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Tonight, Raquel Cocom, a resident of Orange Walk is breathing a huge sigh of relief after engaging in a year-long battle to get her young daughter returned to her.

That's after the child's biological father, a Russian national who lived in Belize for 10 years, took her to the US back in November 2017. He told Cocom, her mother, that this was only going to be a 2-week vacation trip, but instead of returning back to Belize with her, he kept her there all this time. 

Cocom struggled to try and get help, and shortly after the abduction, human rights activist Elisa Castellanos learned about her case, and decided come to her aid. The two had to access the US courts through the Department of Human Services, and after a several months of a custody battle in that country, Cocom won her case. 

She and Castellanos spoke with our colleagues from CTV 3 News late this evening about the victory:

Elisa Castellanos - Activist
"The Hague convention is really an international treaty that was put there by the United Nations and countries that have signed on membership to this convention include Belize and the United States of America. The Hague convention provides a method and a process so that the process of returning a child that has been abducted by a parent to another country can be expidited and facilitated. So you have the central authority who is the official body that's suppose to deal with Hague convention cases is the Department of Human Services. In the beginning this has been a rocky case, we started with having to cause a scene, hey where is the attention for this case and it needs urgency; especially because this particular Russian national was living here in Belize for 10 years. He has very little faith in the laws of Belize, he has very little faith in the capacity of our justice system or our law enforcement systems and so we thought that it was time sensitive. The application was finally filed into the department on November around the 20th and then they submitted it to the Central Authority in the United States somewhere in late January or February and then that's when the case began getting traction. In March it was referred as part of the Hague convention protocol, we were referred to a pro-bono attorney which is Nelson Mulins in North Carolina."

Raquel Cocom - Mother
"Thanks to the good lord we won the case and I just want to ask for more prayers to make he doesn't appeal for this. So I'm really happy and I'm just waiting to have my child back in my arms again and tell her how much I miss her and how much I love her."

The Department of Human Services in the US has agreed to fund Cocom's passage to the US so that she can be re-united with her daughter. As you heard, there is a possibility that the biological dad can appeal the decision of the US courts.