But she was still unable to force their father to hand over her sons and she returned to Hong Kong a broken-hearted woman, with two equally distraught teenage daughters. She had failed to see her two boys in Argentina and it was not until 2003 that she and her children were reunited in a visit to Australia, where Hendrik and Alexander had been living for several years.

The four adult children now live in Australia and Ms Gutwirth visits them on a regular basis.

But the strain of those years is something Ms Gutwirth will never forget and she now uses the difficult lessons she learned about her own fractured family and turbulent emotions to help thousands of other women who find themselves in similarly harrowing crises.

Following her 'messy' divorce in 1991, she set up SoulTalk, an English-language 24-hour support hotline for women, after realising that there was nothing in Hong Kong to help women struggling with personal crises.

Over the years, her facility has expanded to counselling services, relationship advice, divorce mediation and support, culminating in the opening this month of a home in the New Territories where women can seek temporary shelter during a marriage fall-out, bereavement or emotional breakdown.

She now helps others by drawing on the lessons learnt during her own family crisis in those dark years of the 1990s, and realises that as her own home was breaking up she was finding her true calling. 'For me, that is what got me started. I guess the inner strength I found is now the part I work with to help other people find theirs,' she said. 'I took the worst days in life and turned them into the best.'

SoulTalk's new premises, called Loving Home, provides a free sanctuary offering advice, counselling, therapy and shelter for victims of social, psychological, verbal, physical or sexual abuse. It can house up to 20 women.

Ms Gutwirth said the centre came about through a stroke of luck. 'About four years ago, I got a call from a Chinese family who had heard of SoulTalk. They said they had a home in the New Territories and wanted to donate it to us to open up the first 'Loving Home for Women'. They gave us a 10-year lease for $1 a year. That was the beginning of this miracle,' Ms Gutwirth said.

She said she chose the name for the five-bedroom house because she wanted to create an environment that was loving, non-judgmental and supportive, where women could feel at home and begin to rebuild their lives.

Over the past four years, she raised funds and attracted sponsors to renovate and furnish the 2,500-sq ft property which finally opened its doors two weeks ago. She now hopes to continue to attract new sponsors to expand the service. 'We're only a small charity. Our home has only just opened up. We are trying to get the message out and funding is important for that. We are in the beginning stages, but there's a real void in the market for something like this,' she said.

The Loving Home in the New Territories offers temporary accommodation to women, with or without children, for up to two months. It is free for people who cannot afford to pay. For those who can, a small charge will be levied, according to the organisation's website. A van donated by a supporter is available to pick women up and take them to the home if necessary.

At the home, women can undergo educational training programmes and counselling services to help them cope with their upheaval. SoulTalk even lays on some entertainment for children who accompany their mothers to the shelter of the home.

SoulTalk is also working on setting up partnerships with government departments and other organisations who deal with families in crisis, to establish cross-referral links.

While the service was initially for English-language speakers, Ms Gutwirth, who speaks Cantonese, said all nationalities and cultures were welcome. 'Our psychologists and educationalists have many different language skills. The people we work with are a complete cross section of every nationality. That's because these issues don't know boundaries,' she said. She hopes that SoulTalk will help reach women such as Nancy Kissel, the Hong Kong socialite jailed for life last year for murdering her husband Robert after claiming he'd abused her and had planned to take their children away from her. Other people in need of help were those such as the three women in Tin Shui Wai who killed themselves in a suicide pact this month because they had 'nothing to love'.

'I wish I'd been able to talk to them. These women just did not know how to remove themselves from their crises. Most people think a crisis happens overnight, but it doesn't, it happens over a long period of time. They didn't know how to deal with what they were feeling, they didn't know how to be happy,' she said.

Ms Gutwirth, who describes herself as a relationship counsellor, said she had dealt with up to 8,000 women, either through workshops, talks, hotline conversations or counselling, often speaking to up to 50 women a month.

'And it's not just women,' she said. 'We help men too and couples.'

Among the services that SoulTalk provides are one-on-one counselling, group sessions, educational workshops on job skills or life management, and accompanying women on the sometimes daunting trips to court, lawyers' offices or government departments.

'People just need someone to talk to who really understands them. There's no judging here. I've been where they are. I try to give them something they can use to heal themselves,' she said.

She said part of the healing process was to let go of any bitterness about her past and her children's abduction. 'I lost them for eight years. I never really got them back, but it was another amazing day in my life when I realised I could go see them and rebond with them in Australia,' she said.

'The road I took during that long period of difficulty, through the divorce, the custody battle, the courts, the kidnapping. I have learned so much. I have been able to share that with the women we work with in SoulTalk and it helps them not to have to take that same difficult road.'

At the time she was dealing with the loss of her children, Hong Kong was not a signatory to the Hague Convention on Child Abduction. She believed her crusade helped to pass laws in Hong Kong that covered the kidnapping of children. However, since the Hong Kong Child Abduction and Custody Ordinance, passed in September 1997, was not retroactive, she was unable to use it to secure the return of her boys.

Nowadays, she visits her two sons and her two daughters as often as she can.

While fighting initially for custody of her children, and then later for their return, she ran the gauntlet of legal and diplomatic services.

'I would have loved someone to have help me through some of the poor decisions and choices I made out of a lack of knowledge and awareness back then,' she said.