Tug-of-love child rescued from Iran

1 September 2004

AMSTERDAM — A woman has rescued her four-year-old daughter from her former husband in Iran, bringing the child home to the Netherlands, it was reported Wednesday.

Iranian Atefeh Bahadori and her child were arrested by Turkish police in Istanbul on Sunday when she tried to board a flight to the Netherlands. Journalist Jaap Jongbloed of Dutch missing persons programme Tros Vermist was also held for a short time, news site nu.nl said.

The woman and her child were freed the next day and a Turkish judge ordered they be deported to the Netherlands.

She has lived in the Netherlands for 15 years and worked as a social educationalist.

She won custody of the child after divorcing her Iranian husband, but her former husband kidnapped the girl in January 2002 and brought her to Iran.

A court in Iran granted the man custody and granted the mother visitation rights of 12 hours a week. To avail of the rights, this would have meant her moving back to Iran.

Bahadori contacted the Dutch journalist about the case and worked on various ways to win her daughter back.

Last week, she contacted Jongbloed to say she was in eastern Turkey, having taken her child while on a visit to see her. Jongbloed travelled to Turkey with a cameraman to help her get to Istanbul.

Separately, Liberal VVD MPs Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders have called on Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk to comment on reports that some Moroccan immigrants have taken their wives on holiday to their home country and dumped them there.

Newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported in June some Moroccan men in the Netherlands have employed this tactic to rid themselves of women they no longer wanted to live with.

Subject: Dutch news