We have heard in the past days that the child abduction charges in Beirut have been dropped against Brisbane mother, Sally Faulkner. In return she has given the father of her children, Ali Elamine, full custody rights to 5-year-old Lahela and 3-year-old Noah.
The child abduction saga has spanned two weeks, and highlighted issues ranging from the difficulties Lebanese women encounter when dealing with their country’s complex family law system, the problems between countries when there is a lack of common commitment to the Hague Convention and, last but not least, the raw primal emotion of a co-parental struggle for the children post-separation.
The issue of the longer-term impact on the children of being in the centre of such a struggle is the fundamental one.