Child custody brings desperate battles in crossfire of anti-Arabsentiments

Judith Martin - False allegations about all of the Middle East being a
combat zone result in a child being taken away from her mother and put into
allegedly brutal circumstances in America.

America has been at war in the Middle East, first

Afghanistan, now with Iraq included, since the early 1990s. Many of our
soldiers married young women from "over there", and brought them back
home to meet Mom and Dad, and hopefully to stay forever. Occasional visits to
the homeland were okay, but it was expected that the wife would stay with the husband in his home country of America, once they had children.

Problems arose when such couples divorced, and
questions of custody of those children was the result.  A
story of a particular custody case  shows how in court Americans will play
upon prejudices against the wars in the Middle East in order to win court favor in family disputes. By making the wars part of
the issue, the Americans hope to gain an advantage against their spouses from
overseas -- spouses who returned home and live far away from and have nothing
to do with the troubled areas.

The individuals involved in this narrative are not identified because of privacy issues associated with the legal case.

The case concerns a mother, Debbie J., from the island of
Bahrain, on the northeast coast of Saudi Arabia, her daughter Hollie, and the
child's father, James W., a former Marine from the United States.

According to the English-language newspaper from Bahrain,
James W. was granted sole custody of his nine-year-old daughter Hollie, during
a hearing at a Los Angeles court last September.

The couple, James W. and Debbie J., had met while James was
serving as a Marine in Bahrain, and they were married there in 2001. Hollie was
born a year later in California.

The couple had divorced in California in September,
2007.  The father and the mother had been
given joint custody, although the child Hollie apparently was going to spend
most of her time in America with her father.

Not all of the details of what led to either the divorce or
the recent custody hearing in court were reported, but circumstances for the child changed in late 2009 when Hollie was visiting her mother in Bahrain for what was
supposed to be a month-long break. This occurred when Debbie, the mother, applied to
take her airline pilot exams, which were delayed until February. So, she did
not return with Hollie to the United States for Christmas, as scheduled.

As the Bahrain newspaper reported earlier this year, James
W., the father, said that he made a complaint to the United States State
Department on the basis that his ex-wife was in breach of the joint custody
order.

"He said he had to go ahead with a civil case to ensure
his daughter could live in a stable environment," said the newspaper.

In response, Debbie J. claimed that she was receiving daily
threats from James W., that she would be arrested upon her return, which only
moved to delay her departure even further.

Then James W. followed through with his civil court case in
Los Angeles, to gain sole custody of Hollie. Debbie J. had to return to America
with Hollie.

According to Debbie J.'s father, Mr. J., James W. had used
as his main point a statement that "Bahrain was a combat zone and a third
world country with no democracy. It's crazy the things he said."

The father further pointed out, "Obviously, Bahrain is
not like that, but even the United States State Department had advised him not
to travel to Bahrain because it was too dangerous."

Since then, Hollie's mother, Debbie J., has returned to her
home in Bahrain but, according to her father, Mr. J., she is "at pains to
figure out a way to get her back".

Debbie and her father have been told by attorneys in Bahrain
that to file an appeal in California would be extremely expensive, and such
a challenge might not produce the results they wanted. After all, the case
would again have to be heard in America.

In the meantime,  Debbie has received information about allegedly abusive treatment Hollie has received at the hands of her father and his live-in girlfriend.  This has strengthened Debbie's determination to rescue her daughter from James W. and bring
her home to Bahrain.

According to Jennifer J., the grandmother in Bahrain, it
appears that the child might be eligible for dual citizenship, both American
and British. What benefit that would have for Hollie is not exactly clear, but
it seems that with the dual citizenship, the case could be moved under the venue
of the British court system.

Debbie's friends and family sympathize with what they believe is a great miscarriage of justice.  They support the mother in her concern for Hollie's welfare in the father's custody.  Debbie has decided to fight to get her daughter back, regardless of expenditures involved.  

The ugly fallout of wars taking place far away from the battle zones of the

Middle East brings issues of child custody and welfare, impacting very young and innocent victims.  Debbie and her daughter represent the grief and legal battles that result from the biases held in both Arab and Western countries, biases which create problems for the ultimate protection of children.