Surviving Parental Abduction and Parental Alienation - Dr. Noelle Hunter

Dr. Noelle Hunter discusses the dual trauma of International Parental Child Abduction and Parental Alienation. Families, especially children, are deeply impacted by separation and alienation. The space between these two phenomena is often filled with deception, coercion, frustration, resentment and fear of the unknown, especially for abducted and alienated children. Understanding this intersecting problem is the first step toward empowering survivors to heal and grow.

Dr. Noelle Hunter is the president and co-founder of iStand Parent Network Inc., an NGO that empowers parents to recover their children from International Parental Child Abduction (IPCA) and advocates for public policy reform to prevent and end this crime against children and families. Dr. Hunter co-founded iStand Parent Network after successfully recovering her daughter from an abduction to Mali in 2014. Since 2014, iStand has assisted parents with reunifications of 54 children who were parentally- abducted or wrongfully-retained in 14 nations. iStand also works cooperatively with local, state and federal agencies, members of Congress, NGOs and international advocates to advance policy reform to strengthen domestic and global IPCA prevention and response. Dr. Hunter has served as an invited witness on IPCA before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs and Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Global Human Rights. She has also offered expert testimony on IPCA before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) and served as a consultant to the U.S.-based National Criminal Justice Training Center. Dr. Hunter received the Humanitarian Award from the Alabama chapter of the NAACP. Dr. Hunter is the former dean of students at Ohio Valley University and also taught government and international relations at West Virginia University and Morehead State University. She is the former Walter Rollins Scholar for the West Legislature and the James E. Webb Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution Office of Policy and Analysis. Noelle earned a bachelor of science in journalism from Ohio University in 1994, a Master of Public Administration degree in 2009, and a doctorate degree in political science from West Virginia University in 2007. She is currently a lecturer of political science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Ala and is working to establish a Center for IPCA Prevention and Research. Dr. Hunter has three daughters, Maayimuna, Rysa and Rachel.

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