ROTTERDAM – A Dutch court has ruled that an ongoing custody dispute between divorced parents over their two children can no longer be handled in the Netherlands and must instead be dealt with by the courts in Curaçao.
According to the District Court of Rotterdam, the children now effectively live in Curaçao and have established the center of their daily lives on the island.
The case began in late 2024 when a Rotterdam court granted the mother permission to relocate to Curaçao with the children. She was also authorized to enroll them in school on the island.
However, the Court of Appeal of The Hague later overturned that decision and ordered the mother to return to the Netherlands with the children before the start of the 2025 school year.
That did not happen.
The father subsequently returned to court seeking an order that would force the mother to return to the Netherlands with the children. Alternatively, he requested that custody of the children be transferred to him so he could personally take them back to the Netherlands.
The preliminary relief judge in Rotterdam has now rejected those requests.
According to the court, the circumstances have significantly changed because the children have now been living in Curaçao for an extended period. The ruling noted that the children attend school on the island, are officially registered there, and have built their daily lives in Curaçao.
For that reason, the court concluded that Curaçao has become the children’s “habitual residence.”
A key factor in the decision was that the original relocation to Curaçao was legal. The mother had moved to the island with authorization from a Dutch court, meaning the case does not qualify as child abduction or the illegal removal of children abroad.
As a result, the Rotterdam court ruled that Dutch courts no longer have jurisdiction over the matter.
Any future legal decisions concerning the children must now be handled by the courts in Curaçao.