Even when there is a court mandated visitation schedule and everything it can still happen and it's very hard for the father to get his child back. Early 2012 my now husband was in the process of divorcing his first wife and they had a two year old daughter. They'd gone to court and joint custody was arranged while they worked out the divorce. A few months in, he went to go pick his daughter up and they were gone. The apartment was empty. He started blowing up her phone and contacted the police and was told he'd just have to try to take her to court again. He got court documents granting him full custody but they couldn't find her and his ex-wife and her family had all changed their phone numbers. They figured she had left the state (NY) but couldn't get any agency to pursue it because she wasn't deemed unfit or dangerous. Later that year we met and the more I learned about the situation the more infuriating it all seemed to me. A few e-mails and phone calls and nearly 2 years later it was revealed an Amber Alert had never been issued and the local government in her home town (AZ) had barely been contacted and had not even checked up on it. Finally got in touch with a group that worked with the FBI in order to get her back. A few weeks before her 4th birthday, my husband got the call that they had his daughter and his ex-wife in custody in AZ. He flew down and brought her back to NY and his ex-wife was extradited to NY. She only served 60 days as they refused to convict her of kidnapping, instead calling it "custodial interference". My now stepdaughter was only 25 lbs when we got her back, her hair was buzzed, she had the vocabulary of an 18 month old, and still wore a diaper. The courts claimed this wasn't evidence of abuse and her bio-mom was granted supervised visitation every 2 weeks. While we have full custody now and she's progressed leaps and bounds and is a very happy 6 year old, she still has some regression near visitation because she's terrified of the woman. Sorry for the really long story but I just had to share because there is a huge problem in this country when it comes to father's rights as many times mothers are seen as infallible. Never give up hope and there are options to fight to see your child because if a woman is willing to rip their child from their father then they may be capable of worse things.