The aim of this chapter is to bring together two distinct regulatory spheres: child abduction law and the law of protection against violence against women and children. Using discourse analysis, we analyse how the key concepts of child abduction and protection against violence depict the actions and the parent, and what kind of effects these conceptualisations have on the lives of the parents. Focus is on the language of the central legal instruments, the Convention and the Brussels IIa Regulation, finding that their gender-neutral terminology of child abduction and swift return is ill-suited for cases in which there have been allegations of violence. The chapter also comments on the gendered terminology of Abducting mothers in the POAM project that does not fairly reflect the plight of mothers who are victims of violence. ‘In the language of international law on violence against women, protection against violence has become a key concept. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has in several cases tried to consolidate the requirements of the Haque Convention and the protection of private and family life according to the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), but due to different starting points this has been a difficult task.