What happens to children when couples can't stay together and one of them leaves their country of residence to back home, taking the child along? As you can imagine, there are no winners in such an arrangement, the children stand to lose the most and that's where talk of the Hague Convention comes in. The Hague Convention was concluded in 1980, to facilitate the quick return of children removed by a parent from the country of habitual residence of the child to another country. This convention was premised on the assumption that removal of a child from their place of habitual residence is not in her interest, and is likely to be detrimental to her mental well-being.