THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 20, 1996 TAG: 9601200268
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 116 lines
Maureen Dabbagh is traveling to the Middle East this week to search for the daughter she hasn't seen in three years.
The daughter, Nadia, who is now 5, was taken by the girl's father to his native country of Syria in early 1993.
Since then, Dabbagh, 37, has gotten a federal warrant for her ex-husband's arrest on charges of international parental abduction, and has obtained full legal custody of Nadia in U.S. courts.
But because those documents alone weren't enough in the eyes of Syrian officials, Dabbagh underwent an arduous, uncertain, two-year process to gain custody of Nadia in Syria.
The process is so difficult that few parents whose children have been taken to Arab countries even attempt to get custody.
But through hard work - and some luck - Dabbagh succeeded, and won custody of Nadia in Syria.
``She's very lucky, but she's also done a lot of work and deserves credit for that,'' said Nyda Budig, press officer for the bureau of consular affairs at the U.S. State Department. ``We're keeping our fingers crossed that everything works out.''
There's one thing still missing in Dabbagh's battle to regain her daughter: Nadia.
Dabbagh, who lives in Virginia Beach, hopes to remedy that this week. ``I don't know what she looks like,'' Dabbagh said Friday, hours before she began her journey to Syria. ``I haven't heard her voice in three years. But I'm sure I will recognize her.''
Guiding her will be the birthmark on her daughter's right forearm, the cooperation of the Syrian government and an ``age-advanced'' photo of Nadia that the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children created using old photos of Nadia.
``This is an all-or-nothing trip,'' Dabbagh said. ``When I come back I will not be the same person. Either I will have my child or I won't. If I don't, I can't go back, because there's nothing else that can be done.''
This isn't the first time Dabbagh has felt close to getting back her daughter. And she acknowledges her battle may still be farfrom finished. Her three-year struggle has alternated between moments of hope and times of desperation.
When Nadia disappeared during a court-ordered visit with her father three years ago, Dabbagh went through the U.S. court system to get full legal custody of her. But since Syria does not belong to the Hague Convention, a pact in which various countries agree to honor child-custody agreements of other countries, she couldn't use that decision to get Nadia.
After a year of wrestling with the legal system, Dabbagh turned to an unorthodox, and illegal, method of retrieving Nadia. She started a fund-raising mission to hire a mercenary to kidnap her child. She didn't think she had a chance of gaining custody of Nadia in the Syrian court system, because, she believed, the courts would favor the Syrian parent - her ex-husband, Mohamad Hisham Dabbagh.
After a story about Dabbagh's fund-raising effort ran in The Virginian-Pilot, callers encouraged her to pursue the case legally. She heard from several parents who were in similar situations, and who advised against a counter-abduction, saying it would put Nadia in danger.
So Dabbagh has spent the past two years working with the State Department and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to gain custody of Nadia through Syrian courts. She hired an attorney in Syria, and kept trying on her own to track down her ex-husband, racking up $500 to $1,000 a month in phone bills. The Nadia Dabbagh Recovery Fund, set up at Commerce Bank to handle contributions, helped pay the legal expenses, phone bills and costs for trips to Syria. Still, Dabbagh often ran short of money, delaying her search.
In October, she traveled to Syria, appearing before judicial officials to get custody. Although she won the case, she didn't have enough money to stay in the country until the paperwork was official, so Syrian authorities could not help her get her daughter.
``I was devastated when I left without her,'' Dabbagh said. ``But my lawyer said to be patient. He said the law was on my side. I left knowing I would return for her.''
Dabbagh said Syrian police have agreed to accompany her to her ex-husband's residence this trip to help retrieve her daughter. Although she's still not sure where her ex-husband lives, Syrian authorities are supposed to be investigating that now.
``This is not a Rambo mission,'' Dabbagh said. ``The really positive thing about this is that it is all done through legal means. My case proves you can go into a country like Syria and have a case heard with the utmost integrity.''
Liz Yore, senior legal counsel and director of the international division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said regaining custody of children abducted to non-Hague countries is very difficult.
``Maureen has had the patience and tenacity to work through the legal system there, and hopefully she will be successful in getting her daughter back,'' Yore said. ``It's truly a story of heroism.''
Dabbagh said one thing that helped keep her on track was writing a book to help other parents involved in parental-abduction cases. She hopes to have the book published next year. The best ending, she says, would be a chapter about how Nadia returned to the United States.
She hopes her trip to Syria will provide that ending. Dabbagh's plane tickets to Syria were donated by people sympathetic to her plight, and she'll be living on a shoestring for the few days she expects to be there, because the Nadia Recovery fund is nearly dry.
If she doesn't have Nadia by the end of next week, she'll have to return without her.
``I feel like I felt when I was in labor,'' Dabbagh said. ``Scared. Excited. Impatient. My emotions change from one minute to the next.'' ILLUSTRATION: An age-enhanced photo of Nadia.
[Color Photo]
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK
The Virginian-Pilot
``I haven't heard her voice in three years,'' Maureen Dabbagh says
of her daughter, who's now 5.
KEYWORDS: CHILD CUSTODY KIDNAPPING CUSTODY DISPUTE by CNB