Return Our Children Home is a Canadian unincorporated association.
Return Our Children Home was founded by Canadian parents whose children had been abducted internationally. We were surprised by the lack of support for parents in our circumstances, and found each other through stories in the media, emails to strangers, and luck.
When your child goes missing, the weight of that discovery is near-crushing. Yet, apart from the emotional crisis that both parents and children experience, the protective and left-behind parent’s goal is to fix the situation and bring the child home. The Canadian public often believes that our government actively participates in returning Canadian children home from abroad. This isn’t the case. Canadian law and policy requires reform and stricter mechanisms to empower and compel the government of Canada to act.
When we began to speak with each other we discovered that our stories, which at first seemed so terribly unique, shared remarkable commonalities. We discovered that the national and international systems that were supposed to protect our children had failed us, and that abductors share common patterns and behaviour. Above all else, we discovered that this fragile community needed and deserved urgent help, and we were motivated to start an organization for parents.
Board of Directors
Jolly Bimbachi is mother to three children, two of whom were allegedly abducted to Lebanon by their father in 2015.
Khawla Khalifa is mother to three children, two of whom were abducted to Lebanon by their father in 2019 at the ages of 4- and 7-years old. A native of Windsor, Ontario, Khawla and her youngest child look forward to the return of her abducted children one day and to take walks by the river with them again, an activity they all loved.
Shelley Beyak is mother to two children who were allegedly abducted to Lebanon by their father in 2018 at the ages of seven- and nine-years old. She is a social worker in British Columbia, and advocates to keep children and families together.
Alec is father to a daughter who was abducted in 2019. He loves her and misses her every moment of every day. He would love to give her a huge hug, make pancakes for breakfast, read her a book and go for a hike.
Membership
The primary membership of Return Our Children Home is parents of children abducted from Canada. However, we welcome other involvement — from supports and families of abducted children, legal professionals, counselors, and anyone else who is able to help.