Don't Touch My Children

About child abduction. Every two days in The Netherlands there is an abducted child. Most children never see their mother and family back. Janneke Schoonhoven from Oude Pekela is one of the few who succeeded thanks to her huge struggle to get her children back. Everyone in The Netherlands was watching, when her children were brought back by minister Bot, after they hid for half a year at the Dutch embassy in Syria. Janneke and her children became the symbol for hope. This film tries to get attention for a complex recurring problem, which many agencies continue to look on helplessly. The film begins August 2004. Hanne (Karina Smulders) trusts her two children (of 9 and 11 years old) to their father and her ex-husband Nizar (Cahit Olmez). He claims to take them to Euro Disney in Paris. After a couple of days Hanne gets a phone call from Nizar who is in the Dutch Embassy in Damascus, Syria. Nizar tells her that he had to escape to Syria because he was threatened in The Netherlands. Hanne is willing to believe him, but her current husband Bertus (Tjebbo Gerritsma) suggests that it is just a way to get her back, because it is a shame for his Syrian family that he is divorced from his wife. Hanne leaves for Syria together with Wouter (Thom Hoffman), who is experienced in child abductions. From that moment on the heartbreaking struggle begins. She has to fight for over two years to get her children back to The Netherlands. Hanne gets confronted with her own feelings about what she should do and what she thinks is the best way to solve it. This results in, that she is confronted with her current husband and their children. In the end she realizes there is only one thing left to do, to get her children back. She travels back to Syria one last time to try to convince her children that they have to try to escape for themselves from the force of their father. They run to the Dutch embassy trough the dazzling labyrinth of the streets of Damascus.