KINGSTON, Jamaica – The Senate, this afternoon, approved changes to the Children (Guardian and Custody) Act to address situations where a parent abducts a child in order to gain custody.

The Act takes into consideration that the incidence of child abduction has posed a serious challenge, particularly in light of the ease of international travel coupled with the rise in divorce rates, among other factors.

The Act gives effect to the provisions of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980, and connected matters.

 “The Bill also points out that the location, recovery and return of abducted children are made more difficult, “because they are sometimes removed and taken to states with different legal system and cultural and social structures”.

However, the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction was born out of a desire of the State to protect children, internationally, from the harmful effects of their wrongful removal or retention, as well as to establish measures to guarantee their prompt return to the State in which they were habitually resident.

The Bill, therefore, sought to amend Jamaica’s Children (Guardian and Custody) Act, which has been in effect since 1957, in order to give effect to the Government’s decision to enact legislation to implement the terms of the Convention, with a view to Jamaica becoming a party to it.

But, despite the fact that the Bill originated under the previous government, a number of challenges raised by Opposition senators Lambert Brown and Mark Golding led to an approximately five-hour debate and a number of amendments.

It was eventually passed, after the Opposition called a “divide” which led to a vote which the government won — polling nine votes to the Opposition’s four, with seven members absent.

Balford Henry