A CHILD is buckled into a seat before the plane engine roars and they are soon soaring through the clouds, away from the only home and family they have ever known.

But this is not a return trip.

The child’s parent who has carefully packed their bags and led them onto the plane doesn’t plan on bringing them back or giving access to the other parent ever again. The odds they’ll get away with it are good.

This is the story of some 250-300 Australian children who are at the centre of international parental child disputes every year.

Once an Australian child is on foreign soil, there’s not much anyone can do under current Australian laws to bring them home unless the country is a signatory to The Hague Convention — which many are not.

International parental child abduction is not a criminal offence in Australia, with the exception of cases where a family court order restricting travel is already in place.

That means one parent can simply book a flight for their child to another non-signatory country under the guise of a holiday or similar and never return to Australia, with no legal repercussions.

A government recovery mission will not be declared, a search party will not be launched and charges will not be laid against the person who took the child in the first place.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said consular officers “can provide general advice and support and will seek, as far as possible, to ensure the welfare of the children”.

“They cannot, however, intervene in family law matters or custody disputes, or provide legal advice,” the spokesperson said.

Australian courts can issue a recovery order which allows the Australian Federal Police to speak to customs and border control and find out where the child is. But it does not enable them to enforce the order in another country or retrieve the child.

“Where children are involved in a foreign jurisdiction it is local courts, not the Australian government or private citizens who make decisions about child custody,” a spokesperson for Attorney-General George Brandis wrote in a statement to news.com.au.

Parents left behind are typically advised by the Australian government to go through the court process in the country their child has been taken to in a bid to recover them.

But many can’t afford the expense of living in a foreign country where they don’t have the right to work on top of hefty legal fees and are therefore unable to pursue this line of action.

In many cases, the parent left behind goes years without seeing their child, or never sees them again.

That’s where child recovery agencies are often brought into the equation and extreme risks are taken.

It can happen to anyone, as Queensland mother Sally Faulkner — the mother at the centre of the child snatch scandal with a 60 Minutes crew in Lebanon — knows all too well.

Sally Faulkner's heartbreaking farewell Sally Faulkner's estranged daughter Lahela gave her mother a Barbie ring to make sure she wouldn't forget her. Courtesy: 60 Minutes

But her case is not an isolated one.

Australia has the highest per capita rate of parental child abduction in the world with about 250-300 cases every year. It also has one of the lowest rates of recovery of abducted children.

There is some protection in the form of The Hague Convention in countries that are signatories to the treaty which provides a lawful procedure for seeking the return of abducted children to their home country. It also provides assistance to parents to obtain contact or access to children overseas.

But less than half of the 114 children taken from Australia during custody disputes to a country that is a signatory to The Hague Convention in the past financial year have been returned, despite appropriate action having been taken under treaty, figures from the Attorney-General’s office show.

The process from application to recovery can take weeks, months or years to complete.

Some applications are rejected on the basis that the child in question has spent 12 months or more in the country he or she was taken to and “settled”, according to the Attorney-General’s Department.

Countries that aren’t signatories to The Hague Convention, including Afghanistan, Lebanon and Taiwan — have no obligation to return a child to their country of origin.

Even under The Hague Convention, the parental child abductor can only be brought to court over a broken court order when fleeing Australia with the child. They can’t be charged with international parental child abduction because it’s not illegal in Australia, unlike in the US and UK.

Coalition of Parents with Abducted Children founder Ken Thompson said criminalising absconding overseas would force authorities to take the issue more seriously.

“It’s not about criminality for the purpose of punishment, it’s criminality for the purpose of getting things done,” Mr Thompson told The Australian in the wake of the 60 Minutes scandal.

“The only options are turning your back on the kid, or do whatever you can to get them back.”

Mr Thompson’s own three-year-old son was abducted in 2008 and found in the Netherlands in 2011.

“Any parent ...... will tell you it should be a criminal offence — that’s why I’m throwing my weight behind this issue. I know first-hand what it’s like to have a child abducted and it’s absolutely horrible,” he told news.com.au.

“Unless it’s before the family court, you’re on your own. The Australian Federal Police can’t provide any support to parents because it’s not a crime.”

Duncan Holmes, a family lawyer and director of KD Holmes solicitors, has acted in a number of Hague abduction cases, The Australian reported.

“The question is: will making it a crime get the children back?” he said.

“The real problem isn’t stopping the parent leaving the country; it’s getting them back once they leave. And that’s where The Hague Convention is looking a little tired.”

A 2011 Senate inquiry into international parental child abduction made 11 recommendations, including reassessing whether “stronger measures” such as “the possibility of a stand-alone criminal offence for international parental child abduction”, were needed.

Lauchlan Leishman, whose child was snatched and taken abroad, pleaded with the government to make parental child abduction a crime. The fact it is not means that “getting information is like dragging gold out of seawater”, he told The Australian.

“If I stole someone else’s child I would be hounded by the criminal justice system. This is no different.”