A child taken to or from Germany: how the Hague Convention works
One parent moves abroad with the child, or does not bring them back after a holiday. The 1980 Hague Convention exists for exactly this situation — and it works on a far shorter timescale than most parents expect.
A parent can “abduct” their own child. This surprises many people, but it is the heart of the matter. Under the Convention, a removal or retention is wrongful where it breaches rights of custody that the other parent actually held and was exercising. Both parents holding joint custody means neither may unilaterally move the child's country of residence. And it is not only about leaving: keeping a child abroad after an agreed visit — the summer holiday that quietly does not end — is treated the same way.
It is not a custody case. This is the point most often misunderstood, and it matters enormously for how a case is argued. The court hearing a Hague application does not decide who is the better parent or where the child should ultimately live. It decides one narrow question: should the child be returned to the country of habitual residence, so that the courts there can rule on custody? A parent who arrives with evidence about the other's shortcomings has usually prepared for the wrong hearing.
Speed is built into the system — and into your position. The Convention expects return proceedings to be concluded within six weeks. Germany takes this seriously: these cases are concentrated at a limited number of designated family courts rather than spread across all of them, precisely so that they are handled by judges who know the material. The practical consequence for a left-behind parent is simple. Move early. An application filed within twelve months of the removal is on markedly stronger ground; after a year, the taking parent can argue that the child has settled into the new environment, and that argument gains weight with every month that passes.
Return is the rule, but there are exceptions. A court may refuse to order return in defined circumstances: where there is a grave risk that return would expose the child to physical or psychological harm or an intolerable situation; where a sufficiently mature child objects; where the other parent consented to the move or later acquiesced in it; or, after a year has passed, where the child is settled. These exceptions are interpreted narrowly — but the grave-risk ground in particular is where genuinely difficult cases live, including those involving domestic violence, and it deserves serious preparation rather than a passing mention.
How a case actually starts. Applications run through each country's Central Authority — in Germany, the Federal Office of Justice in Bonn. That route is available to you and costs nothing to use. It is not, however, the same as having your own lawyer: the Central Authority transmits and assists, but it does not argue your case in the German courtroom. In practice, most parents want both.
If your child has been taken to Germany, or you are in Germany and facing an application, the first days matter more than almost anything that follows. Getting the framing right at the outset — a return question, not a custody question — often shapes the entire outcome.