Maryk sentence for abducting kids inadequate: child protection group

WATCH: Christy Dzikowicz talks about the impact on children when they’re abducted by a parent

WINNIPEG – Kevin Maryk’s four-year sentence for abducting his children and keeping them in Mexico for four years just isn’t good enough, according to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

“This is inadequate,” Christy Dzikowicz said Friday following Maryk’s sentencing Thursday.

“We’re not just stealing a child and giving them back. We’ve stolen a childhood and shaped, really, shaped lives going forward.”

Maryk took his children Abby and Dominic, then five and seven, for a court-approved two-week vacation in August 2008. Their mother, Emily Cablek, didn’t see them again until police rescued them from a fortified townhouse in Mexico in 2012.

READ MORE: Kevin Maryk sentenced to 4 years for abducting children

“The general perception is parental abduction isn’t that bad because they’re a parent and I think, you know, nothing could be further from the truth. In a way it’s an even more upsetting crime because it’s committed by a person who’s really charged with the protection of that child,” Dzikowicz said.

“These are complete childhoods disrupted, identities disrupted.”

Often people feel there must have been something wrong to prompt the abduction, but a kidnapping usually has nothing to do with the welfare of the children, Dzikowicz said.

“It’s far more often using kids to punish another parent, using kids to hurt somebody else, and that’s really quite sad.”

TIMELINE: From abduction to justice, the story of the Maryk children