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Honestly I am so so sick of hearing Egyptian men kidnapping children from their foreign girlfriends or wives. And why can they do this? Because by Egyptian law they can get away with it.
SHAME ON THE EGYPTIAN JUDICIAL SYSTEM!!!!!!!!!
Now the following link (only in German language unfortunately, all the way on the bottom is also a clip) is about a 35-year-old German mother who met her Egyptian boyfriend over the internet three years ago, moved to Alexandria to live with him, she got pregnant, the relationship went sour so she moved back home to Germany to deliver.
Her mistake : She wanted to introduce her 1-year-old daughter to her boyfriend. Upon arrival at Cairo airport on May 10th 2011 her boyfriend took off with the child. Now she's looking desperately for her .... so far in vain. It is assumed that he's hiding with the little girl somewhere in Alexandria.
It is said that he wrote her several days afterwards an e-mail and admitted that he played her and planned the kidnapping well in advance. Lately he even claimed that she was taken drugs and be a prostitute and threatened to make problems for her in Egypt.
My heart is so much hurting for this woman who lives very close to my own hometown here in Germany, for losing her child in Egypt, for knowing that she almost will have no chance to get her back. But of course you can't tell her that right now. It would crush her too much. As long as hope is alive not one day shall be lost to find her little girl. Much luck and love to you, Peggy. I am crying for you and baby Soraya.
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TG you are sad why you say "her mistake" how should she know this Guy would run off with her child.......... So what are the German Embassy doing for her ???? Where is her support as a German National...seems the usual to expect when people have problems like this all the Embassies and Consulates keep themself out of it all and say contact a Lawyer here is the list......
Posts: 59 | From: Europe | Registered: Sep 2006
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I lived in Egypt for over three years, I am aware of the situation and I would think that you have been long enough there too to know what's going on. The hands of the embassy are tied and it's not about what kind of embassy it applies to German, British, American, Italian anyone. They can not help her to rescue the child and bring it illegally back to Germany. They can not offer legal advice to her as a parent just put her in touch with the right lawyers and they also definitely cannot interfere in the legal system of another country. What they can do is to make contact with local authorities in locating the child, and lastly help making travel arrangements when parent and child are reunited and legally able to leave the country.
Child abductions like that happened so many times before. I remember very well 16 years ago I was talking to someone from our embassy and he told me some of the horrible cases. He warned me if I ever had a child with an Egyptian (at this time I was only engaged to one) my rights would be zero, I could try to get custody inside the country but travelling with this child together abroad would be completely impossible without the consent of the child's father. Nothing has changed since then.
I also posted this here before: I met an African girl several years ago in Hurghada and while we were chatting and later meeting up again she told me that she wants to leave Egypt with her child but her husband doesn't agree. She tried to go back together with him on vacation to her homecountry but he refused. The marriage was a nightmare and he was completely controlling. She was in tears and asked me for help. I had later back home an Italian woman - a friend of hers - contacting me. But what can I do? How can I help?
IMHO Egypt is long overdue to sign the Hague Convention.
"... Elements of Islamic Law Relevant to International Child Abduction ¶ 14 The religious and socio-cultural specifics of North African and Middle Eastern society strongly shape and color attitudes towards the rights of women, children, foreigners and people of other religions. Most North African and Middle Eastern countries incorporate Shari'a, Islamic law, into their legal systems, especially when dealing with family law issues such as marriage, divorce, and child custody. Shari'a is believed to be divine law, and is comprised of four sources, including the word of God, Allah, as spoken through his prophet, Muhammad and preserved in the Qur'an and hadith, collections of Muhammad's sayings.27 Considered an intrinsic part of one's identity as a Muslim, Shari'a is also a personal code by which one is expected to lead his or her life, regardless of one's nationality or regular domicile. Shari'a thus "draws no distinction between the religious and the secular, between legal, ethical, and moral questions, or between the public and private aspects of a Muslim's life."28 Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim, a legal scholar who has written extensively on the topic of Human Rights and Islam, notes the depth with which normative religious concepts permeate legal systems in Muslim-majority countries, even those who do not outwardly profess to be Islamic republics:
[i]t is important to note that Islamic norms may be more influential at an informal, almost subconscious psychological level than they are at the official legal or policy level. One should not therefore underestimate the Islamic factor simply because the particular state is not constituted as an Islamic state, or because its legal system does not purport to comply with . . . Shari'a. . . . This is particularly important from a human rights point of view where underlying social and political attitudes and values may defeat or frustrate the declared policy and formal legal principles.29 ¶ 15 In most North African and Middle Eastern countries, therefore, there is little separation of religion and state—official or psychological.30 As a legal code governing and influencing questions of both public and private law, Shari'a is utilized by many North African and Middle Eastern countries to determine policy on, inter alia, criminal law, international, and human rights law (considered to be in the public domain) and religious practice, personal conduct, and family law (considered to be in the private domain).31 Islamic family law with respect to children is generally divided into a tripartite structure: (1) infancy; (2) guardianship of education; and (3) guardianship of property.32
¶ 16 Care of a child, which falls within the infancy stage, is called hadana. Under Islamic law, the mother is usually favored for custody at this stage, although it is possible for a father to obtain custody as well.33 However, if the mother is shown to be unable to perform hadana, the law provides for alternative custodians who are normally drawn from the mother's female relatives.34 Depending on the school of Islam, the temporal period of custody may run as short as two years of age for boys, or as long as up to the age of marriage for girls.35 Guardianship of education and property are exclusively the domain of the father or other male relatives.36 In order to be awarded custody, the parent must show that they are mentally able to care for the child as well as capable of "safeguarding the child's interests."37 Herein lies the crux of Islamic custody law: what are the child's interests?
¶ 17 A child born to a Muslim parent (mother or father) is, under Shari'a, a Muslim. A Muslim father, as the guardian of the child's education, has a legal obligation to ensure that the child be raised a good Muslim. Therefore, one of a child's interests is in being raised a good Muslim, which the father must ensure. "[T]he best interests of the child . . . frequently corresponds with an upbringing under the Shari'a."38 This "religiously-based 'best interests' standard"39has pointed ramifications in abduction and custody cases involving Muslim fathers and non-Muslim mothers; it is often the issue upon which abduction and custody disputes within the Islamic legal system turn:
Muslim countries determine the best interests of the child according to religious and social values, and this typically leads [their] courts to conclude that it falls within the best interests of the child to have the child raised in the . . . nation or in its respective culture. . . .These cultural biases and . . . laws in Islamic countries raise obstacles to [non-Muslim,] foreign parents.40 It would therefore be rare that a court in a Muslim-majority country relying on Shari'a for matters of family law would award custody or demand the return of a child to a non-Muslim mother over a Muslim father in a Muslim-majority country if the legal definition of the child's interest is to be raised as a Muslim.
2. Obstacles to Muslim Acceptance of the Hague Convention ¶ 18 As articulated by legal ethnographer June Starr, resolution of abduction cases involving a non-Muslim mother and Muslim father to Muslim-majority nations does not merely concern return of the child from country "A" to country "B."41 Something much more substantial (and difficult, if not impossible, to determine in a court of law) is at stake: Under which religion and culture should the child be raised?42 According to the Shari'a, a child is considered to be a Muslim regardless of which parent, mother or father, is Muslim, and the child must be raised as a Muslim. By a parent or a court outside of an Islamic state, however, the child may be viewed as a non-Muslim, or a half-Muslim, and therefore as having the right to be raised in the non-Muslim parent's culture or religion. This is of course in direct conflict with Shari'a, and a Muslim-majority country basing its legal system on Shari'a would therefore never sign on to a convention, such as the Hague Convention, that might result in an outcome which is against Islamic law.
¶ 19 Since they are concerned with Human Rights, conventions, including, inter alia, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Women's Convention),43the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989,44 and the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, implicitly require that states parties "impact both extra-governmental, private conduct as well as public law in signatory states."45 As mentioned earlier, Shari'a seeks to maintain a division between private and public categories of law,46 and while "[m]any Islamic nations . . . [will adopt] secular Western norms in the realm of public law, . . . [they will continue] to follow the Shari'a in matters of personal status or private law."47 While both public and private law reform has occurred in Muslim-majority countries, private law reform has often been weak and difficult to enforce, particularly when it relates to women's and children's rights.48 Therefore, as argued similarly by Bharathi Venkatraman,49 when Shari'a is in contradiction with human rights convention provisions, it is extremely difficult for an Islamic nation to find a way to uphold such provisions absent the taking of reservations, which often flout the rights the convention seeks to ensure..."
By Charlie Cabot / Daily News Egypt August 9, 2011, 3:57 pm
CAIRO: US and Egyptian authorities are investigating the disappearance of an 11-year-old American boy, allegedly kidnapped by his Egyptian father on August 1.
Stephano “Niko” Atteya, from central Pennsylvania, lived with his divorced mother, Kalli Panagos-Atteya. Along with Kalli’s sister, Maria Panagos, the two traveled to Egypt on July 30 for a two-week visit to the family of Mohamed Atteya, Stephano’s non-custodial father.
The trip was Atteya’s idea, a state police report said. Claiming that his mother was ill and that his sister was getting married, Atteya requested that Stephano visit him and his family in Egypt.
The day after they arrived, Atteya picked the family up in a hired car with the stated intention of bringing them to Port Said, the report said. After claiming car trouble, the driver pulled over, and all passengers but Stephano left the vehicle.
Atteya allegedly got back in, shoved his ex-wife out as she attempted to get into the car, and ordered the driver to go.
“[Kalli and her sister] have not seen the victim since,” the police report said.
Although Atteya and his ex-wife divorced in 2005, they were on good terms, local Pennsylvania paper Public Opinion reported.
Since the disappearance, Kalli and Maria have remained in Egypt, working with the US Embassy and Egyptian authorities to try to secure the boy’s return.
“We are aware of this case,” said Elizabeth Colton, US Embassy spokesperson. “The Embassy in Cairo is assisting the US citizen parent.”
“Such assistance can include facilitating contact with local authorities, explaining the local judicial and law enforcement processes, and helping the parent to find an attorney and translator,” Colton added.
The Pennsylvania State Police filed the disappearance as a missing-person case. The US State Department is assisting in the investigation.
Stephano’s abduction highlights the difficulties of fighting international parental abduction. Egypt is not part of the Hague Abduction Convention of 2009, so the case falls outside of US court jurisdiction and the family must rely on the Egyptian court system to restore their custody of the boy.
Ambassador Susan Jacobs, Special Advisor to the Office of Children’s Issues at the US State Department, came to Egypt in January to discuss such problems.
“The [abandoned] parent in Egypt often has success in US courts, [yet] the other way around is very unusual,” Jacobs stated in January.
There are 28 ongoing cases of US-to-Egypt child abduction, she added.
****!!! THAT GET'S ME MAD AS ****. HOW DARE HE SENDS PICS OF THE LITTLE GIRL TO THE MOTHER WHO SITS IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY AND CRIES HER EYES OUT TO FIND HER LITTLE BABY!!! FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!!!!! Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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I decided to create a thread to compile any ongoing child abduction cases in Egypt. Please feel free to add if you have more links. And please if you have info on the whereabouts of any of these children - don't hesitate to contact local authorities, foreign embassies etc. Many thanks.
This case is very personal to me. It's from right here in Evansville, Indiana. This Egyptian father who took his son used to be my boss. I stayed with his family on my first trip to Egypt. I knew the son, Adam, when he was about 3 and his father would bring him to work. I don't know the mother very well but she and I are now friends on Facebook.
Posts: 1626 | From: whatever, wherever | Registered: Jul 2008
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