It was a case which made international headlines in 2006: two small girls, Cedar, 3 and Hannah, 5, were abducted by their Lebanese–Australian father, Joe, and flown into Lebanon in the middle of a war. Their distraught Canadian mother, Melissa Hawach, was left to figure out where her daughters were, if they were safe and what, if anything, she could do to get them back. When the courts and all legitimate avenues failed her, Melissa had to make an agonising decision; should she break the law and snatch the children from their father? And how would she then be able to get them out of the increasingly dangerous Middle East? Gripping and clear eyed, this is the inside story of a choice no parent should have to make.
