It is common if you have children and are getting divorced to want to take them back to your home country, or even another country where it's easier for you to live. Often you have family there, a support network, you speak the language and/or have better career prospects.

 

It is absolutely crucial, however, that before you book tickets and leave with your children, including if you are fleeing abuse, that you find out whether the country you are living in and/fleeing to is a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (also known as Hague Abduction Convention). If it is, then you need to have the express written permission of the children's father(s) to not only leave the country they're living in, but to remain and live there. 

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Kidnapping

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If you leave the country without the father's permission, including if you have his permission to go on holiday and then decide not to return, it may be possible for you to be charged with kidnapping and your children returned to his care in the country you left. This may sound strange, because how can you kidnap your own children? The focus of this convention, however, is not on your right to parent your children, but the children's right to continuity of daily life. 

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Details

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The above is not legal advice. It is an overview of something many people have no idea about, with hopefully enough information to impress the importance of understanding it. You need to know where your children are habitually resident, what the rules are for what qualifies as habitual residence where you live and more. ​​