Estonian police withhold location of previously missing child from mother
Police on Tuesday located a French father and his 1-year-old child who had left the child's mother on May 29 and had been the subject of a nationwide search. However, according to the child's mother, the police are refusing to disclose the child's location at the father's request.
According to Melissa Rondon, the mother of 1-year-and-10-month-old Galiana, Estonian police are refusing to tell her where her daughter is staying with her father.
Rondon said police have argued that because the father has the right not to disclose his whereabouts and also has the right to be with his child due to equal custody rights, they cannot reveal the child's location either, as doing so would also disclose where the father is staying.
Rondon said that on May 29, Galiana's father took the child without the mother's consent. According to the mother, the father had not seen the child in person for more than six months before taking her.
Police located the father and child five days later.
"When Estonian police officers found my child on Tuesday evening, they told me, 'Your child is with the other parent and is not in danger, she is in a safe place,' and then refused to tell me where she was," Rondon said.
"Their justification was that the father has equal parental rights and does not want me to know the child's location.
"It turns out that only the father has equal rights because my rights have been violated. He is deliberately concealing the child's location and the police are okay with that. Where are the equal rights?" the mother asked.
"There is no court ruling. There is no custody decision. There is not a single legal decision giving him the right to hide my child from me. The police are simply honoring one parent's request to conceal the child from the other parent and treating that as legally sufficient. I am not asking for my daughter to be brought to me. I am not asking for any decision to be made. I am only asking to know where my daughter is," Rondon said.
Rondon claims she has evidence that, due to the father's health condition, the child may not be safe in his care.
Rondon and the child's father are French citizens and do not live permanently in Estonia, although their daughter was born here.
"We live in France, where Galiana has had her permanent residence since March 2026. I came to Estonia at the end of May precisely because her father made it a condition for any contact. He told me he would provide no support unless I brought Galiana to Estonia so he could meet her in person. That trip gave the father the opportunity to take our daughter," Rondon said.
Police not getting involved
Police have been very brief in their comments on the case, as they believe there has been no basis to open proceedings and say that providing more detailed explanations could create the impression that the matter falls within their remit.
"Police have established and confirmed that the child is safe and in the care of the other parent. We have communicated with the child's mother, explained the situation to her and provided guidance on how to proceed," said Anders Allandi, head of the proceedings unit at the East Harju Police Station.
Police have advised the mother that if she wishes to see her child, she should apply to a court in France to have the current equal custody arrangement formally divided, since France is the child's place of permanent residence, and wait for a ruling from the French court. Of course, the father may also choose to disclose the child's location to the mother before then.
Attorney: That is just the police's interpretation of the law
Attorney-at-law Tambet Laasik said there is no justification for police refusing to disclose the child's location to the mother. He also noted that he has previously heard claims that Estonia is regarded as a country where it is comparatively easier to take a child from the other parent.
"The idea that the child's location cannot be shared with the mother in order to preserve the father's confidentiality is simply the police's interpretation of the law. The definition of custody rights is itself quite brief and I cannot see on what legal basis police could refuse to disclose a child's location to a parent who has custody rights," Laasik said.
Laasik added that the only possible exception would be a need to ensure the child's safety, for example if being with the mother posed a danger to the child.
"But even in that case, it would only be a temporary measure until a court had made a more specific ruling," Laasik said.
Laasik also said that over the years he has occasionally been contacted by prospective foreign clients who claimed they had asked their lawyers to assess where in Europe it would be easiest to take a child from the child's mother and that Estonia had allegedly been identified as that country.
"I do not know whether that claim is true and I have not taken on such clients because the objective is clearly illegitimate, but that narrative definitely exists in certain circles," Laasik said.
He added that he knows nothing about the specifics of this case, but said it is not impossible that it was a factor in the decision to travel to Estonia.
"It is possible that they came to Estonia for precisely that reason because it is easy to take a child here, as the police are not very motivated to deal with these issues and the court process is what it is," Laasik said.
On May 31, police announced that they were searching for 47-year-old Benoit Olivier and 1-year-and-10-month-old Galiana Simone Colette, who had gone missing in Tallinn. The man had gone for a walk with the child on the morning of May 29 and had not returned. The child's mother contacted police and requested assistance in locating them. Police checked locations where the man and child might have been staying and released security camera images showing the father and child near Linnahall. The man did not answer his phone. On June 2, police informed the public that the man and child had been found.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski
