Mother renews call for help on sixth anniversary of Amsterdam girl's abduction
Six years ago today, Insiya Hemani was violently kidnapped from her grandmother’s Amsterdam apartment and smuggled to her father in India. Her mother, Nadia Rashid, again appealed to the Dutch government to help get her now 8-year-old daughter back.
It’s been 2,191 days since Nadia has seen her daughter. “Insiya is being held hostage in India. Without a passport, without a legal status, without a future, without her mother,” Rashid said in a social media post addressed to Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius of Justice and Security, Minister Wopke Hoekstra of Foreign Affairs, Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema, and the Dutch Senate and lower house of parliament.
The post is accompanied by a video of the then 2-year-old girl smiling and cuddling with her mother. “Stop this cruelty. Restore Insiya’s human rights,” Rashid appeals. “Because every day counts. Because every second counts.”
The issue over Insiya Hemani was raised during a state visit, when Ram Nath Kovind, then the president of India, traveled to the Netherlands in April, said Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Wopke Hoekstra a month later. “The Dutch authorities have requested through diplomatic channels that Insiya be returned. Since India is not a party to the Hague Child Abduction Convention, India cannot be held to comply with its obligations in that convention. The extradition request for the father has also not been granted by India," he said in response to questions from the Tweede Kamer.
He said Hemani’s abduction and the Dutch court’s conviction of her father were also addressed when King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima visited India in 2019, and during phone calls between Hoekstra and his counterpart.
Kovind also visited parliament when he was in the Netherlands. In her speech that day, Tweede Kamer chair Vera Bergkamp said “the Committee on Foreign Affairs has decided to make cooperation with India one of its top three priorities for this year.” She added, “The Committee’s decision underlines the importance that our Parliament attaches to our bilateral relationship, and it also highlights that what happens in India is important to us in the Netherlands too.”
Bergkamp then said to the president, “It is therefore heartbreaking to hear that despite a conviction of the father of the little girl Insiya, she is still not here in the Netherlands with her mother. I hope this sad story will end soon for all the involved persons.”
