Assistance provided by International Social Service in Australia may not be that well known to the wider public, or as widely as the need for them exists. However, the small Melbourne office likes to keep a low profile, focussing on the job of helping people in need. Executive director of the Australian chapter of the International Social Service (ISS), Fionn Skiotis reaffirms the call for the ISS in Australia.

“There is growing need for our services. Every year, hundreds of people come to our office to ask for help. Even though not all services are free of charge, people who require our help are never rejected for financial reasons,” says Mr Skiotis.

In the Melbourne office, a staff of only 12 social workers, assist people from every part of Australia, solving sensitive family problems and providing social work services to families, children and single adults across international borders. If a need the for ISS occurs in a state other than Victoria and New South Wales where offices exist, the staff provide support by phone and e-mail. Mr Skiotis believes that the presence of at least one ISS employee in every state would be a much improved scenario.

In March this year, the Australian branch of International Social Service, celebrated 50 years. Although the ISS appeared shortly after World War II, it was not formally incorporated until 1961. ISS Australia is the independent Australian arm of the global International Social Service network, spanning over 140 countries worldwide. It receives government funding for some services, but relies on individual and organisational donors, membership fees and other income to continue providing a full range of services.

The international arm was founded in 1924, as a response to the wave of migration following World War I and worked to reconnect families lost through displaced persons crossing international borders. The victims were often those that as result of circumstances out of their control had lost contact with members of their family. After World War I had finished, exchanges of populations on the Balkan Peninsula increased the need for an organisation providing these types of valuable services. After the Asia Minor catastrophe, which displaced many Greeks from their birth place, Greece become one of the six founding nations of the ISS in Geneva.

Today, ISS is the only international body providing inter-country social work services to children and families separated by international borders.

“ISS is the only non-governmental organization in Australia, which provides social work services that go beyond state borders, such as reunifications and family tracing, international family mediation, kinship care and other child welfare matters … support for families experiencing international parental child abduction,” says Skiotis. “The majority of people ask for our help in the reunification process with their family, or when parental child abduction occurs.”

This occurs in cases where a parent abandons the country with a child, with no permission given by other parent. ISS provides help and support for reunification of a parent with the child, always considering the well-being of the child in a free place. In Australia, it is estimated that 3 to 4 children are abducted each week by a parent, into or out of the country. Sometimes, as Skiotis says, parents that have abducted their child themselves or are thinking about doing so, come to ISS and ask for help. The organisation will provide family counselling and family mediation services.

“The cases which our staff are dealing with every day are quite sensitive. When the parental abduction of the child occurs, parents are coming to us in quite a desperate state to ask for our help, to find their child. The process we follow includes detailed research and communication with international offices the ISS is cooperating with, who continue to work on the case once the problem crosses Australian borders,” says Skiotis. The process is becomes easier if the countries involved in the case are signatory countries of international conventions, such as the Hague Convention, an international treaty which aims to assist with the return of children who have been wrongfully removed from their country of habitual residence.

“If a child was taken to one of 90 signatory countries, there is a well established legal process to get the child back. The situation becomes much more difficult if a child is taken to the country outside that convention. In that case, no legal process can be conducted between two countries until the social workers go there and start the process in that country,” says Skiotis. Migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, those who cross borders as tourists, people that work overseas – are people that ask help from ISS. The disadvantaged position in which migrant families find themselves as a consequence of global movements, especially when these lead to separation of family members, brings them to the ISS office, as the only organization that offers inter-country help.

Each year, ISS offices in Australia deal with more than 100 cases, the majority of which relate to tracing and parental child abduction cases. Even though the need for services provided by ISS is clearly and constantly growing, the ISS branch in Australia only has two offices left in Sydney and Melbourne. Thankful for both state and federal funding, the office in New South Wales is the only one that offers all of its services for free. An office in Brisbane closed, having no support available from the Queensland state government.

The same problem is threatening the office in Melbourne. Unfortunately, the only free services are those sponsored by the federal government. The traumatic cost of separation should indicate the importance of keeping the Melbourne office doors open for those who desperately need help finding their loved ones.