In the Press...
Washington Times article on Smith int'l parental abductions hearing'Tool to return abducted children from overseas underused, State Dept. told'
By Anjali Shastry - The Washington Times - Friday, November 20, 2015 -
The Obama administration isn’t using a new tool Congress approved in 2014 to bring back children abducted and taken abroad by a parent, a prominent victims’ rights advocate told the House on Thursday, saying the State Department’s preference for “quiet diplomacy” falls short. David Goldman, whose ex-wife took his son Sean to Brazil for more than five years, said the new law, dubbed the Goldman Act after his own plight, has real teeth: The State Department can impose sanctions on other countries it deems uncooperative in returning stolen children. But the Obama administration has been slow to embrace the tool, he told the House Foreign Relations Committee. “I beg, I plead, on behalf of all these other left-behind parents and families and grandmas and cousins and nieces and nephews and the communities they were ripped away from that we use the law to get these children home. It provides our government a number of options to persuade countries to return abducted American children,” Mr. Goldman said, his voice breaking. “One of the first rules of government is to protect our children and the Goldman Act does just that.” Every year, between 750 and 1,000 American children are taken abroad by a parent, creating international custody disputes that are not easily solved. Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican, wrote the Goldman Act hoping to press the State Department to make a more forceful defense of U.S. parents’ rights. He said he found it “concerning” that the administration has not imposed sanctions on countries engaging in a “pattern of noncompliance” and listed Japan, Brazil and India. The Goldman Act gives the State Department the power to give uncooperating countries a slap on the wrist, such as a closed-door meeting with foreign officials about the abduction or an official public statement detailing unresolved abduction cases. But they can also delay or cancel official U.S. state visits; withdraw, limit or suspend U.S. developmental or security aid; and formally request an extradition. Rep. Mark Meadows, California Republican, said the department should delay or cancel “bilateral working relationships” with countries who have not recognized U.S. custody agreements. Ambassador Michele Thoren Bond, assistant secretary for consular affairs at the State Department, insisted that “quiet diplomacy” can pay off when working with other countries, and said part of the problem was the way American judges handled Hague Abduction Convention cases. Such abduction cases go through the international body, but judges on U.S. soil often do not know how to deal with them. “In the United States, every time there is a child abducted here, a package of information is sent to the judge who will hear the case,” she said. “But the typical family court judge may never hear a Hague Convention case, and if they do hear one, it may be the only one they ever hear.” Mr. Goldman regained physical custody of Sean in 2009, but the committee also heard from parents whose children are still separated, including Navy Capt. Paul Toland Jr., whose daughter Erika was taken by her mother from a U.S. Navy base in Japan 12 years ago. The mother committed suicide in 2007, leaving Capt. Toland as Erika’s sole living parent — yet the 13-year-old remains with her grandmother in Japan. “If a governor, senator or famous celebrity’s child were abducted overseas, you can bet our government would expend every resource possible to ensure the return of those children,” Capt. Toland said. “But the sad reality is that our children are simply not important enough for the American government to expend the political capital necessary to return them.” Capt. Toland faces a unique problem, because Japan only signed the Hague agreement in early 2014, but it doesn’t apply to abductions before that. So far, the Japanese government has not pushed to return any of the more than 50 American abductees that live in the country. The lack of governmental cooperation is not unique to Japan — Brazil has not returned a single parentally abducted child to the U.S. since Sean. Some “left-behind parents” said Congress needs to pass even stiffer legislation than the Goldman Act. Robert Makielski’s ex-wife took his two children, Gabriel and Isabel, to the Dominican Republic five years ago. He has gone to local judges in Culpeper, Virginia, and The Hague, and appealed to the State Department for help. He won full custody of his children after the divorce, but Gabriel and Isabel had already been taken, and he said the Goldman Act hasn’t helped because it’s left too much up the administration. “The wording doesn’t mandate a timeframe, doesn’t set a timeline [to use sanctions],” Mr. Makielski said. “It doesn’t say to use the most extreme monetary sanctions, versus the least severe — a lot of things are discretionary here.” |