At a hearing today on Capitol Hill, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, the author of the Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction and Return Act (H.R. 3212, PL 113-150), urged Secretary John Kerry to get personally engaged in the proper implementation of the new law designed to help reunite parents and American children abducted and held overseas.

    “Japan remains breathtakingly unresponsive,” said Smith (NJ-04), Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights who has fought to assist American parents desperately trying to bring their children back home to the U.S. “I remain especially concerned about those abductions that occurred prior to Japan’s ratification of the Hague Convention.  New Jersey resident and Iraq war vet Michael Elias, and numerous parents from the non-government organization BAC Home, have been utterly frustrated.”

    In addition to Elias’ children abducted six years ago—Jade, now 9 and Michael, now 7—Smith also highlighted the case of Bindu Philips, another New Jersey resident and mother of twin boys, Alfred and Albert, now 14, abducted to India six years ago.

     “Bindu won full custody of the children in our American courts,” Smith said noting that authorities in India have simply ignored that fact.  “She testified before my subcommittee two years ago, and this past Monday I met with her again and she pleaded that you, Mr. Secretary, help her get her kids back.”

     Smith noted that India now ranks fourth in the world in the number of unresolved cases, and asked Kerry if he and/or the President had raised child abduction cases with Prime Minister Modi when they met in late January.

     “Did you raise child abduction with an emphasis on specific cases, like Bindu Philips, when you met with Modi in early January? What was Mr. Modi’s response?” Smith asked.

    Kerry replied that as a matter of course he regularly raises cases of “missing Americans,” but he did not respond directly to Smith’s questions regarding the case of the Philips boys. Smith also noted that several deadlines have arrived or are imminent pursuant to the Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act, and asked the Secretary to again personally engage in the issue.

    “I thank you again for your strong, personal support of the new law,” Smith said, but reiterated to Kerry that his help is needed on the development and implementation of the new law including developing Memorandum of Understandings (MOU) with non-Hague treaty countries with unresolved child abduction case such as India.

    “We have a caseload of about a thousand international parental abduction cases, and we are trying to expand the Hague abduction convention to efforts throughout the world,” Kerry said. “We have approximately 75 professionals who are full-time, assisting parents with respect to this horrendous plight that they face. There’s nothing worse, obviously. And I applaud and thank you for your constant focus on these issues, Congressman. You’re really the primary focus of the entire Congress on this and we appreciate it enormously.”

    After the hearing Smith said he was “deeply concerned” about the pace of implementation of the new Goldman Act and will be hosting a series of hearings over the next several weeks “to ensure full and faithful implementation of the act so that we truly help parents as they fight to bring home their abducted American children.”

    Jeffery Morehouse, Executive Director of Bring Abducted Children Home (BAC Home), commented on the hearing.

    “The strong and passionate words this morning at the hearing with Secretary Kerry are greatly appreciated and will help signal to Japan that becoming a signatory will not let them off the hook from their moral, ethical and legal responsibilities to victimized parents and children,” Morehouse said.

    Smith raised several other issues with the Secretary including:

• Nigeria, and the need to significantly expand critical military training of human rights-vetted Nigerian armed forces to combat the threat posed by Boko Haram;
• Iran, and the fate of Americans imprisoned there— including Pastor Saeed Abedini, Robert Levinson, Amir Hekmati, and Jason Rezian, and;
• China, where human rights abuses are rampant, and where President Xi Jinping  is “in a race to the bottom” on religious freedom, and the systematic suppression of democracy and freedom and labor union activists.  Smith noted the five daughters of imprisoned human rights defenders have unsuccessfully sought to meet with President Obama, and asked if Kerry would “try to make that meeting a reality.”

      Smith has been fighting for the release of Pastor Abedini and the other Americans in Iran, and protecting vulnerable religious minorities in the Middle East, China, Vietnam, Central Asia, and Africa. He has promoted religious freedom and other human rights issues as chairman and co-chairman of the U.S. Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the U.S. Commission on China. 

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