Abducting Children Abroad: Gender, Power, and Transnational Mobility in Immigrant Family Conflicts

Abstract

Utilizing life story interviews of immigrant women whose children were abducted by abusive (ex-)husbands, the article unpacks a three-part pattern of transnational mobility: first, husbands apply strategies of coercive control to dominate wives in Denmark; second, wives draw on Scandinavian “woman-friendly” state support to challenge men and seek divorce; and third, men try to regain control through abducting children to the Middle East, seeking to blackmail mothers into leaving Denmark and resubmitting themselves to male control. While some wives accede to their husband’s demands, others skillfully manage to “re-abduct” children back to Denmark, thereby belying the trope of the victimized immigrant woman.

Interparental Coercive Control and Child and Family Outcomes: A Systematic Review

“…Barriers to support and safety included rural location and limited access to affordable resources (Shepard & Hagemeister, 2013). For parent survivors of CC, protective factors against poor outcomes included higher socio-economic status, education, linguistic ability, strategies for understanding and coping with IPV experiences, ability to use and understand service systems (e.g., the law and community services), focusing on the children, career development, and help-seeking behaviors (Fogarty et al, 2019; Liversage, 2021). In Salazar et al (2014), mothers’ education level was a protective factor against IPV leading to children’s corporal punishment.…”

“…The current review reveals that CC is an important driving force for this association (e.g., Emery et al, 2015; Haselschwerdt et al, 2019, 2020). Additionally, as with past research on childhood exposure to other forms of violence (see Holden, 2003), children exposed to interparental CC were co-victims, used as pawns for abuse (e.g., Callaghan et al, 2018; Crossman et al, 2016; Dragiewicz et al, 2021; Liversage, 2021). The evidence concluded that children’s lives, environment, living situations, and their health and wellbeing were often used as leverage to impose CC over the survivor-parent.…”

“…Katz 2016; E. Katz et al, 2020; Liversage, 2021; Salazar et al, 2014; Shepard & Hagemeister, 2013) shed light on potential protective factors for the adverse impacts of interparental CC in the following domains: health and support services (e.g., access to affordable services with specialist understanding of CC); parental qualities (e.g., education, employment, help seeking behaviors); caregiving dynamics (e.g., attention on caring for and connecting with children, working with children to resist CC); and child dynamics (e.g., awareness of patterns of abuse). Importantly, evidence found that the protective impact of maternal education was minimized by exposure to CC as opposed to other forms of IPV (Salazar et al, 2014).…”

“…(k = 9). Qualitative studies (k = 8) showed that CC perpetrating parents used their children as tools for ongoing abuse post-separation through filing for custody; denying the children or neglecting the children's needs; withholding child support; threatening to kidnap the children or actually abducting children (Liversage, 2021); using children and visitation to gain access to the mother and maintain abuse and CC; making false reports to child protection services against the mother; or discrediting the mother in court to manipulate custody arrangements (Callaghan et al, 2018;Douglas & Fell, 2020;Haselschwerdt et al, 2019;Shepard & Hagemeister, 2013;Toews & Bermea, 2017;Watson & Ancis, 2013). Dragiewicz et al (2021) found fathers used children to enable technology-facilitated CC by coercing children to provide their mother's digital information (i.e., passwords).…”

Having the Lower Hand—Investigating Interaction in the Life Course Narratives of Immigrant Women Exposed to Partner Abuse

“…In response, his next step was to move the family conflict away from potential interference by the Danish state. Shortly after this incident, he abducted the family’s children to his country of origin (Liversage, 2021; Anitha et al, 2018). These events illustrate the hardships abused immigrant women may suffer if they are not extended timely support.…”