Your parenting plan is the single best place to protect against international child abduction. Once a child has left the country, your options shrink dramatically and get expensive fast. Before that happens, a Washington court can build strong safeguards directly into the plan. Here are the provisions we consider when abduction is a real concern.
First, a Note About Washington Law
Washington courts have broad authority under the parenting plan statutes in chapter 26.09 RCW. When a parent’s conduct may harm the child, including through a risk of abduction, the court can impose travel restrictions and other limitations. Washington’s own courts have upheld this approach in Katare v. Katare. The father there had threatened to take the children to India, a country with no Hague return remedy. The trial court restricted his travel with the children, and our state Supreme Court affirmed.
Washington hasn’t adopted the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act that some other states use. Even so, courts treat its risk factors and its menu of protective measures as useful guides. The practical point: none of these protections happen automatically. You have to request them, prove the risk, and write them into your orders. That’s a drafting job, and the details matter.
Travel and Consent Provisions
Written consent for international travel. The plan can require written consent from both parents, or a court order, before either one takes the child outside the United States. For higher risk cases, the plan can prohibit international travel with the child entirely. Or it can limit travel to countries that are U.S. treaty partners under the Hague Convention.
Advance notice and full itineraries. For any permitted trip, the traveling parent provides flight numbers, dates, addresses, phone contacts, and copies of tickets. The plan sets how many days in advance.
Hague-country limits. A provision permitting travel only to Hague partner countries preserves a return remedy if the traveling parent doesn’t come back. Travel to a non-partner country deserves special caution. If the other parent keeps the child there, no treaty requires a return.
Check-in requirements. Scheduled phone or video contact with the other parent during travel, with missed check-ins defined as a violation.
Passport Provisions in a Parenting Plan
Passport surrender. The court can order the child’s passport held by the other parent, an attorney, or another neutral custodian. The custodian releases it only for court-approved travel.
No new passport applications. The plan can bar either parent from applying for any new passport for the child, U.S. or foreign. Exceptions require the other parent’s written consent or a court order.
CPIAP enrollment. The order can direct enrollment in the State Department’s Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program. Both parents then get notice of any U.S. passport application for the child.
Foreign consulate notice. Dual citizenship needs its own provision, because another country can issue the child its own passport. The order can direct the at-risk parent not to seek foreign travel documents. It can also authorize sending the order to that country’s consulate. Foreign consulates don’t have to honor U.S. orders, though. This tool works best layered with the other protections, not standing alone.
Financial and Enforcement Provisions
Abduction bond. The court can require a parent to post a bond or deposit funds before international travel. If the child doesn’t come home on schedule, the money funds recovery efforts, including foreign attorney fees. For a parent with genuine ties abroad, a meaningful bond changes the math on abduction.
Mirror orders. The plan can require a “mirror order” before any foreign trip. The traveling parent gets an order from the destination country’s courts repeating the Washington parenting plan’s terms. Local courts there will then enforce those terms.
Attorney fees and costs. The plan can state that a parent who wrongfully retains the child pays all recovery costs, including travel and foreign counsel.
Court Findings That Speed Up a Hague Case
It helps to build three findings into the plan. Washington is the child’s home state under the UCCJEA. The United States is the child’s habitual residence. And both parents have rights of custody. That language lets a foreign judge rule quickly if a Hague case ever gets filed.
A properly drafted restriction on removing the child from the country also gives the left-behind parent what the treaty calls a right of custody. That right is the ticket to a return remedy. Practitioners also recommend a pre-trip affidavit from the traveling parent. It confirms a date certain for return and confirms there’s no reason the child shouldn’t come home.
A word of honest caution. Even a well drafted Washington order doesn’t bind a foreign court. Mirror orders, findings, and affidavits improve your odds and speed up a Hague case. The foreign court still makes its own decision. And for older children, roughly age 12 and up, the treaty lets a court consider the child’s own objection to returning. A determined taking parent can try to cultivate that objection. Layered protections, bonds, and passport controls exist precisely because no single provision is bulletproof.
Residential Provisions for Higher Risk Cases
Where the evidence shows serious risk, courts can go further under RCW 26.09.191. Options include supervised visitation, neutral exchange locations, or limits on the at-risk parent’s residential time until the risk is addressed. Courts don’t impose these limits lightly. Documentation of threats and warning signs is essential.
What Evidence Supports These Provisions?
Judges in Snohomish, Island, and King County will want specifics, not speculation. Useful evidence includes threats (texts and emails especially), the other parent’s ties to another country, prior violations of the schedule, sudden financial moves, and passport activity. Keep records as events happen. Our post on the warning signs of international parental kidnapping covers what to watch for.
The Takeaway
None of these provisions appear in a standard form parenting plan by default. If international abduction is a realistic concern in your case, you have to raise the protections, prove the risk, and draft them in. Do that at the temporary orders stage, at the start of your case. Retrofitting protections after a scare is much harder.
If your custody case involves international travel or abduction risk, the Law Offices of Daniel Ehrlich, PLLC can help you get these provisions into your parenting plan from day one. Call us at (425) 954-5578 or schedule a consultation.
This post is part of our series on international child abduction. Read the others: How the Hague Convention Works, Warning Signs of International Parental Kidnapping, and What to Do If Your Child Has Been Taken to Another Country.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Every case is different. If you are facing an international custody issue, talk to an attorney.
