Child Cruelty in the Swiss Courts
My open letter to the Swiss courts and Government. Are mothers and children treated like human beings in Switzerland?
On 17 March 2023 I took my children to Switzerland. We had been dragged through more than 6.5 years of court proceedings in Croatia which were visibly unlawful. My children were complaining of physical symptoms of stress and trauma. I could see they were struggling as they were dumped in a Croatian school, unlawfully, without even knowing the language.
My first priority was to get the children out of Croatia because it was clear I was never going to be able to protect them there. Their father threatened me that he would use his connections to see I would never be able to get them back home, and he made good on that threat. The court which violated our rights again and again turned out at the end of 2022 to be heavily involved in a child trafficking scandal.
We stopped first of all in Austria. I thought, first of all, perhaps the British Embassy would help us if only I was able to get the children out of Croatia. A phone call proved me wrong. I wondered whether to fight it out in the courts in Austria. At least Austria is not as corrupt as Croatia… probably? Then I remembered the story of Beth Alexander, whose tiny twin boys were ripped from her overnight and thrust by policemen into the care of their violent father.
I also remembered my series of complaints at the EU level which have not resulted in any lawful or serious answer. I realised that being in an EU country was a risk to my children and I, as we could be quickly located by EUROPOL and handed straight back to the Croatian authorities.
I checked in with my sons at every stage: did they want to go back to their Dad’s? Going to Croatia and staying with me was not an option as he had asked for court orders to have the children taken from me by force and our contact restricted to 2 hours per week under supervision… just because they wanted to stay with me.
The answer was no, absolutely, they did not want to go back. So I decided that our last hope was to get to Switzerland. I found out that the fact that we did not have the children’s passports would not be a problem as you do not need passports if you travel by road into Switzerland. My children’s father has withheld their passports ever since he abducted them in 2016.
I did not know anything about Switzerland. The trouble with Europe is that it is a multitude of languages and legal systems, so there are big barriers to knowing what the situation is like in different countries. But it wasn’t the EU. I decided that the only way to keep us safe was to seek asylum. I read up on it and learned that as victims of abuse and inhuman treatment we had the legal right to seek asylum. Also for myself, as I am a victim of persecution by the Croatian state, where I am at risk of being criminalised or even sectioned for trying to protect my children and speaking out against corruption. I am a whistleblower on corruption in the Croatian family courts and a human rights defender. My ex husband Zvonimir Marinovic and his lawyer Ines Bojic mock me about that. But I am advocating for respect for human rights in the family court and have started an NGO, and am campaigning hard for families around the world, so I don’t know what’s so funny about that.
I warned my children about the risks at every stage. They might be taken by force. I might be arrested and prevented from seeing them for a long time. But they were prepared to take that risk.
It was frightening but at least we felt the breath of freedom. However, we felt frightened every time we passed a police officer.
In this video you can hear my son say he felt freedom for the first time in years. The next thing that happened was my children asked me to keep driving so we could get as far away from Croatia as possible, where they felt safer.
It was crucial to us that we would be accepted into the asylum seeker’s centre in Switzerland. That way we could legalise our status and have time to fight whatever legal cases came our way.
Unfortunately, it went badly wrong. It turned out that staff in the asylum seeker’s centre did not understand our legal rights. They tried to turn us away… until I took out my laptop and pointed out the laws entitling us to stay. But they turned us in to the Croatian authorities after my children’s father reported the children as missing persons.
This is quite astonishing. Would they have done the same if we were from Afghanistan? Why would they discriminate against us because of the country we were seeking protection from? There is no list of countries you are not allowed to seek asylum from. It must be decided on the merits of each case. And there are certainly many people who agree Croatia is a country they need to seek asylum from.
It turns out mothers and children are in a uniquely bad position, possibly the most disenfranchised groups in the world right now. My children and I felt we were under siege in Croatia, living under psychological warfare just because their father and the State think they have the right to torture two little children and deprive them of their rights. My son said sometimes he felt he didn’t want to live any. more like that. But as British and Croatian citizens we had no right to access our legal right to protection. Maybe we should have tried Russia instead.
The Swiss authorities violated international humanitarian law and traumatised my children thanks to the misapplication of the same Hague Convention that should have protected us back in 2016, but didn’t… because my ex husband was able to corrupt the Croatian courts. I can say that comfortably because it’s obvious to anyone who takes a look at the papers. I will give readers of this blog the chance to do exactly that in another post soon.
Earlier today I sent an open letter to the Swiss courts and government. It was in place of an appeal against a costs order. The Supreme Court of Zurich Canton would like me to pay the legal costs of the lawyer who assisted in the abuse of my children and violation of their rights. They would like me to pay for the costs of unlawfully repatriating the children. They can claim it was lawful as much as they like, but we can read. And we can see the effect it had on the children. They are wrong.
This is a long post so just in case you don’t reach the end of the letter: here’s a push for my petition. I am beyond sad and having bad dreams every night about my boys being stuck in Croatia again. They are depending on me.
Please help me bring them home.
Open letter
Sent to:
To:
The Supreme Court of the Zurich Canton:
Senior Judge lic. iur. E. Lichti Aschwanden, Chairperson
Senior Judge lic. iur. M. Stammbach
Senior Judge Dr. M. Sarbach
The Federal Court of Switzerland:
Judge Moeckli
Judge Escher
The Swiss Government:
Brigitte Häberli-Koller, President of the Council of States
Alain Berset, President of the Confederation
Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, Head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police
Ignazio Cassis, Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
Copied to:
Jonathan Lord MP, UK
Alexander Chalk, UK Minister of Justice
James Cleverly, UK Secretary of State
Rishi Sunak, UK Prime Minister
Jess Philips, UK Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding
Taiwo Owatemi MP, UK
Domestic Abuse Commissioner, UK
London Victim’s Commissioner, UK
FiLiA Hague Mothers, UK
Shera Research, UK
Women’s Resource Centre, UK
Maison Antigone, Italy
Autonomna zenska kuca, Croatia
UN Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women and Girls
Child Rights Connect, Switzerland
UNHCR
Office of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen
Office of President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola
Office of Croatian MEP Predrag Fred Matic
Signatories of the petition “Let Nataly Anderson’s Children Come Home”
Subject: Child cruelty in the Swiss courts
I have received decisions on costs relating to the case heard under the Hague Convention on International Parental Child Abduction on 31 March and 3 May 2023 at the Supreme Court of Zurich Canton.
My lawyer has advised me that he does not see legal mistakes in the decisions regarding costs, that the decision that I should pay these costs has already been upheld by the Swiss Federal Court and that therefore he advises against an appeal.
However, I see numerous serious legal mistakes affecting both of the matter of my children’s extradition from Switzerland and the assignment of costs for the court case extradition.
I am writing this letter of complaint as I am gravely concerned that violations of constitutional and human rights, legal rights and procedural law which cause the most extreme cruelty to children are viewed as normal in family law cases.
What happened in my children’s case is a repeat of historic miscarriages of justice such as the forced adoption of children from unmarried mothers and families from certain ethnic groups. In Switzerland this happened to Yenish children and on grounds of social control.
This is happening again on a large scale in family law cases in Switzerland, and elsewhere, to mothers and children who are victims of domestic abuse. The difference is that the children are being given to abusive fathers while mothers are stripped of their assets and left destitute. The children are at risk of being put into institutions.
I cannot stress strongly enough how scandalous this is.
My children and I fled to Switzerland to escape seven years of inhuman treatment and denial of our human and legal rights following their abduction from the United Kingdom to Croatia.
I am lodging this official complaint which I am also publishing in the form of an open letter. The way that mothers and children are treated in family law in courts around the world is a matter of the most urgent public interest. It is vital that people around the world know what is happening in family law cases, including in Switzerland.
The rights of my children have been violated and their safety and welfare has been endangered by the Supreme Court in Zurich in the following ways.
1. Insufficient time to provide evidence on allegations of domestic abuse
I escaped from Croatia with my children because I was not able to secure protection for us there as victims of domestic abuse.
The Supreme Court of Zurich Canton did not allow sufficient time to prepare and submit the evidence of domestic abuse.
I was given 3 days to instruct a lawyer and for us to mount our defence to the court in the child abduction case, including preparing translations.
I must stress this was NOT a case of child abduction. I brought my children to Switzerland with their consent in order to protect them. It was their wish to be with me and kept safe from forced unlawful separation from me.
It was absolutely my duty to protect them from further harm in Croatia where I have indisputably been unable to protect their rights and welfare.
My children were unhappy and afraid in Croatia. The circumstances they were (and now are again) forced to live in were (are) a risk to their health and wellbeing.
My children and I have the right to protection from abuse under Croatian and international law. However, because of serious corruption in Croatia we cannot exercise those rights there.
Under the Geneva Convention my children and I have the right to protection from inhuman treatment and persecution. I have the right to asylum from gender-based violence under the Istanbul Convention, and so do my children as my dependants.
We did not take the decision to enter an asylum seeker’s centre lightly. We did so because it was the only option available to us, as any reasonable person would understand.
This case was complex. It involved coercive controlling behaviour. I provided expressions of concern from international experts on this circumstance.
It is a well known fact that coercive controlling behaviour is challenging to present in evidence because it relates to patterns of behaviour that take place over time.
It is also a well known fact that coercive controlling behaviour can have more serious impacts on victims than physical abuse, and it has a higher correlation with homicide. In my home country, the United Kingdom, it is recognised as a serious crime.
The hearing took place over 1.5 days. This did not allow sufficient to examine this evidence.
If the court was not satisfied of the facts based on the evidence I was able to submit in the timeframe given, it should have allowed more time to prepare and properly review a full set of evidence.
This is of great importance bearing in mind the risk that domestic abuse presents to child safety and welfare.
2. Insufficient consideration given to allegations of corruption
I provided to the court:
Evidence of systemic corruption in Croatia
Evidence of corruption in Croatia relating specifically to family law cases
Evidence of corruption in Croatia relating directly to my children’s cases
The following are indisputable:
Croatian government authorities are making decisions which violate my children’s rights and harm their welfare. I have established this with court judgments which I believe we provided, although due to the extreme haste with which the proceedings were held I am not even today certain which documents were provided to the court.
The court hearing my children’s case in Croatia is heavily involved in alleged child trafficking, which was discussed at the UN in Geneva in March 2023. Any reasonable person may conclude that there may be a link between this and my reports of unlawful decisions in our international children’s legal cases at this same court. Clearly, this is a risk to my children. For this reason, the Supreme Court in Zurich should have reviewed:
the judgments in my children’s cases
my evidence, which included confirmation that people involved in my children’s cases were under investigation for corruption and organised crime.
The rule of law in Croatia is currently in a parlous state, as evidenced by the reports of bodies of the European Union, among others. Civil society organisations have raised particular concerns about the protection of victims of domestic abuse, and especially in family law cases in Croatia. These reports are objective evidence that Croatia an unsafe environment for the legal protection of my children and myself.
By superficially dismissing these objective circumstances, the Supreme Court of Zurich Canton sent my children back in a position of extreme risk where they cannot access their rights and I am unable to protect their safety and welfare.
A Hague Convention case is about the best interests of the child. The child’s welfare and safety of the children are paramount. A Hague Convention case is not about nurturing shadowy geopolitical alliances or undemocratic interests.
The job of the court is not to protect a State at the expense of individuals, and especially not vulnerable children.
The job of a judge is to assess evidence impartially and make decisions in accordance with the law.
Articles 13 and 20 of the Hague Convention provide ample opportunities to protect the rights, safety and welfare of the children. In the words of Merle Hope Weiner: “You can and you should”. But all too often, judges do not. This is the third time my children and I have been harmed by the misapplication of the Hague Convention.
3. The Court has not impartially assessed the evidence
Firstly it must be stressed that there are at least four instances where the father has made false statements which have harmed the children’s interests:
He reported to the police that I am an extreme danger to the children. It is clear to everybody that this is completely untrue. This false statement led to the children being separated from me and placed in a children’s home which caused them such extreme emotional distress that one of them suffered physical symptoms. He was so terrified he was going to die that he asked to be taken to hospital. I had to spend days reassuring him and calming him down, but all the while he was in a state of continuous panic.
The father told the courts that the children are Croatian citizens. He omitted to mention that they are dual British and Croatian citizens. He tried to erase their identity as dual British and Croatian citizens. He misrepresented my place of residence as being Croatia. Erasing a person’s citizenship and place of residence is a serious matter related to the offence of trafficking.
He concealed the fact that the children hold British passports. In so doing he disrespected the Swiss authorities who required all of the children’s travel documents to be deposited with the police in order to safeguard the children. He put the children at risk of abduction. I believe this is contempt of court.
He disclosed that the children had Croatian passports. I had no knowledge that the children had Croatian passports, and informed the court that it would have been impossible for him to obtain these passports legally without my knowledge. He has committed a criminal offence.
This is enough to tell the judges that this is a man whose testimony is unreliable. As such, placing vulnerable children in his care, against their wishes, is unsafe.
The father failed to mention weeks of letters my entire family and I wrote to him advocating for the children’s needs, begging for his response, even publishing them on social media because we could not get an answer. Instead he mispresented my leaving with the children as a unilateral act. It was not. He pushed us into a corner by being controlling and negligent of the welfare and needs of the children and myself, and threatening us with draconian measures. This gave the judges all they needed to know about how controlling he is. The message the court sent us however is: the judges do not care that we are subjected to coercive controlling behaviour. He is entitled to treat the children like objects and to treat me like a breeding cow.
I provided to the court reports from an independent neuropsychologist, a specialist who works in a hospital for children’s neurological disorders, who assessed both children and diagnosed in one of my children a specific cognitive issue and suspected Asperger’s syndrome.
The court however ignored this, and took at face value the claim of a court-appointed “expert witnesses” that my child does not have Asperger’s syndrome. However, minutes from a cross-examination I provided confirm that this expert witness never conducted any assessment for autism (Asperger’s syndrome) in my child. She conducted a “parenting assessment”.
I provided other evidence that the expert witness’s report was unsound, and informed the court that I have a witness prepared to testify that this expert witness had fraudulently slandered her and recommended custody of her child to a convicted batterer and child rapist.
In family law there is a systemic problem with “expert witnesses” who provide courts with fraudulent reports, and this is indisputably the case here. This psychiatrist labelled me with mental health disorders without any evidence except my concerns about to the way my children and I have been treated, which are shared by GREVIO, the European Parliament, UN experts, academics and others.
Unfortunately it is currently almost impossible to prosecute expert witnesses for malpractice. However, it is a fact that the family courts’ reliance on false testimony is endangering mothers and children.
The diagnosis of suspected autism in my child was strongly upheld by the children’s Swiss lawyer. This was also evidenced by the visual disturbances he was experiencing due to the stress of being separated from me. This concern dates back to 2017, when a child psychologist expert witness first confirmed mild developmental delays in both of my children.
The judge who interviewed the children did not consider that my child has autism. However, it is not clear what qualifications this judge possesses to assess autism in children.
The evidence of an impartial specialist, an expert witness and the opinion of the children’s lawyer were discounted.
Therefore, the judgment has the appearance of bias since it does not follow the evidence.
4. The Court has indulged in notions of “indoctrination” based on the unsafe, pseudoscientific concept of “parental alienation”
The lawyer representing my children’s father made comments that suggested my clearly expressed statements relating to documented facts:
reflected my inability to accept (manifestly unlawful) court rulings;
were so convincingly expressed that it is no wonder my children would find it impossible to withstand my indoctrination.
If I had faltered in my presentation of the facts we can assume that he would have found grounds to attack that as well. Women, it seems, are simply not believed in courts, regardless of how they present themselves.
In no other area of law are facts recast as “indoctrination”.
The court did not examine the Croatian court rulings or the facts and evidence relating to corruption to verify if my allegations had grounds. The Court simply made an assumption.
This reflects a discriminatory practice in family law:
The mother’s statements are not believed as they do not suit the father’s narrative
The mother’s statements are not believed because she and her child are victims of abuse and crime
The mother’s statements are not believed because she is a natural person and the other party is a State official or body
In family law recasting the truth as “indoctrination” is a form of victim-blaming used exclusively to silence victims of abuse and their children. It is a component of the “parental alienation” belief system that has been widely condemned as dangerous and discriminatory.
In indulging in these notions the Supreme Court in Zurich has entered into discrimination against me as a woman, as a mother, as a victim of domestic abuse and crime and has continued the persecution of me as a whistleblower about corruption. As a result the Court recklessly sent my children into a situation where they are at grave risk of harm.
Telling a child what is happening to them due to years of blatant violations of their rights is of vital importance to protect their safety and mental health.
How else am I to explain to them the illogical actions of the Croatian authorities?
I am not sure that officials realise that everything is documented and one day today’s children will be able to read what happened. My son told me that he would angry if I hid the truth from him. I am sure that is right.
In no context other than family law is it considered better to abuse a child than to tell them the truth.
This is because it is a delusional belief that has grown out of “parental alienation” propaganda.
The “parental alienation” belief system has been thoroughly discredited. Safety concerns have been raised by bodies including the European Parliament and the United Nations because it is leading to widespread child abuse and massive human rights violations:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52021IP0406
It is an inversion of reality to claim that a child is better off with the abusive parent. It is a sadistic practice which is causing serious harm to children. It has caused serious harm to my children.
One illustration of this is the horror with which the court professionals entertained the idea that separating a child from its mother is the worst thing you can do to her. Of course it is the worst thing you can do to her. In any segment of society this is clear, except the morally inverted world of family law.
Would you prefer that my children thought I was indifferent to being separated from them?
Should we gaslight the children into thinking it is fine for them to be separated from their mother?
No we shouldn’t, because it isn’t. It’s an emotional, psychological, physical and moral injury. This is clear to anybody with any decency or common sense.
The courts have no business endangering children by indulging any longer these lunatic ideas which have created a repugnant parallel universe in family law.
5. The Court has gone against my evidence, the children’s wishes, the serious concerns of the children’s lawyer and the evidence provided by KESB (Swiss children’s services)
My evidence
I raised allegations of serious coercive controlling behaviour, including unprovoked child abduction, and failure to care for the children’s needs, which were ignored.
I provided evidence of corruption meaning I cannot protect myself and my children in Croatia.
The children’s wishes
My children expressed their wishes in the strongest terms:
“The court has the power to make the children's lives happy and it has the power to destroy the children's lives.”
The children’s lawyer
The children’s lawyer expressed the consequences of the Court’s decision to return the children to Croatia in the strongest terms. She told the court:
the children said it was impossible for them to return to Croatia
they reported to her being mistreated in school in Croatia
their father took the side of their teacher and had lost their trust
they do not feel comfortable with the Croatian language
my son cannot eat properly
they are trapped in Croatia and wish to be able to travel to see family and friends in England
the father’s request for my contact with my children to be restricted to two hours a week under supervision would be traumatising for the children and would be extremely too little because they have a very close relationship with me.
In her words: “If you force the children to return under these circumstances, you make it impossible for them to have a happy childhood.”
She said: “These statements also give me doubts as to whether the father sees his children today in an age-appropriate and, above all, developmentally appropriate way.”
“I request that the children not be returned on the basis of Article 13(2), i.e. on the basis of the clear wish to have children, the disregard of which would constitute a danger to the children's psychological development.”
The evidence from KESB and the children’s home
The notes from KESB state that the children were crying a lot, that they missed me, that they were very stressed due to separation from me, that one child was so distressed he had respiratory problems.
“It is further reported that one child said he would have to kill himself and that both children declared that they did not wish to return to the father.”
(This is the third time this child has said he would kill himself).
“…it must be assumed that the execution of the custody right of the father regarding the habitual residence of the children would also put the children at very high risk of harm to their best interests / health and safety, since the children are reported to be massively afraid of him and fear that he will come to fetch them and return them by force to Croatia.”
“X and Y, separated from their parents, in a foreign city, are suffering from severe emotional distress. The Kinderhaus X reports that they are crying frequently and repeatedly expressing their wish to see their mother again as soon as possible.”
6. Children’s right to appropriate healthcare and education denied
The children’s likely neurodivergence was supported by an expert witness psychologist’s report from 2017 and a neuropsychologist’s diagnosis from 2020.
A speech therapist’s report from 2022 additionally supports this.
The findings from an expert witness psychiatrist’s report from 2022 confirm the possibility of “organic” issues, but the conclusions of the psychiatrist go against these findings. The expert confirmed she did not conduct an autism assessment, so could not have reliably screened it out.
I raised concerns about the professional standards of this expert witness which are easy to evidence from the report itself and from the cross examination, and offered to provide a witness with concrete evidence of malpractice.
The court must not defend professional malpractice at the expense of child welfare.
The fact that the children are not confident in the Croatian language was confirmed by the children themselves. The children’s developmental and emotional status and the fact that they did not speak Croatian were the reasons why the Zagreb Education Board denied the father’s attempt to register them in a Croatian school. That the father managed to get the children registered in the school illegally is confirmed by court judgments. This is evidenced as detrimental to the children’s interests and wellbeing, as well as of his ability to exercise abuse of power.
The father has wilfully ignored the children’s healthcare and educational needs.
The court and social services in Croatia threaten to deprive me exactly of the right to have input in my children’s healthcare and educational needs – where they need me most.
Could I ask please for an answer from the Swiss courts: what is their function? Is it to uphold abuse and crime? To subjugate women and children to men, at all costs? To torture children and see them grow into broken adults?
What in God’s name was the court doing upholding the demands this criminal, abusive man at the expense of two innocent, vulnerable children, against the expert advice of the Swiss authorities?
The work of the family courts is so mind-blowingly illogical that the public have no option but to conclude that this is a child trafficking cartel.
Is this true of the Swiss courts as well? We did not want to believe it, but it appears that it must be so. (“We” means my family and friends, and the general public).
If we do not receive a satisfactory response from you by 22 May 2023 we will take it as a confirmation that this is exactly what is happening in the Swiss courts.
7. Right to asylum and right to appeal denied
It is indisputable that the Swiss authorities violated international humanitarian law when they disclosed the whereabouts of the children to the Croatian authorities without processing our claims to asylum.
There is no law that says that a person cannot claim asylum in Switzerland from a particular country, for example Croatia. The facts about corruption and the treatment of women and children indicate that there is a significant need for asylum for Croatian citizens. Perhaps this is the reason for the Swiss authorities’ reluctance to accept our claim: an influx of refugees from gender based violence and child cruelty.
The Grevio baseline report on Switzerland of October 2022 specifically states:
“270. Several NGOs expressed their particular concerns to GREVIO regarding the treatment of allegations of violence made by women from “safe” countries of origin, particularly with regard to domestic violence and so-called honour crimes. According to NGOs, allegations of violence made by women from a number of these countries are often rejected on the ground that their safe country of origin is able to protect the victim of the alleged violence, in some cases on the basis of its ratification of the Istanbul Convention, without this ability being specifically proven in the victim’s case or any reference being made to GREVIO’s evaluation reports. This situation, combined with the above-mentioned shortcomings in screening for individual vulnerabilities and in early detection of cases of gender-based violence, may lead to a failure to properly address allegations of violence against women from safe third countries and to expulsions or returns in breach of the non- refoulement requirement in Article 61 of the convention.”
At the hearing of 5 April 2023 when the judgment was handed down in the Hague case, one of the judges told me that my asylum application was unlikely to succeed. She could not know that and was not entitled to predict the outcome of the application in such a way as to ignore the legal fact of our applications.
There is no law that says that children are not entitled to asylum. However, my children were treated as if they have no rights and were handed right back to the man and the state which has been meting out cruel and inhuman treatment of them. Their lawyer spoke very clearly about the trauma they have been living with on a daily basis in Croatia.
It is recorded that I disclosed fully to SEM and the police the reasons for the arrival of my children and I in Switzerland and for our asylum claim.
It is simply not possible to argue that a court order in a civil case under the Hague Convention can override international humanitarian law.
There are numerous points of law that support this rather obvious point in this article:
On top of this, it was an insult to my children and I that we were denied the right to appeal.
In Croatia in 2016 no-one could tell me how the Croats would even enforce my return order. The children’s father’s appeal was upheld on nonsensical grounds, and the appeals process took a year only for the return of the children to be denied through violations of due process. And while my children and I had legitimate, lawful reasons for leaving Croatia, my children were returned within 10 days?
Do you really mean to send out the message to society that women and children have the boot of violent oppression pressed hard on our necks and we have no rights?
Conclusion
All of this resulted in my children being taken by force – an extremely traumatic event on top of the previous one in 2020, as was noted by their lawyer.
I published a video of the moment when they were taken by force, against their will:
https://twitter.com/natalyanderson/status/1643868729208348674?s=20
This has been seen by more than 70,000 people on Twitter alone. Some of these people told me that the the desperate screams of my child will be etched on their memories forever. If it is distressing to witness, imagine how distressing it is for an autistic child to experience. It is brutality.
We can see that the judges that ordered the return of my children under all of the above circumstances have participated consciously in the abuse of my children.
The forcible removal of my children was a violation of Art. 12.2 of the Swiss Federal Act
on International Child Abduction and the Hague Conventions on the Protection of Children and Adults:
“2 The authority shall take account of the best interests of the child and endeavour to obtain the voluntary execution of the decision.”
The Supreme Court’s attempt at obtaining a voluntary agreement, which should have been on NON-execution of a return, as advised by the children’s lawyer, was superficial.
The enforced removal was a violation of the children’s Article 8 rights to a private family life with me, and their extended family, without interference from the Croatian State.
The forcible removal was also a violation of Art. 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child:
“1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.”
Denying the children’s testimony because they have received factual information about what was happening to us is a violation of their rights under Article 13 of the Convention:
“1. The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.”
The judges justified this draconian, unlawful act by citing the children’s “loyalty conflict”.
They chose to resolve this loyalty conflict by forcing the children into the care of the parent that they do not wish to live with. That makes no sense.
It is so illogical that it appears to be intentionally sadistic.
My children and I, our family, friends and supporters around the world are disgusted and appalled at the way we have been treated, and about the way women and children are routinely treated in family courts.
While this is allowed to happen we do not have a justice system and we do not have a democracy. Clearly this applies to Switzerland too.
There is only one thing I am glad of: my children know that I did what I could to protect them and do the right thing. I am glad that they know the truth. I am glad that they know that this is a violation of their rights and that it is about corruption – it cannot be otherwise when a judgment is so deeply contrary to the facts and the laws. If it is not about financial corruption it is about moral corruption and a deeply undemocratic system that treats children and their mothers in the most brutal manner, not even like animals but like objects.
I am sorry that my children have had to learn at such a young age such a harsh lesson: that children have no rights. But they know that I will keep fighting for them and for all mothers and children, and that I have legions of decent citizens around the world by my side.
Your actions resulted in my children being returned to a situation where they are objectively unsafe, “unlikely to spend a happy childhood” or grow into well functioning adults. I cannot help them in Croatia due to the extreme corruption. My position in Croatia is not safe and nor is theirs. I will not be going back there until someone decides to respect my children’s rights and needs and get them out of there.
Once again, my child said to the Judge: “You have the power to decide: give me back my happy childhood or destroy my life for ever”.
The court chose the latter.
The court has enabled and directly perpetrated child abuse and domestic abuse by proxy.
It has ruled against one safe, protective mother and two children, and the children’s lawyer, to uphold the whims of one man who is evidenced to be abusive and unsafe for the children.
In so doing, the judges have violated the:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
European Convention on Human Rights
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Geneva Convention
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Istanbul Convention
CEDAW
Swiss Constitution
I am told that judges do not consider human rights applicable in family law cases. And yet first year law students learn that international human rights law underpins and supersedes national law.
Do family court judges feel that they inhabit a state within a state where laws do not apply to them? On what grounds precisely? Or are they simply ignorant? Please enlighten us.
It is impossible for a rational person to fathom why courts are allowing the systematic violation of human and constitutional rights in family law cases and endangering and abusing children.
It is undemocratic, dangerous and unlawful. It is causing enormous costs to society.
Who exactly is profiting from this?
Regarding the costs orders:
If the Supreme Court of Zurich Canton allows itself to be abused as a vehicle to perpetrate violence against women and children in an unlawful and undemocratic manner, it must not require a law-abiding, caring mother to finance the abuse of herself and her own children.
It is obscene to require a mother to pay the fees of a lawyer who has discriminated against her by insinuating she is at one and the same time weak minded and highly manipulative. He should be struck off for such behaviour, and for representing a client who is abusing his own children so disgracefully. It is completely unethical.
I respectfully suggest that the right person to be paying the lawyer’s costs, if he is to be paid at all, is the father, since he is the perpetrator of the abuse and crimes towards me and my children. Alternatively, since he is supported in his endeavours by the Croatian state, the Swiss government may seek to recoup its costs from the Croatian state, or enquire of the European Union why it is tolerating such behaviour from a Member State.
I request the UK Government once more to please assist my children and I in asking the Swiss and Croatian Governments to desist from supporting my children’s father, former spy and current Croatian Ministry of Finance employee Zvonimir Marinovic, in abusing my children, causing us physical, psychological and material harm.
The courts, and the states, that are causing this harm are inflicting moral damage not only on us but on many families.
I knew that the situation in family courts in the UK and EU was bad due to the hijacking of the family court system by ideological and financial interests. I hoped and believed that Switzerland, as a neutral country with a reputation for high standards in professional and public life and respect for human rights, may have withstood the forces which have corrupted family law in other countries.
I calmed my children by urging them to trust in the process and that Switzerland is a different country to Croatia. I was wrong to give them that advice. They know I had their best interests in mind when I gave them that advice and they understand that it is the court system, not me, that has let us down, once again.
Unfortunately, at the age of 9 they have learned that we do not have a functioning legal system or democracy. They have learned that nobody is protecting the rights of the children, or of mothers.
What a devastating lesson for two young children to learn.
It is not my fault that they have learned this. Don’t shoot the messenger.
It is the fault of the perpetrators.
What is wrong in Switzerland?
This has been an illuminating experience. Through spending time in Switzerland, I have learned that in some parts of the country women did not have the right to vote until the 1970s. And I learned that women and children are still treated in an abysmal manner in family courts.
Mothers have reported to me that they see that the judges and lawyers in their cases take sadistic pleasure in their suffering. They described it as “torture porn”.
Mothers are stripped of the financial assets that they need to care for their children.
Who benefits? It is certainly not society. And most definitely, it is not the children.
Causing mothers to pay costs to the men who are abusing them and their children is not just insulting, it causes serious harm to their wellbeing and security, and that of their children. It is disgraceful.
The steps you take at this point will show to the rest of the world and to Swiss society: are mothers and children treated like human beings in Switzerland?
My children were treated worse than animals by the court and by the police officers who enforced the unlawful court orders. They were treated like objects.
Just because a court rules that a judgment is lawful clearly does not make it so. Citizens can read. The courts are teaching us that we have no reason to respect the orders that they make because we can see that they are unlawful. They are undermining public trust in the justice system. Why on earth are you doing that?
Ultimately, it is the citizens, through Parliament, who decide on the laws and the operation of the courts, so the courts and Parliament would do well to listen to us.
Yours sincerely,
Nataly Anderson
8 May 2023
Once again: please sign and share my petition.
And please spread the word about the family court crisis: