It is an all too familiar tragedy. A marriage that involves children ruptures and one of the couples is overseas born and has dual nationality rights. Either the children are spirited out of the country - or taken on a legitimate holiday and not returned. The distraught Australian mother or father is desperate to regain custody of their children.
This situation is supposed to be covered by the Hague Convention. That is a United Nations sponsored agreement between signature countries that ensures that children illegally taken out of their country of birth are returned. Unfortunately, many world countries have not signed because of religious objections.
The problem has spawned many cloak and dagger operational groups who provide their recovery services - for a fee. Usually this breaks the law of the country in which the children are now living. One such recovery action has gone seriously awry - with spectacular results.
The country in the spotlight is Lebanon, and it is not a signatory to the Hague Convention. A Lebanese father with dual nationality took his children, aged six and four on a holiday to his former homeland and refused to return them to their Australian mother. This man was well connected in Lebanon and retaining the children seems to comply with that country's law.
The details are murky but somehow that Australian mother gained help from a British group called "Child Abduction Recovery International " and this involved the Channel Nine flagship programme "Sixty Minutes ". A fee of $ 115,000 was forthcoming to fund the operation and Sixty Minutes sent a film crew and one of it's personalities to Lebanon to cover what was expected to be a story "scoop " !
It certainly had it's share of drama. The "snatch " took place by armed men on a busy Beirut street but security had been breached. The police were waiting and not only the abductors but the television crew were arrested and all now face serious charges under Lebanon's law. The Australian mother was present when the recovery took place and has also been arrested.
Australia's Foreign Minister has ensured that our diplomatic staff are keeping contact and trying to sort out the legalities but the Lebanese government is taking this matter seriously. At best there will be delays as it wends it's way through the courts and there is a distinct possibility that lengthy prison terms may be served.
From an Australian legal point of view our law was infringed when the children were not returned after a holiday visit to Lebanon. Should they pass through any Australian airport they would be sized by customs and returned to their Australian mother, but there is little that Australia can do to mitigate what is clearly a law breach on Lebanese soil.
This whole matter is certainly raising ethical conjecture here in Australia. Many may think that Sixty Minutes overstepped what is expected of the television industry by joining an abduction of children and providing finance for an illegality in the hope of gaining a ratings winning news story.
There is a very real chance that a crew of five people, which includes an award winning producer and one of the networks leading female celebrities - may actually spend time behind bars in a Lebanese prison.
Perhaps the television industry needs to have a hard look at it's code of conduct and decide what barriers should apply in the search for audience enhancing stories !
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