Case Update (10 Oct 2025): Boa-Bonsu v. Owusu; 8-year-old was found to be mature after in-camera interview and not returned to Finland

The parties are parents to one child, who was age 8 at the time of trial. The child was born in Finland in 2016, and had lived there his entire life. His parents were married at the time of his birth, but divorced in 2019, when they reached an agreement about his custody and visitation schedule. The agreement declared both parents to have custody. His Father, the Petitioner here, agreed to spend time with the child every other weekend, Friday to Sunday. Over time “difficulties emerged” in exercising that visitation. In June 2024, the Respondent Mother took the child from Finland and brought the child to the USA. The Petitioner Father learned of this when social services in Finland scheduled a meeting for June 10, 2024, and the Mother failed to attend. The father visited the mother’s apartment with the social worker and police and learned that she had vacated the unit. He filed a police report and then an application for the child’s return using the Hague Abduction Convention. On June 6, 2025, he filed a petition with the district court seeking the child’s return. The court conducted an in-camera interview of the child. The parties had apparently also deposed the child during discovery. The only real issue that the court spent any time discussing was whether the child was mature, had a particularized objection, and was not unduly influenced.

Noting that the child was age 8, the court concluded that sometimes courts have found 8-year-olds to be mature, and other times they have not. The Petitioner argued that the child, in his deposition, was shown to be immature. He referred to Mexico as the jungle, was unfamiliar with basic concepts such as national borders, lacked awareness of his mother’s engagement, and was confused why leaving Finland was problematic, among other things. The court, however, in conducting an in-camera interview, found the child to be “attentive well-behaved, observant, and articulate.” He was unfamiliar with the underlying circumstances of why he was there, but quickly grasped the situation when the court provided context. He meaningfully engaged with the court’s questions. He confirmed he understood the importance of the truth, and that he told the truth. The Petitioner, however, noted some inconsistencies between his deposition and in-camera interview, and argued that the child was apparently told what to say by his Mother during his deposition. Despite all this, the court found that the child’s core objections to returning to Finland were not contradicted - he was concerned about not speaking Finnish anymore, being embarrassed at school by being in a lower grade, and worried that his father would not properly care for him. Therefore, the court found that, while there was some influence and inconsistencies, they were not at a level of undue influence that would make the child’s objections unreliable.

The court concluded that the child had a mature objection, and denied the Father’s request to return him to Finland.