Summary & score
Gabon is a Contracting Party to the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention, in force since 2011-03-01 (Accession), with an Article 38 acceptance check required for some country pairs. Its Accountability Index score is driven overwhelmingly by return performance — whether abducted children are actually returned (80% of the score) — with legal framework, judicial engagement and treaty integration as system-quality context.
Score breakdown
Gabon scores 44.2 / 100 on the Hague Return Accountability Index — global rank #85 of 103, Tier 3 · Mixed / partial evidence. Return effectiveness — whether abducted children are actually returned — is 80% of the score; the remaining 20% is system-quality context (legal framework, speed, judicial engagement, cooperation, treaty integration).
Show the exact calculation
Return effectiveness: no return-outcome evidence → neutral default 42.
Legal framework: Legal framework: no completed HCCH Country Profile → neutral 50 (not penalised).
Sources: Status table — 1980 Convention (cid=24)
Full methodology and every country's components: the Accountability Index.
Quick facts
| Hague 1980 status | Contracting Party · in force 2011-03-01 · Accession |
|---|---|
| Article 38 check | Yes — confirm acceptance for your specific country pair |
| EU member state | No |
| Central authority | See HCCH directory |
| Latest data year | 2021 (HCCH statistical study) |
| Data scope | HCCH 2021 survey not answered — per-country data is U.S.-proxy only |
| Budget transparency | No public budget line located |
Case outcomes
Speed & enforcement
No per-country timing data is published for Gabon.
Public cost & cost efficiency
Central authority & legal system
Central Authority details for Gabon are not yet in our verified directory. See the HCCH Central Authority directory.
International support
HCCH provides the multilateral framework, statistical studies, and the Malta Process. Per-country funding amounts from the EU, HCCH, UN, or Council of Europe are not published as discrete line items and are recorded as a data gap.
Transparency assessment
| Responded to HCCH 2021 statistical survey | No |
|---|---|
| Reports incoming & outgoing flows | No |
| Reports access cases | No |
| Dedicated budget line | Unknown — not located |
| Return-outcome / enforcement disclosure | Not published per-country (global aggregate only) |
| Transparency score | 0 / 100 |
Did not respond to the HCCH 2021 statistical survey (absent from the responding-states table).
Data quality & limitations
- Per-country return outcomes are not published; the 39% figure is a global aggregate.
- No public Central-Authority budget line located.
- This country did not respond to the HCCH 2021 survey; per-country data is U.S.-proxy only.
Confidence: Medium (0.51) — confidence reflects the strength and breadth of evidence, separately from performance. A low confidence means "we cannot yet fully evaluate," not "this country performs badly."
Sources & evidence
| Source | Publisher | Tier | Supports |
|---|---|---|---|
| Status table — 1980 Child Abduction Convention (cid=24) | Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) | E1 · official | hague_1980_status, entry_into_force_date, accession_or_ratification_type, article_38_acceptance_required |
| Prel. Doc. No 19A — Statistical study of applications made in 2021 (5th Global Study, updated Sept 2024) | HCCH (Prof. Nigel Lowe & Victoria Stephens) | E1 · official | caseload, transparency_survey_participation, global_return_rate, average_resolution_days, outcome_distribution |
| Central Authorities directory — 1980 Convention (cid=24) | HCCH | E1 · official | central_authority |
| 1980 Hague Convention, Article 11 (six-week decision aspiration) | HCCH | E1 · official | speed_benchmark |
FOIA / public-records questions
Tailored requests that would raise Gabon's confidence score and unlock the return-outcome and cost categories:
- Which body is Gabon's designated Central Authority and what is its annual Convention budget and FTE count?
- How many children were physically returned under the Convention in each of the last five years?
- What is the average time from application to first-instance decision and to enforcement?
- What national Hague statistics does the government publish?
Use the data
Machine-readable data for every country: countries.json · rankings.json · rankings.csv · sources.json. Last updated 2026-07-06. Cite as: “SafeReturn Alliance, Hague Return Accountability Index (provisional), 2026-07-06.”