The lost children of Libya

“He punched me in the face, beat me and drove me at gunpoint to Tripoli airport, threatening along the way to bury me in the desert.”

That’s how Natalie, a 29-year-old mother from Britain, describes being forced out of Libya by her ex-husband and thus separated from her three children. Her name has been changed to protect her family.

Natalie met her Libyan husband in Britain, where he was studying, in 2000. They married and had three children in quick succession. In June 2012, following the uprisings which led to the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi, Natalie’s husband determined that the family would relocate to Libya.

“He said that England had made our marriage bad and that we needed to start again in Libya,” she told MEMO. Upon arrival in Benghazi, though, matters took a turn for the worse as her husband became increasingly abusive. “His family, including his mother and sisters, would threaten me to behave or he’d get a second wife,” claims Natalie. That has since happened. It has now been over a year since she says that she was forced out of Libya under duress. Back in England, Natalie has had little contact with her three children, who are all under the age of 10. “It’s especially worrying given the recent events in Benghazi.”

According to legal experts, international parental abduction is a recurring problem in Libya. Several cases are pending in the family courts involving mothers from countries as diverse as Pakistan, Sweden, Germany and Bulgaria. The foreign mothers are seeking custody of their children, whom they allege to have been abducted illegally by their fathers.

Libyan family law is based largely on Islamic law and, in particular, the Maliki school of jurisprudence. According to Abubakir Al-Buseer, a prominent high court family lawyer in Tripoli, “Where there is an issue of child custody, the child will almost always, in the first instance, remain with the mother. If the mother is unfit or unable to care for the child, it will go to the mother’s mother and only in the third instance to the father.”

In the case of foreign mothers, the issue is determined invariably by whether or not the mother is a Muslim and whether she will stay in Libya, Al Buseer told MEMO. “If the mother is a Muslim her chances of being the hadana [legal custodian] increase to over 50 per cent, and if she’s not, it’s almost certain that she won’t get custody.” He added that the rights of the child will always remain paramount for the Libyan courts.

There are significant barriers to getting a case heard before those courts, which since the 2011 revolution have been in turmoil, characterised by delays, judges’ strikes and corruption. In the rare event that a foreign mother is awarded custody of her child, enforcing the court judgment is another extremely difficult hurdle that must be overcome.

According to the Chairman of the Foundation for the Support of Libyan Children’s Rights, Mustafa El-Nuweisri, the scenario is like a jungle. “There is no law. The judges feel threatened and the judicial police are defunct. Nevertheless, we still advise mothers to document their rights and follow the proper legal channels.”

El-Nuweisri established the voluntary organisation after the revolution, in the hope that civil society would play a greater role in Libya. “In some instances we visit the Libyan husband with local leaders and Imams to try to reach an amicable solution. If this fails, we advise the foreign mothers to pursue legal avenues.” He blames “a weak government” for not protecting children, as vulnerable members of Libyan society.

The issue of parental abduction is complicated further by the fact that Libya is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. All claims, therefore, have to be brought under domestic law. A draft Children’s Law was proposed by the Libyan government in 2010, but was never approved, and although Libya is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), this does not carry the force of law domestically.

The Libyan Ministry of Social Affairs, in conjunction with UNICEF, is taking steps to enhance child protection in Libya having launched a training programme in July 2012 for social workers; it is hoped that this will benefit an estimated 2,500 children. According to UNICEF, training offered includes: capacity building, learning how to detect and support a distressed child, strengthening community based responses, delivering coping mechanisms to children and learning how to manage difficult familial situations. Despite these steps, the effects of an international tug-of-war between parents are undoubtedly felt most acutely by the children at the centre of the dispute.

“The key is the resilience of the child,” says Amera Elkaied, a British-trained counsellor who works to promote children’s mental health in Libya. “Some children never recover from the trauma and suffer from separation anxiety, identity issues, depression and resentment towards their parents.” Despite the potential for long-term effects on the child’s mental well-being, Elkaied told MEMO that some children do bounce back and grow up to become perfectly stable adults.

Maria is a Brazilian national, who met her Libyan husband in Sweden. Following the breakdown of their marriage and subsequent divorce, Maria was awarded sole custody of their daughter by the Swedish courts, with scheduled visitation rights for her husband. Maria believes that it was in reaction to this court decision that her husband set in motion plans to abduct their daughter.

“Knowing that I wouldn’t go to Libya,” she says, “he put pressure on me to take our 3 year-old to meet him in Tunisia.” On arrival in Tunis in December 2012, Maria says that she was beaten severely and sedated by her husband and his brother, before being driven across the border into Libya where he confiscated her passport and kept her under what she describes as house arrest.

“I was beaten, suffering broken bones and internal damage, whilst female members of his family looked on. Eventually, after a few weeks, he drove me to the Brazilian embassy in Tripoli and threw me into the street.” Maria spent over a year in limbo without a passport and relying on financial aid from friends. She says that her custody case in the Libyan courts was dismissed due to a lack of documentation, as she did not get married or give birth in Libya. Maria told MEMO that even the lawyer representing her had faced personal threats for taking on her case.

In this highly emotive and tangled issue of parental abduction in Libya, Mustafa El-Nuweisri believes that the key tools for foreign mothers are: mediation, utilising the legal system, the press and international diplomacy. The issue also needs to be addressed publically and spoken about more openly in Libyan society, if it is ever to be resolved.

El-Nuweisri himself has been the victim of attacks for his activism, requiring hospital care after relatives of one Libyan husband assaulted him outside a Misrata courthouse. Despite this, he remains committed to his cause. “We won’t give up,” the 72 year-old told MEMO defiantly. “At this age, I have nothing to fear.”

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.