Q. What happens when your child leaves for a visit with their other parent and ends up on the other side of the globe?

A. Nothing good.

Just ask Tiffany Rubin, a school-teacher from Queens, New York whose son Kobe was abducted by his non-custodial father and taken to Seoul, Korea in 2007.

Tiffany Rubin and her son, Kobe

I watched Tiffany’s story with great interest on Lifetime television this evening. My own daughters were also snatched and taken to a foreign country in 1994, and in some ways, our stories mirrored one another.

Our kids were taken to a country whose language they didn’t speak and immediately surrendered to relatives who didn’t know of the child’s existence.

The teachers in the school where the child(ren)were taken to begged for them to be returned to their home land due to the maltreatment they experienced by their abductors.

But in the thirteen years between our children’s abductions, much has changed. Though the incidents of international parental child abduction have increased with the ease of global travel, the recovery from abduction is also enhanced by this age of technology.

Tiffany Rubin smartly posted information about her son’s disappearance using social media, and sure enough, a resident in South Korea eventually reached out to her with her son’s current whereabouts. She also connected with a non-profit organization that didn’t yet exist when my daughters were taken, The American Association for Lost Children.

(I, on the other hand, went into obscene amounts of debt, traveled overseas twice by myself, and was arrested when attempting to leave the country with my girls. Can I just admit that Tiffany’s story gave me child-abduction envy?)

Fueled by the love of her son and supported by the help of many around her, this mother flew to South Korea and reunited with her son at his school within a year of his disappearance.

Tiffany Rubin’s story is available on instant view at Amazon. It’s positively inspirational.

Do you know someone who worries their child will be kidnapped by the other parent?

Refer them to the the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-The Lost for prevention tips.

The problem of parental international child abduction is growing, but the solutions to the problem are more accessible than ever.
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