A brief introduction about the organization

We fight to save children abducted to foreign countries

The number of children abducted by one of their own parents is increasing continuously with every year. In Germany the left-behind parent is usually helpless. Despite the fact that there are state institutions in Germany, such as the Federal Office of Justice, the competent authority dealing with international custody disputes, they are as good as being hardly able to help you. For this reason, SOS Children Abduction Registered Voluntary Association was founded so as to guarantee that not only children living in Germany have their rights but also you do. The founders of the organization mostly are concerned parents themselves, parents who suffered and had to face with the fact that the governmental agencies were unable or unwilling to help. Although we are a fairly young organization, founded on 25.05.2016, our actual success rate of the returned children is statistically already way higher than those of the federal government. In most cases, it is mothers who abduct their children to other countries. That is why, as a rule, we support affected fathers victims. Our goal, however, is to help all those concerned, regardless of your gender. We do not take sides with gender, — our priority is to fight for the children, because they are the ones who are abused.

Child abduction is child abuse

Although statistically at least one child in Germany is abducted and driven abroad every day by one of his parents, we almost never hear about these cases from the media. Although it is hushed up, we have to understand, these children are abused being taken away against their will. They are involuntarily separated from friends and family members and experience a mentally extremely stressful situation, let alone those consequential mental damages of the affected parents. Parents left behind, siblings and grandparents suffer the same way as the abducted children, because they are often wrongly accused of child abuse or other crimes that never happened. In most scenarios it occurs that kidnappers’ sole intention is to hurt their ex-partner as hard as possible, regardless of the methods. Therefore, our task is not only to help the affected parents as best as we can, but also raise people’s awareness of the issue.

We provide fast and competent help

Cases of children kidnapped and taken abroad require immediate reaction and action. That is why we ask all victims to report to us directly. Due to abduction cases we had to personally face with, we have to go through a learning process every victim can benefit from. We know which steps have to be taken in order to return the abducted children to their homes as quickly as possible, because any unnecessary delay brings the affected parents to the brink of financial ruin and despair. The legal counsel costs incurred by us are minimized. Furthermore, we are lucky to have many members in our ranks who speak foreign languages and can support our communication and represent us competently in the respective target states. These people are familiar with the structures of the respective states, which is very important: quite often it turns out that judicial organs and local police in those countries are corrupted, and the competent social services usually possess and share the wrong information, encouraged by intended disinformation and false accusations on the part of the kidnappers. As in many states, cases of child kidnapping are often underreported, therefore there is no great interest in resolving such cases. It means, that we often have to counteract ourselves to reverse those cases into lawfulness, into the field of legal aid. In most cases sole custody of a child can be transferred to the abductor if measures are not taken fast. For this reason, immediate action and experienced legal representation are absolutely necessary.

We are on standby for every victim

It does not matter whether a victim has sufficient financial resources or not, we are committed to help each and every affected person regardless of the situation. Although we largely finance our activities by own resources and contributions of our members, we are still dependent on donations. It is necessary in order to be able to pay for lawyers’ services specialized and licensed in the respective states. We are happy about and grateful for any contribution being made, and even if it is just a few postage stamps, it makes our correspondence so much easier.