60 children in custody disputes taken from Australia in the last year have never been returned.

They take them to Lebanon, because they know the mothers will never be looked on favourably there.

But there are other places as well, Egypt, North Africa and the Middle East, New York, New Zealand, the UK.

Australia has the highest rate per capita of international parental child abductions in the world –two or three children taken illegally in or out of the country by a parent every single week.

The Australian reports that of the 114 children removed from Australia in the last financial year in custody disputes only 54 have been returned.

That’s 60 children taken by a parent – under circumstances we can’t imagine – who remain unable to be reunited with their Australian parent.

Over the past two weeks we have watched the case of Sally Faulkner play out before our eyes. We have watched her pain, her anguish and the extreme length she went to to try – and fail – to have her children returned.

But her case is far from isolated – and her failure to have her children returned is far from unusual.

As in the case of Sally Faulkner Lebanon is a popular choice – especially for fathers who take their own children – as it is not a signatory to the Hague Convention.

Sally Faulkner's ex-husband now has custody of their children. Via Nine News and Facebook.

Rosa Saladino a lawyer who specialises in the field of child abduction told the ABC last year that if both countries involved in the case are signatories to the Hague Convention, there are legal avenues for the remaining parent to have their child returned.

But in the case of countries that are not a signatory, the legal avenues for getting a child returned are much harder.

"There is some assistance offered by the Commonwealth Government, there's a scheme of financial assistance to assist with payment of the legal fees," she said.

"The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will also assist with locating a lawyer in the country to which the child has been taken.

"But essentially the legal access has to be taken under the domestic law of that country."

Foreign Prisoners Support Service director Martin Hodgson told The Australian he had represented two Australian women whose husbands fled to Lebanon with their children. “Lebanon is a safe harbour for this issue (custody),” he said. “It’s much easier (for women) to get redress in Saudi on custody than it is in Lebanon.”

The Australian details two new cases currently before the Family Court in just the past two weeks - two cases that occurred right while Sally Faulkner and Tara Brown sat in a Beirut prison.

In one of the cases before the family court a mother has been ordered to return her six-year-old daughter to the girl’s father who lives in The Netherlands.

The girl’s father is Dutch and her mother Indonesian, but she has remarried an Australian man – hence why the case is before our court. The little girl was born in The Netherlands, but raised partly in Indonesia.

In another case the chief executive of an international company has been ordered to send his two sons, aged 15 and 17, back to Sydney from New York after he flew his sons to the US in January then sent an email to his former wife saying they wanted to stay.

The court was presented with emails from the 15-year-old saying he wanted to stay in New York because it’s “awesome”.

Sally Faulkner's high profile botched child recovery has been making headlines. Via Nine News.

The Australian Women’s Weekly  has also been looking into what it terms "stuck" mothers, speaking has spoken to a mother from Western Australia who lived in the US with her husband, but when her marriage broke down and she was unable to work due to visa restrictions she decided to return to Australia. The woman told The Weekly that despite being an Australian citizen and the primary carer of her children, the family court sided with her ex-husband and are forcing her to return to the US where she risks prosecution for abduction.

“The Australian government is sending me, an Australian, back to the states to live in poverty with my daughters.

“This means that the court over there will take my children from their mother, because they will look at who can provide a better quality of life for the children. In Australia I can do that, but I can't in America,” she explains.

Sally Faulkner returns home and is reunited with her three-month-old baby. Via 60 Minutes.

Hinton Sareant Lawyers write that since the change to Australia’s shared parenting laws in 2006, despite what we have seen played out over the past two weeks,  mothers have been responsible for more abductions than fathers – approximately 84 percent.

According to The Australian legislation to deal with this ongoing issue has been “bouncing around” since August 2011.

Proposed new laws to made it a crime for a parent not to return their child when ordered by the Family Court first came before a senate committee in August 2011.

Attorney-General George Brandis. Via Getty.

A spokesman for Attorney-General George Brandis told The Australian the government was “considering its recommendations and continues to consult with stakeholders”.

And in the meantime 60 children remain victims of this insidious game between parents.