A congressional hearing to help the thousands of American children and brokenhearted “left-behind” parents from across the U.S. who are victims of international child abduction and to find out how the U.S. State Department is using the 2014-enacted “Sean and David Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act” to bring them home, was held Wednesday.

“Every year, approximately 1,000 American children are unlawfully removed from their homes by one of their parents and taken across international borders. Less than half of these children ever come home,” said Smith, who traveled repeatedly to bring back Sean Goldman, then 9, back to the U.S. in 2009 after a five-year abduction to Brazil, and author of the bill. “Most of the left-behind parents in the audience today have not seen their children in years and know all too well the financial, legal, cultural, and linguistic obstacles to bringing their children home from a foreign country.” Click here to read the congressman’s remarks.

The Congressional hearing entitled “The Goldman Act to Return Abducted American Children: Reviewing Obama Administration Implementation,” saw testimony from Ambassador Susan S. Jacobs, Special Advisor for Children's Issues in the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, and ‘left behind’ parents Jeffery Morehouse, Executive Director of Bring Abducted Children Home, or BAC Home (a Washington State father of abducted child to Japan); Bindu Philips, (New Jersey Mother of Abducted Children to India), Deven Davenport (North Carolina Father of Abducted Children to Brazil), and Scott Sawyer, (father of an abducted child taken to Japan). All the witnesses testimony can be read or watched by clicking here.

David Goldman, the father whose five year-battle to bring his son Sean home in 2009 and is now an advocate for left behind parents, was one of the dozens of parents attending the hearing. David Feimster, of Jackson, N.J., who with his wife Gail fought to assist their daughter when her children were abducted overseas, also came to the hearing. Smith pointed out the Feimsters’ hard-fought case to recover their two grandchildren from Tunisia in 2011. He also recounted the case of Michael Elias of Rutherford, N.J. whose children Jade and Michael remain in Japan.

Philips, of Plainsboro, N.J., was accompanied by a Plainsboro law enforcement officer who came to Washington to hear her testify about her still-abducted children.

“My world and that of my innocent children, was violently disrupted by my ex-husband, Sunil Jacob in December of 2008, when he orchestrated the kidnapping of the children during a vacation to India,” Philips said. “I would note that the children, my ex-husband and I are American citizens and that the children were born in America, which is the only nation they identified with as home.”

Despite New Jersey Superior Court awarded her sole legal and residential custody of the children in December 2009, she not been able to see or communicate with her children.

“My children have lost six years of their mother’s love and care and I have lost 6 years of my children’s childhood that neither of us can ever get back. I have put everything I have into my mission to be reunited with my children.” Click here to read Mrs. Philips testimony.  

Ambassador Jacobs testified that of over 900 cases of international child abductions and parental access in 2014, 260 were returned or resolved. Smith noted that meant approximately two-thirds remained abducted overseas. She promised the present left behind parents that she would enforce the Goldman Act.

“We will implement the law,” Jacobs said. “You have my commitment.” Click here to read her statement.

Smith, who assisted in both the Goldman and Feimster cases, and is still assisting in the Philips and Elias cases and others, wrote the Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act, which enacted last August. The congressman wrote the original proposed legislation in 2009 subsequent to his personal intervention in the fight to bring Sean Goldman home to New Jersey, years after he had been abducted to Brazil by his mother. Smith’s successful work with Sean’s father, David, and a team of lawyers, volunteers and media helped bring Sean home, but also uncovered gaping weaknesses in U.S. law and the need to codify best practices so that other Americans will also see their children returned home.

Smith has held multiple hearings on the heartbreaking cases of  left-behind parents of American children abducted to India, Japan, Egypt, Brazil, Russia, England and other countries, from which few are returned. Not all countries have signed The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, the main international treaty to address parental abductions. The Hague provides a civil framework for the quick return of abducted children to their home country, and facilitation of visitation and contact between parents and children during the pendency of the case and after the resolution. Unfortunately, many Hague signatories, like Brazil, fail to consistently enforce the Hague Convention provisions.

Among its many provisions, the Goldman Act provides eight steps the Administration should take, increasing in severity, when a country refuses to cooperate in the resolution of overseas abduction and access cases involving American children: a demarche; an official public statement detailing unresolved cases; a public condemnation; a delay or cancellation of one or more bilateral working, official, or state visits; the withdrawal, limitation, or suspension of U.S. development assistance; the withdrawal, limitation, or suspension of U.S. security assistance; the withdrawal, limitation, or suspension of foreign assistance to the central government of a country relating to economic support; and a formal request to the foreign country concerned to extradite an individual who is engaged in abduction and who has been formally accused of, charged with, or convicted of an extraditable offense.

The law also—for the first time—urges the Administration to enter into Memorandums of Understanding or other bilateral agreements with non-Hague Convention countries to locate and foster the return of abducted children and protect the access of the left-behind parent to the child. In order to ensure better accountability of the Administration and to warn U.S. judges who may allow a child to visit a country from which return is difficult, the bill significantly enhances reporting on country-by-country performance.

The act also requires the Administration to inform Members of Congress about abducted children from their districts. It also that directs the Secretary of Defense shall designate an official within the Department of Defense to coordinate with the Department of State on international child abduction issues and “oversee activities designed to prevent or resolve international child abduction cases relating to active duty military service members.”