Washington: An annual report from the United States on international parental child abduction (IPCA) has identified South Korea and 14 other countries as demonstrating a pattern of noncompliance with a multilateral treaty, the State Department announced.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the 2025 Annual Report on IPCA has once again cited South Korea for its noncompliance with the 1980 Hague Abduction Convention. This convention mandates that a country must swiftly return a child held by a parent to the child's country of habitual residence. South Korea was also cited in previous reports from 2022, 2023, and the prior year for similar issues. The convention has been in effect between the United States and South Korea since 2013.
The countries highlighted in the 2025 report include South Korea, Argentina, The Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Egypt, Honduras, India, Jordan, Peru, Poland, Romania, and the United Arab Emirates. The report criticized the South Korean law enforcement for consistently failing to enforce return orders issued by judicial authorities in abduction cases.
Due to these enforcement failures, the report noted that 44 percent of requests for the return of abducted children under the convention remained unresolved for more than 12 months. On average, these cases lingered unresolved for two years and six months.
The State Department defines parental child abduction as an incident where a child is removed from or retained outside their country of habitual residence, infringing upon another parent or guardian's custody rights. These cases frequently arise when parents are separated or initiate divorce proceedings.