The rights of children

The story of Anthony Busuttil whose Russian partner, Larissa Leontieva, abducted their 7-year-old son, Adam, while they were out of the country on 1 December, has predictably, divided public opinion. There are those whose instinctive reaction is to always side with the mother, while others can see, and identify with, the father’s point of view. But too often, what falls by the wayside in these ugly episodes are the rights and best interests of the children.

The family were on holiday in Prague when the father, who had been taking a shower, came out to find that Adam and his mother Larissa had vanished, taking only their passports. It is probably every parent’s worst nightmare.

Mr Busuttil has been searching desperately for the boy ever since, and it was only late last Sunday night that he finally brought him back home to Malta after the Courts applied the Brussels II convention, which regulates cases of international child abduction. The mother was trying to cross over from Poland to Belarus with the boy, when she was stopped by the police.

These are always heartbreaking stories, and at the centre of it all is an innocent child who has no say, who has not been consulted, who is clearly bewildered at the turn of events. One minute he was in his home in Malta, then he was taken on holiday, and the next thing he knew he was fleeing with his mother across European borders. Last night, Adam, again through no choice of his own, was in the glare of the cameras, his face splashed all over the media. Should not his right to privacy, what little there is left of it, have been protected?

Anthony Busuttil has told his story repeatedly to the media so inevitably there are those who have argued that “we do not know the mother’s side of the story”. Fair enough, it’s true that we don’t know her reasons or motivations for taking off with the boy the way she did. However, unless there has been documented and reported violence or abuse, nothing ever justifies abducting a child like that and, in fact, it is against the law. Even when both the parents are Maltese and one of them wants to take their children out of the country for a holiday, the other parent has to know about it and give their consent. Children are not your possessions to snatch away at will, separating them from one of their parents. Whether a mother or a father does it, it is always wrong.

The relationship between these two people has obviously broken down and it might be that the woman felt that, as a foreigner in Malta, the odds were stacked against her, especially since the couple is not married. However, as far as I know, our Courts invariably award primary custody to the mother and, at the most, she would have had to share joint custody.

As important and crucial as the presence of the mother is to a child’s wellbeing, we cannot ignore that fathers have the right to see their children regularly too and that their desire to be a part of their children’s upbringing should be protected.

When a relationship is over, and there is a child involved, it is always very emotional and complicated as the parental tug-of-war unfolds. While there are cases where the child custody arrangements are amicable and civilized, from what I see around me, they are often the exception not the rule. It often takes years until some kind of truce to the quarrels and bickering is finally called, and visitations between the homes of the respective parents cease to be a cause of anxiety and stress. People pay lip service to doing what is in the best interest of the children, but I have my doubts how often this is really done in practice.

When the parents happen to be of different nationalities and, especially in Malta, when the woman happens to be a foreigner, the situation becomes even more highly charged. It is for this reason that, while I cannot condone it, I can almost understand what made Larissa want to go back to her home country with her son. When things go wrong, it is the foreign woman who is often seen as the culprit for not being able to adjust to our culture. For example, I think it is significant that it took me several searches before I learned the name of Mr Busuttil’s former partner, as in most news reports she was only referred to as “his Russian partner”.

Having said this, women really need to understand a fundamental reality, that when they decide to have a baby, especially with someone in a foreign country, they are basically tying their future to that man until the child is 18.

The child does not belong only to the mother and the belief that a child does not suffer as much with the father out of the picture, is a myth which does a lot of dis-service to men and their important role as fathers. Otherwise we might as well reduce the role of men to mere sperm donors.

If no children are involved, and the relationship hits the rocks, you can simply pack your bags and hightail it out of the country without ever looking back. Once a child is brought into the world, however, you simply cannot do that. It is for this reason that there are laws in place such as the Brussels II convention, because as long as people have children with someone of a different nationality, the risk of the foreign partner wanting to take the children to “their” country when things go wrong is an ever present one.

It is a sacrifice, sure, to have to stay in a country which you are no longer so enamored of, because that is where the father of your child resides. But that is the way the cookie crumbles. It is high time people start to think long and hard before choosing to have a baby with someone of a different nationality and deciding to live in another country.

It is all peachy keen when love is in the air and everything feels like a storybook romance but in the cold, harsh light of day when you realize that your future is intricately bound to the person who fathered your child, things may not look that rosy. Ultimately, this child, who after all did not ask to be born from parents of two different nationalities, should not have to be the one made to suffer just because one of the parents has changed his/her mind about where they want to live.