THOSE EMBARKING on cross-cultural marriages and relationships should be required to show that they are aware of family law provisions in the country of their partners, former MEP and president of the Irish Centre for Parentally Abducted Children, Mary Banotti, told the Burren law school.
She said that a total lack of cultural understanding can arise in the case of both partners.
"Sometimes there are problems when the children reach a certain age and one of the parents insists that they be brought up in a certain religious faith," she added.
"They then feel that they want to return to their own country. The children are left with one partner's wider family, and it is impossible to get them back."
Ms Banotti, who has written to Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan on the issue, said that there were no statistics to show how many abductions had taken place.
"Currently, we have no legal instrument for getting these children back," Ms Banotti said.
She said that 2005 statistics showed that some 21,000 cross-cultural marriages had taken place in Ireland.
In Belgium people about to enter cross-cultural marriages had to show they were aware of the family law requirements in the country of their partner, Ms Banotti said.
She believed the same system should operate in Ireland.
"It is all very well to say that both partners are living in Ireland, but what happens when a conflict emerges about the religious faith in which the children of the relationship are to be reared?" she asked.
