimes their protector can be a stranger such as a police officer, a mall security guard, or a passerby.

Reasons for concern

Having said this, there is still a logical reason for parents and guardians to consider equipping their children with a device that can help locate them in an emergency. For one thing, these devices can bring peace of mind. Parents worry about their kids for a lot of reasons beyond being taken by a stranger. Have they wandered off? Did they get into an accident? Could they be lost? And it’s not just little kids we worry about. Parents of teenagers are rightfully concerned when they’re kids are away from home, especially if they’re riding or driving in cars. To be honest, my kids are now in their 20s and I still worry about them.

Technologies

There are various technologies that can help protect children, ranging from devices that send out a local alarm that can be heard from a couple hundred feet away, to very sophisticated dedicated GPS tracking devices.

ABP World Group Recommends the Garmin GTU 10 Tracker.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Services

Follow our updates on Twitter and Facebook

One key to ABP World Group`s successful recovery and re-unification of your loved one is to use all necessary means available

Contact us here: Mail

Join the Facebook Group: International Parental Child Abduction

Parental Abduction – When Parents Kidnap Their Own

By Carma Haley

An estimated 355,000 children are abducted from their homes each year, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). These children can go days, weeks, months or even years with no contact from anyone except their abductor. And many of these children are not taken by strangers: They are abducted by their own parents.

There are some who claim kidnapping their own children is the only option they have, but what about the other parent — and what about the child?

Mark Samrodan, spokesman for NCMEC, says parental kidnapping is the practice of a noncustodial parent taking a child from the custodial parent from one state to another without court permission or in violation of court orders obtained through a divorce or custody hearing. The practice of parental kidnapping is forbidden by both federal and state laws in the absence of a provable emergency situation and can result in the noncustodial parent being charged with felony kidnapping. But often this threat does not stop parental kidnapping from occurring.

Who Kidnaps?

Research completed by the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Thrown-away Children (NISMART), which was founded by the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, states there are many reasons parents may resort to abducting their children. These reasons include using a child as a “pawn” in contentious divorce proceedings, as an extension of battering, to control their spouse or ex-spouse by depriving them of custody or visitation of the child, or to protect the child from abuse.

“My husband and I obtained legal custody of our granddaughter when it was determined that her mom was unable to take care of her,” says Shirley Sunderland, from Altoona, Pa. “When the baby was 3 months old I was working at the local hospital and often had difficulty finding a sitter for the evening shift. [My daughter] offered to take care of her for that one night. When I got home, the baby was gone and so were some of her belongings. I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach and then realized that the baby had been kidnapped by her own mother.”

The Missing Children’s Registry of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada has developed an overall profile of parental abductions. The profile was constructed to assist those whose child has been abducted by a parent and includes facts such as:

• Either parent, mother or father, will abduct his or her own child.
• Mothers tend to abduct children after a court order is completed while fathers do so before the court order.
• Mothers who abduct their children will keep the children for a longer period of time then fathers who abduct.
• The “average” age range for parents who abduct their child is 28 to 40 years of age.
• The fathers who abduct their children are likely to have employment while the mothers who abduct are more likely to be unemployed.
• The majority of children who are abducted by their own parent but kept within the United States are between 3 and 7 years of age, but children who are taken out of the country tend to be 8 years of age or older.
• Both male and female children are abducted equally.
• The majority of children abducted by their own parent are done so from the home and not from areas such as a babysitters, daycare or schoolyard.
• The abductor, both mother and father, typically makes contact within 48 hours of abducting the child to inform the searcing parent of the child’s well being.

Various modes of transportation both within the United States and beyond are used to transport the child.

Children who are abducted by their own parent are typically done so during weekend, summer or winter holidays.

The abducting parent does not typically use force to obtain the child.

The Other Side of the Coin

The typical reasons are not the only reasons a parent may feel they have no alternative but to kidnap their own child. Many believe the justification of parental abduction go beyond any of the reasons listed above as well as beyond the courtroom.

“Dispelling typical myths that parents who kidnap their own child are doing so to get even with society and/or hurt their ex-spouse has proven quite difficult,” says Bonnie Russell, advocate for parental abduction prevention and former victim of a parental kidnapping from Solana Beach, Calif. “While some cases of parental abduction are due to this, it is more the exception then the rule. Other reasons include abuse, neglect, endangerment, unjust hearings or simple injustices. Until the underlying reason parents resort to kidnapping is addressed, no one will understand the subject.”

Some parents feel they have been treated inappropriately before, during or after a custody battle and this treatment played a role in losing custody of their children. For some of these parents, taking their child was their only option.

“My husband physically abused me for years,” says Carolyn Hawkins, a mother of two originally from Medina, Ohio. “And even though I reported him to the police numerous times, had a medical record as thick as a dictionay and had left him twice before, he was awarded custody of my children because he had more money and could hire a lawyer where mine was court appointed. The abuse I suffered led me into a depression and that was used against me in court. What else could I do but get my kids away from him?”

Alternatives to Kidnapping

Many services are available to help in the event of a situation that may be dangerous or harmful to a child. Social service departments, health departments and area chapters of Child Abuse Prevention agencies or even a school counselor can all help a parent who fears for their child’s welfare and safety.

In the event of a disputed divorce or custody order, a parent can move up the chain of command to find assistance or to have additional evidence heard, Samrodan says. If a parent is not in a financial situation to afford an attorney, local chapters of Legal Aid or free legal assistance can be found through social service offices.

“There is always something else that should be tried or attempted before a parent resorts to kidnapping their child,” says Samrodan. “Whether a local, state or federal organization, if a parent truly feels they need assistance, then they can and will find it — all they need to do is ask.”

If a parent suspects the noncustodial parent may abduct their child, they should file an order with the court to investigate a possible parental kidnapping which can assist them in getting a visitation order held until the threat has passed. In the event of a continued threat or possible attempts to abduct the child, the custodial parent should file an order with the court to have the noncustodial parent’s visitation revised to prevent an abduction from taking place, Samrodan says.

“It only takes a few minutes and a little bit of effort to et help when a parent fears their child may or will be abducted by their noncustodial parent,” says Samrodan. “If they need assistance, anyone at the courthouse would be happy to help — again, all that needs to be done is to ask.”

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

Follow our updates on Twitter and Facebook

Parental Child Abduction - Lesson 1

by Jake Morphonios


Imagine...

You are in the kitchen cooking dinner while your children are playing in your front yard. When you go outside to call them in, they are gone.

Imagine...

You drop off your child at school before work. When you arrive to pick her up in the afternoon you are told that someone else has already taken her.

Imagine...

You wait for your former spouse to return your son following a schedule weekend visit. When your child isn't returned, you go to the other parent's home only to discover that the apartment has been vacated.

The physiological response in each of these situations is the same. Your heart begins to pound and your adrenaline starts to surge through your veins as the realization dawns that your children are gone. In an instant your brain considers possible explanations, but they each defy logic. Your brain already knows what your heart is desperately trying to deny. Your children have been kidnapped.

There are few horrors that can rival the experience of having one's child kidnapped. Movies and television shows sensationalize child abduction. The nightly news further distorts correct understanding of child abduction by only reporting on the most dramatic of cases, for example, the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. There exists, however, a less-glamorous form of child abduction which is perpetrated by the child's own parent.

Parental Kidnappings

Each year there are more than 350,000 child abductions in America. The vast majority of these kidnappings are perpetrated by one of the child's parents. The official term for this type of crime is "parental child abduction", but it is also referred to as a "child kidnapping" or "child snatching". Regardless of the terminology, the fact that the child is taken by the other parent does not diminish or negate the raw emotional trauma inflicted upon the other parent.

Parental kidnapping is the unlawful abduction of a child by one parent which deprives the other parent of their lawful custody of the child.  In divorce situations, the abductor may be the custodial or the non-custodial parent. This means that even if the abductor is the custodial parent or primary caregiver, if the abduction deprives the other parent of his or her court ordered visitation time then the custodial parent is guilty of parental child abduction.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention conducted an intensive and thorough research study on child abduction in America. The project is called the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART). The section that focused specifically on children abducted by family members is called NISMART-2. This article extensively references the NISMART-2. The original study may be found at: http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org

Defining Parental Child Abduction

"For the purposes of NISMART-2, family abduction was defined as the taking or keeping of a child by a family member in violation of a custody order, a decree, or other legitimate custodial rights, where the taking or keeping involved some element of concealment, flight, or intent to deprive a lawful custodian indefinitely of custodial privileges."

The NISMART-2 elaborates on the definition above by further defining the following terms: 

• Taking: Child was taken by a family member in violation of a custody order or decree or other legitimate custodial right.

• Keeping: Child was not returned or given over by a family member in violation of a custody order or decree or other legitimate custodial right.

• Concealment: Family member attempted to conceal the taking or whereabouts of the child with the intent to prevent return, contact or visitation.

• Flight: Family member transported or had the intent to transport the child from the State for the purpose of making recovery more difficult.

• Intent to deprive indefinitely: Family member indicated intent to prevent contact with the child on an indefinite basis or to affect custodial privileges indefinitely.

Conceptualizing the Problem

Of the 203,900 parental child abduction cases studied, 57% were labeled as "caretaker missing", meaning that the victimized parent did not know where the child was for at least 1 hour, became alarmed and searched for the missing child. However, the NISMART-2 reveals:

"It is possible for a child to have been unlawfully removed from custody by a family member, but for that child's whereabouts to be fully known. Thus, a child can be abducted but not necessarily missing."

In fact, the study found that 43% of the children kidnapped were not thought of as "missing" by the victimized parent because the child's whereabouts were known to the victim parent.

"Although the family abductions described in this study typically had certain disturbing elements such as attempts to prevent contact or alter custodial arrangements permanently, they did not generally involve the most serious sorts of features associated with the types of family abductions likely to be reported in the news. Actual concealment of the child occurred in a minority of episodes. Use of force, threats to harm the child and flight from the State were uncommon. In contrast to the image created by the word 'abduction,' most of the children abducted by a family member were already in the lawful custody of the perpetrator when the episode started. In addition, nearly half of the family abducted children were returned in 1 week or less."

Even if the child is not considered missing, the abduction is still considered child abuse because of the damage that it inflicts upon the child. The NISMART-1 found that, "family abduction can result in psychological harm to the child" and the NISMART-2 states that "family abductions constitute an important peril in the lives of children it is important to remember that the potential harm to family abducted children exists whether or not they are classified as missing".

Characteristics of Parental Abductions

Location and Season. 73% of parental abductions took place in the child's own home or yard, or in the home or yard of a relative or friend. Children were removed from schools or day care centers in only 7% of the cases. In 63% of the cases, the children were already with the abductor in lawful circumstances immediately prior to the abduction.

Police Contact. In 40% of all cases, the aggrieved parent did not contact the police to report the abduction. The study found a number of reasons for this, but the majority of responses indicated that the parent did not believe that the police would intervene in the matter because the child's whereabouts were known, they were in the care of a legal guardian, and it did not appear that the child was being harmed. The highest percentage of abductions took place during the summer.

Ages. 45% of abductors were in their 30's. 44% of abducted children were younger than age 6.

Indicators of serious episodes. "The use of threats, physical force, or weapons was relatively uncommon in family abductions." 17% were moved out of State with the intent to make recovery more difficult. 44% were concealed, at least temporarily, from the victimized parent-+. 76% included attempts to prevent contact. 82% included intent to permanently affect the custodial privileges of the aggrieved parent.

Conclusion

Parental child abduction is the unlawful kidnapping of a child by one parent which deprives the other parent of his or her lawful custodial rights. This kind of child snatching not only victimizes the other parent, but it is also a serious form of child abuse.

When the abducting parent chooses to go underground or flees the state or country, recovery of the child becomes exceptionally difficult - and sometimes impossible. Because of this, if you suspect that your child is at risk of abduction you must act now. There are steps you can take to reduce the risk of abduction, as well as actions designed to make the recovery of your child far more likely.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

Follow our updates on Twitter and Facebook

<a href="http://www.hypersmash.com/dreamhost/" id="SN511479">DreamHost sale</a>