Jacqueline Pascarl

Jacqueline Pascarl (born 5 July 1963) , formerly known as Jacqueline Gillespie and Jacqueline Pascarl-Gillespie, is an Australian author, TV personality and parents' rights advocate and humanitarian aid worker. Pascarl came to public attention in 1992, when her children were covertly removed from Australia, illegally under Australian law, by their Malaysian father. One man was convicted, sentenced and then jailed as an accomplice. The Parliament of Australia characterised this removal as an "abduction."cite web | year = 2003 | url = http://www.aph.gov.au/SEnate/committee/fadt_ctte/completed_inquiries/1996-99/consular/report/c09.htm#Heading12
title = Custody issues involving Australian children | work = Helping Australians Abroad A Review of the Australian Government's Consular Services | publisher = Parliament of Australia | accessdate = 2006-05-24] "

Biography

Jacqueline was a young ballet dancer in 1980 when she met Malaysian Prince Raja Datuk Kamarul Bahrin Shah who was in Melbourne studying architecture. They married in 1981, when she was 17 and moved to Terengganu state, Malaysia in 1982 where Raja Bahrin was a member of the royal family. They had a daughter Shahirah, and a son, Mohammed Baharuddin, better known as Iddin. Raja Bahrin later took a second wife, under Islamic law. By this time, Jacqueline claims the marriage had turned violent. She returned to Australia in 1985 with their children to visit her sick grandmother, and never returned.

Jacqueline and Raja Bahrin divorced in 1986. Bahrin signed over custody of their two children, an arrangement which was later ratified by the Federal Family Court of Australia. In 1990, she married TV journalist Iain Gillespie. They legally separated in the mid 1990s and formally divorced in 2000. Ms Pascarl married former school friend Bill Crocaris in 2002. [ [http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/story/0,20797,18745213-952,00.html Reunited by secret email | The Courier-Mail] ] [ [http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/08/23/1156012591440.html Son's arrival completes Pascarl reunion | The Age] ]

Career

A feature reporter for the Ten Network at the time of the abduction, Jacqueline went on to research and produce several television documentary films including the award winning documentary, "Empty Arms, Broken Hearts", covering the topic of international parental child abduction. As the host of television lifestyle show, "House Hunt", she was to move farther afield into the area of child literacy, leaving her television and radio career behind. She also became a noted international lobbyist on the rights of the child, and an expert on parental child abduction and the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. She lectures internationally and advises the European Union and the US State Department and represents Australia at world forums on child abduction issues. She also wrote a book, "Once I was a Princess", which details her experience.

Jacqueline established 'Operation Book Power' in 1995, a child literacy project operating in Kenya and South Africa. In 1998, she was appointed Special Ambassador for the international development and aid agency, CARE International and worked as an emergency aid worker in the conflict zones of Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor. She was based in Europe, leaving Australia after citing privacy issues. She has garnered several humanitarian awards including commendations for child protection from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (USA) and the United Nations. She is currently a consultant to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and has recently been appointed as a Patron of CARE International in the United Kingdom.

Her new book, "Since I Was a Princess", was published on April 1, 2007.

Paternal abduction

In 1992, Raja Bahrin came to Melbourne for a pre-arranged custody visit, at which point he failed to return the children as had been agreed. After some days of uncertainty of his and the children's whereabouts, Raja Bahrin surfaced with them back in Malaysia. Raja Bahrin appeared in an interview on television, but refused to reveal how he had managed to smuggle them out of the Australia, saying only it was the "will of Allah".

It was later revealed, that with the help of an accomplice, Bryan Wickham, he had taken them by car to Weipa in Australia's far north, and by boat from the Cape York Peninsula to Merauke, in the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya. From there he took them to Malaysia via Sulawesi where the authorities retrospectively awarded him custody, and the children were then settled with their father in Terengganu. Wickham spent one year planning the abduction, arranging vehicles and a boat, studying the escape route.http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,20261325-661,00.html] Wickham later served nine months in an Australian jail for his part. Malaysia is not a party to the Hague Convention, and therefore the Convention could not be used to return the children to Australia. Signatories of the Convention recognize custody by the habitual residence of minor children.

Some controversy surrounded Pascarl soon after the abduction, as she successfully applied to the Australian Family Court to prevent the content of any interview with her children from appearing in the Australian media, the Courts deeming published interviews to be detrimental to the children and contrary to their future reintroduction into Australian society. The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd unsuccessfully appealed the decision.cite web | title=BETWEEN: JACQUELINE JASMIN GILLESPIE APPLICANT AND RAJA KAMARUL BAHRIN RESPONDENT AND THE HERALD AND WEEKLY TIMES LTD INTERVENER No. ML8347 of 1985 Number of pages - 4 (1993) FLC 92 - 388 16 Fam LR 642 | work=Australasian Legal Information Institute | url = http://www.austlii.edu.au//cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/family_ct/unrep563.html?query=gillespie | accessdate=2006-05-31] Ray Martin of "60 Minutes" had travelled to Malaysia and interviewed the prince and his family there, and while footage of the children appeared on television, what was said by the children was not broadcast in Australia. Some criticism was levelled at Pascarl regarding how she, and her then husband, had dealt with the media,Fact|date=February 2007 but she stated she felt justified in protecting the psychological welfare of her kidnapped children.

Reunited

Despite the fact the Prince had softened his stance in recent years and stated that his children could see their mother sometime after they turned eighteen, Jacqueline did not see her children again until 2006 when her twenty year-old daughter Shahirah (now known simply as Shah) visited her in Melbourne.cite news | first=Ben | last=Doherty | author= | url=http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/04/05/1143916557535.html | title=Mother meets kidnapped daughter | work= | publisher=The Age | date=5 April 2006 | accessdate=2006-05-31] In August 2006, her son Iddin, now 23, returned to Australia to visit his mother after fourteen years of separation.."cite web | year = 2006 | url = http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/family-reunion-laced-with-drama/2006/08/22/1156012542801.html | title = A family reunion laced with drama | publisher = The Age | accessdate = 2006-08-23] Jacqueline is now in contact with her children most days.

Bill Crocaris

Upon the return of his wife's abducted daughter Shah in 2006, her husband Bill was the spokesperson for his wife to the media pack that had formed outside of their house.

References

Other sources

*Jacqueline Pascarl-Gillespie, "Once I was a Princess" (Pan Macmillan, 1995) ISBN 0732908159
*Jacqueline Pascarl, "Since I was a Princess" (Harper Collins, 2007) ISBN 9780732283223

External links

* [http://www.jacquelinepascarl.com.au/ Official site]
* [http://youtube.com/user/JacquelinePascarl Jacqueline Pascarl's homepage on YouTube]