Georgia amends law on international travel of minors

Georgia is amending its law on taking minors out of the country to better protect the interests of parents and children.

The Government has approved a package of legislative changes, which will see several laws be amended. The changes were presented by Justice Minister Thea Tulukiani.

Tsulukiani said the current legislation had no levers to protect the interests of one parent if the other parent decided to take their child abroad without the first parent's knowledge.

Currently, a foreign passport is issued to a minor only if both parents consent. The Minister said problems usually emerged when parents divorced and one person took the child abroad without letting the other parent know.

The new amendments will see parents, when applying for a passport for their child, be obliged to fill in a special form where they express that they understand a passport is a travel document and if a child has one, one of the parents can take the child abroad without the consent of the other parent.

Additionally, under the amendments, if one parent withdraws their consent of their child’s passport, the passport will be cancelled.

Tsulukiani believed this would be a good lever to ensure that in cases of divorce, one parent will not be able to take the child away from the other parent and out of the country.

She called on parents, who were recently divorced and had a child with a passport, to go a relevant agency and ask for their child’s passport to be revoked.

The Minister said the amendments were prepared following several cases that took place in 2015, where a couple divorced and one parent took their child abroad without the other parent knowing.