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, will be held Wednesday.

“This hearing will examine the State Department’s overall implementation of the “Sean and David Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act,” enacted in 2014, and whether the new tools the law provides are being aggressively used to resolve previous abductions to countries such as India, Japan–where many of the parental victims are U.S. servicemembers– and Brazil,” 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. “These are American children and they need to come home to be with their lawful custodial parents.”
 

           WHAT:      Congressional hearing entitled “The Goldman Act to Return Abducted American Children: Reviewing Obama Administration Implementation?”

           WHO:       Smith, members of the Subcommittee on global human rights, and witnesses from the U.S. State Dept. and ‘Left-Behind’ parents:

• Ambassador Susan S. Jacobs, Special Advisor for Children's Issues in the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the U.S. Department of State

• Jeffery Morehouse, Executive Director of Bring Abducted Children Home, or BAC Home (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)

   

  WHEN:          Wednesday, March 25 at 2 p.m.

  WHERE:        Room 2172 in the Rayburn House Office Building (first floor).