Paraguay's new law on parental child abduction after girl found safe in Argentina

A two-year-old girl, reported missing by her mother, has been safely located in Argentina. The child's father, a Chilean citizen, had failed to return her after a court-approved visitation period. The incident has brought attention to Paraguay's legal procedures concerning international child abduction.

Paraguayan law now addresses parental child abduction through Law 7.519, enacted in 2025. This law establishes a specific process for international restitution cases, a framework that was previously lacking despite Paraguay's adherence to the 1980 Hague Convention. The recent legislation was prompted by the need to comply with international standards and address such complex cases.

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If the conventions governed precisely the year Paraguay signed the convention in the 80s, it became law in '93, but we didn't clearly have a law with an established process on what to do when there is an international claim in that case called international restitution, then recently last year, just in 2025, Paraguay had a procedural law in matters of international restitution, which is law 7.519 of 2025, precisely as a result of what was requested of Paraguay.

The situation gained further legal scrutiny following a 2023 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The court condemned Paraguay in the case of Córdoba versus Paraguay, which involved the illicit transfer and failure to return a child from Argentina to Paraguay by the mother. This prior case underscored the deficiencies in Paraguay's handling of international child recovery efforts.

The grandmother of the child in the current case was detained at Silvio Pettirossi International Airport while attempting to leave the country. She asserted that her son was awaiting a final custody ruling and accused the mother of international kidnapping and misrepresenting the facts. The child was found safe in Argentina on Friday night.

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My son is awaiting a final sentence on the custody of the minor and accused the mother of the girl of committing an alleged 'international kidnapping' and of 'lying' in her version of the facts, referring to the fact that the woman had brought the girl from Chile.