Custody Case Strands Mass. Mom and Child in Brazil

A Massachusetts mom says she and her 6-year-old are stranded in Brazil after police seized their passports because of a custody battle with the child's father.

Shauna Hadden went to Brazil in May to let her ex-husband and their daughter Ava reconnect.

The 33-year-old Agawam, Mass., woman says she got full custody of Ava when she and her former husband divorced in 2009.

Ava's American grandmother, Linda Hadden, says a Brazilian judge denied the father's request for full child custody but ordered the passport seizures until he visits with Ava, which he's refused to do.

She says her daughter and granddaughter are on a no-fly list and can't leave Brazil, but that some U.S. officials are trying to help.

Brazil's federal police declined comment to Friday.

An attorney for Ava's father couldn't be immediately contacted.

[Associated Press]