On April 6, 2018, six-year-old Maria Squalli and her older sister, Rita, then ten, were last seen in Toronto, Ontario. The girls' mother, Elena Danilina, said her final goodbyes for what she believed would be a short trip. Their father, Jawad 'Jay' Squalli-Housseini, had told her he was taking their daughters to Morocco to visit his gravely ill mother. This was a pretense for a much different journey.
Two days after their departure, Danilina received a message from her husband that turned her world upside down: he and the girls were not in Morocco but in the United Arab Emirates, and he had no intention of bringing them back to Canada. This marked the beginning of a complex international parental abduction case.
In the immediate aftermath of her daughters' abduction, Elena Danilina took swift legal action, obtaining an Ontario court order that granted her sole custody and demanded the children's return. When the father traveled with the girls to Morocco, their mother followed and initiated proceedings under the Hague Convention, an international treaty designed to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed from their country of habitual residence. In November 2018, a Moroccan court ordered that the children be returned to Canada. However, enforcing this order proved to be immensely challenging. An attempt to bring the girls home was thwarted at the airport when one of the sisters expressed her refusal to board the plane. Complicating matters further, a court in the United Arab Emirates issued a custody order in favor of the father.
The years since their disappearance have been marked by a protracted and draining legal battle spanning multiple continents. Their mother has remained in Morocco, fighting tirelessly for their return, a struggle that has left her emotionally and financially exhausted. She has only been permitted to see her daughters on a handful of occasions, often under supervised conditions within courtrooms. The case involves a tangled web of conflicting international jurisdictions, with legal proceedings ongoing in both Morocco and Ontario. While Canadian and Moroccan courts have ruled in the mother's favor, the girls, Maria and Rita, remain in Casablanca, Morocco. This case is an overview of a heart-wrenching parental abduction, highlighting the significant challenges involved in enforcing international custody orders and the profound impact on a family torn apart across borders.Last Seen: Apr 6, 2018
