Recovering Our Stolen Children

On the same day that senior Obama administration officials were fanning out across Capitol Hill to make the case for sending more troops to Afghanistan, another long-neglected, very human foreign policy crisis was finally getting the attention of my colleagues.  The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission held a four-plus hour hearing on international parental child abduction, a family-rending phenomenon that affects thousands of American families on an annual basis. 
 
In an increasingly connected world, American men and women are increasingly finding their life partners from other parts of the world.  Those unions often result in children, and in most cases these mixed-nationality families successfully function like any other.  Occasionally, these relationships end in divorce, and in extreme cases, the foreign-born spouse illegally removes the American-born child from this country.  Since the beginning of this decade, more than 5000 American-born children have been illegally removed from this country. These cases of international parental kidnapping are supposed to be resolved through the application of the nearly 30 year-old Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Parental Child Abduction.  However, as the experience of my constituent David Goldman painfully demonstrates, the Hague Convention does not work as it should.

 
In 1999, David married Bruna Bianchi, a Brazilian-Italian national and legal permanent resident of the United States.  The following year, they had a son, Sean, and for the next four years Mr. Goldman seemed to experience a typical suburban married life in Tinton Falls, New Jersey.  That changed in June 2004, when Mr. Goldman’s wife took their son, Sean, to Brazil, ostensibly for a family visit.  Once in Brazil, however, she called Mr. Goldman and told him neither she nor Sean would return from Brazil.
 
That led to an ongoing, nearly six year long effort by Mr. Goldman to recover his son using the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction – to which both Brazil and the United States are parties.  Things turned even worse when Mr. Goldman’s wife remarried in Brazil, subsequently died in August 2008, and her Brazilian husband—who has no natural relation to Sean—declared he would keep Sean from Sean’s father, David. 
 
I began working on behalf of Mr. Goldman and Sean in 2006, attempting to get the State Department to address his concerns and raise the profile of his case with Brazilian officials.  After the death of his former wife last year, Mr. Goldman pressed the Brazilian courts again to return his son to him.
 
Throughout this process, I’ve worked with the State Department to keep Mr. Goldman’s case alive, emphasizing to every Brazilian official I met the need for Brazil to honor its obligations under the Convention and return Sean to Mr. Goldman.  Mr. Goldman’s Brazil-based legal team has won a number of victories on his behalf. However, the Brazilian family of Mr. Goldman’s deceased wife continues to file dilatory motions in the Brazilian courts, prolonging the case.  Mr. Goldman is now awaiting the next ruling from Brazil’s federal appeals court as to whether Sean finally will be returned to him, or whether his case will have to be decided by Brazil’s Superior Court.  It is maddening that parents like David Goldman face a situation in which a treaty without an enforcement mechanism has become a vehicle behind which parental child abductors can hide for years.
 
While Mr. Goldman represents thousands of families torn apart by such abductions, my concern also extends to the families whose children have been abducted to countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention.  For these parents, there is effectively no functional mechanism for them to secure the return of their abducted children.  Sean’s case is heart-rending and David has received a great deal of media attention over the plight of his son.  Unfortunately, that media attention has not deterred Sean’s de facto kidnapper from continuing his legal warfare to keep Sean in Brazil, and it has not spurred the Brazilian court system to move swiftly.  At the hearing, Mr. Goldman was joined by a number of other parents whose children have been kidnapped by former spouses, in many cases to countries that have not signed the Hague Convention.  For these parents, there is effectively no functional mechanism for them to secure the return of their abducted children. 
 
To bring Sean and the other children home – and to deter future parental kidnappers – we need a holistic, coordinated approach.
 
To help give our State and Justice Departments additional tools to help swiftly resolve these kinds of cases, I have introduced the International Parental Child Abduction Deterrence Act (H.R. 3487).  If enacted, my bill would empower the Secretary of State to freeze the assets of international parental kidnappers and the assets of anyone assisting them in illegally retaining a child outside the United States.  The bill also would direct the Secretary to identify all other assets held by the offending parent and those assisting them wherever those assets are in the world, and to work to get other governments to freeze those assets until the illegally held child is returned.  The bill also would make international parental kidnappers and those who assist them ineligible for U.S. visas.  It would prevent someone like the man currently holding Sean Goldman illegally in Brazil from coming to the U.S., as he has done, and going on television to spread misinformation about the case.
 
Passing H.R. 3487 would be an important step in combating international parental child abduction, and it would give our government new tools to help compel the return of abducted children.  Yet, there’s much more our government can and should be doing.
 
One of the other measures suggested at the hearing was the creation of a high-level position in the State or Justice Departments to act as an advocate on behalf of kidnapped children and their parents.  Congress should also create a federal advisory panel, composed of parents of current or formerly abducted children, as well as experts in international and constitutional law, who would report not less than annually to the Congress on what progress our government is making in securing the return of abducted children and improving the compliance of other countries with the Hague Convention. The panel would also make recommendations for any changes in U.S. law or policy that would facilitate the return of abducted children both to and from the United States.
The Secretary of State should also convene a western hemisphere conference of Hague signatory country judges and treaty implementation representatives.  Holding such a conference regularly would help emphasize the importance of resolving the cases to the United States, and provide an opportunity to help build a consensus for amending the Convention in ways that improve compliance by all signatory nations.
 
I share the concerns that our State and Justice Departments are not taking the cases and concerns of the affected families seriously.  Giving those family members a voice, a platform, and some real power to get answers and action from those departments is essential.
 
If we really believe that ensuring the safe and speedy return of these children is a national obligation on par with protecting our country from narcotraffickers or terrorists, we should stop talking about the problem and start solving it.
 
Rep. Rush Holt represents New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District.