Why Do Parents Abduct? According to the U.S. Department of Justice, over 354,000 children are kidnapped by a parent each year in divorce custody disputes. Some of the children are recovered or returned quickly while others may be on the run for years. Unfortunately many of these children are never found. Generally, people are concerned with the traumatic effects of these events on the child involved. However, both the searching parent and the abductor have many pending issues with which to deal. Some people believe that children "kidnapped" by their own parents are the lucky ones. In fact, because revenge is o