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July 17, 2015
By Jeff Sagnip
The
leading State Department official in the Obama Administration tasked with
resolving international parental child abductions conceded today that the
administration’s first report issued on international child abductions had
mistakes and would be corrected in the weeks ahead, and that the Department
would work to produce better annual reports in the future.
Ambassador Susan Jacobs made the comments Thursday at a
standing-room-only hearing chaired by Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), author
of the “Sean and David
Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act,” the new law
designed to give the State Department tools to help bring abducted American
children back home. Other witnesses included parents whose children have been
kidnapped overseas, television actress Kelly Rutherford, and one of the
nation’s top international family law attorneys, Patricia Apy.
With nearly 1,000 American children abducted each year from
the U.S. and held in foreign countries, the hearing focused on the U.S. State
Department’s stumbling implementation of the Goldman Act, a law authored by
Smith that gives the State Department leverage in the return of abducted
American children.
Smith said accurate reporting is critical to family court
judges across the country and parents considering their child’s travel to a
foreign country where abduction or access are a risk.
“The stakes are high:
misleading or incomplete information could mean the loss of another American
child to abduction,” Smith said. “The
Goldman Act requires an end to the status quo—but the first step toward change
is telling the truth in the report. Which is why I am so concerned that Japan
was not listed as showing a persistent failure to work with the US on abduction
cases. Japan has never issued and enforced a return order for a single
one of the hundreds of American children abducted there. It holds the world
record on the abduction of American children never returned. And yet it got a
pass on more than 50 open cases, most of which have been pending for 5 years or
more. Japan needs to be put on the non-compliant list.”
Smith said he was very concerned that the first annual report
contains “major gaps” and even misleading
information, especially when it comes to countries like India which has
numerous intractable abduction cases.
“The report indicates that
India, which has consistently been in the top five destinations for abducted
American children, had 19 new cases in 2014, 22 resolved cases, and no
unresolved cases,” Smith said. “However, we
know from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or NCMEC,
that India has 53 open abduction cases—and that 51 have been pending for more
than 1 year.” Click here to read
Chairman Smith’s opening statement.
At the hearing officially entitled “The Goldman Act to Return
Abducted American Children: Ensuring Accurate Numbers and Administration
Action,” left behind parents openly criticized the State Department, and
particularly how it has dealt with abduction cases in Japan, India and other countries.
In a major concession, Jacobs, Special Advisor for Children's
Issues at the Bureau of Consular Affairs with the State Department, announced
that the three-month-old report would be corrected and amended before the end
of the month. Jacobs also said she knows that the 2015 Annual Report falls
short of expectations, and has received related feedback from Smith’s
subcommittee and parents about areas that need improvement.
Jacobs also acknowledged that the report citing zero
unresolved cases in Japan and India was not accurate and that the report would
be amended. She committed to providing better information and more effective
reports in the future. She also said that while frustrating for some, the
report was helping to focus countries’ attention on child abductions cases and
access cases—including Japan.
“U.S. diplomatic missions
overseas have delivered démarches to the governments of every country listed as
demonstrating patterns of non-compliance, including non-Convention countries
such as India, which has the highest number of cases of any country that is not
party to the Convention,” Jacobs said. Demarches are a non-public protest
or petition through diplomatic channels.
The combination of Smith’s law and the report “really
brought home to the Japanese” that
they need to get moving,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs was defensive regarding criticism of the Obama
Administration’s record on Japan from left behind parents, most of whom have
been waiting years to see their children returned. During a recent trip to
Japan, she said she met the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss abductions.
Jacobs said that in talks with Japanese officials she “emphasized that the United States expects
meaningful action and resolution of both pre-Convention and Convention cases.”
She said she engages the Japanese government to press for returns, access, and
resolutions, “as appropriate.” Click here to read
Jacob’s testimony.
Rutherford testified about her own international legal
nightmare.
“Nobody in this country seems
willing or able to do anything to help bring my American children home, even
though this is the country that sent them away,” she said, referring to a
U.S. court order sending her two young children to Europe to live with her
ex-husband, even though the family had never lived there. “I
can only see this as a legal kidnapping by a California judge forcing my
children to live abroad for so long that the other countries seize control over
their lives. I just ask each of you here today how it is
possible that two American citizens have been ordered by their own government
to live in exile in a foreign country?”
International abduction attorney Patricia Apy, who
represented David Goldman in his five-year child abduction fight said there is “no viable explanation” how Japan is kept from
being objectively identified as demonstrating patterns of non-compliance.
“Japan is singled out in the
report, but only as a diplomatic success story, with contradictory information
within different sections of the report, regarding Japan’s status,” Apy
said. “While seemingly acknowledging that Japan
has continued their historic patterns of recalcitrance in the return of
abducted children or organization of rights of access, Japan is not identified
as exhibiting patterns of non-compliance. Click here to read
Apy’s testimony
Dr. Samina Rahman, M.D.,
mother of child abducted to India in 2013, Abdallah Khan, now 8, said most
Americans live under a false sense of security that the U.S. borders have exit
controls: “This is far from the truth. A 4-ounce
shampoo bottle will not make it on a plane leaving this country but a minor
travelling with only one parent will get past the border every single time.”
Unlike many other governments around the world including the
U.S, Brazil, and more recently Japan, India has not signed the Hague Convention
on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, the main international
treaty on resolving cases of international parental child abduction. And while the
State Department has told Rahman the Goldman Act grants it the authority to
employ a full range of diplomatic tools to improve cooperation with India,
including Abdallah’s case, she was disappointed with the report and the
helplessness of its Office of Children Issues.
“India is listed as
‘non-compliant,’ however the only remedial measure recommended by State is:
encourage India to sign the Hague,” Rahman said. “I,
like other left behind parents, was devastated to find out upon reading the
2014 annual report that there are still no bilateral procedures in place
between India and the U.S.,” and no clear path to bring American born
children home. The Hague Convention would not be retroactive to current cases
like Ms. Rahman’s. Click here to read
Rahman’s testimony.
Diane McGee, of Warren, N.J., is the mother of two children
held in Japan, both natural born U.S. citizens who were temporarily in Japan
because of her husband’s job at Nomura Securities. NJ courts have claimed
jurisdiction to decide custody, as the family members are NJ residents.
“He has been retaining my
children against my will since December 2012, and has not allowed them to return to the United States in over
three years,” McGee said. “This is not about
a custody dispute this is about my children's rights to be with and loved by
both parents.”
McGee noted that the State Department’s first annual report
fails to list Japan as non-compliant.
“Conspicuously absent from the
list is the worst offender – Japan,” Ms. McGee said. “Japan
has never enforced or issued a return order for any American child being held
captive there.” She said that “Japan is a
black hole for child abduction. All members of the McGee family are American
and they are being held hostage by their father in Japan. (Click here to read
Ms. McGee’s testimony.)
Randy Collins, Managing Director of Bring Abducted Children
Home (BAC Home), and father of child abducted to Japan on Father’s Day 2008,
has not seen his child since 2007. His ex-wife Reiko Nakata Greenberg
Collins has warrants for her arrest by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
She is also on the FBI Most Wanted List for Parental Kidnappings, and has red
notice issued by Interpol.
“My case, and the 70 cases
listed with BAC Home, occurred prior to Japan becoming a Hague signatory and by definition under the Goldman Act are
abduction cases,” Collins said. “Our
children remain collectively trapped in Japan and cut off from us. They are not
resolved, yet the State Department in their initial release of their ICAPRA
compliance report unilaterally and without explanation decided to downgrade
them to access cases. To say this report is an insult and a slap in the face of
every parent of an abducted child is an understatement. The numbers do not add
up in any way you try.”
Collins said the Japanese family courts have proven time and
time again, they have a bias against Americans. He
criticized the State Department, and its treatment of Japan in the 2015 report.
Smith—author of the Goldman Act—has been critical of the
law’s halting implementation by the State Department, particularly of the
report’s failure to name Japan, a country with more than 50 long term
abductions, to a list of sanctionable worst offenders, as required by the
Goldman Act.
“The report is supposed to be
compiled based on facts and results,” Collins said “There
are no facts to support this report regarding Japan. The facts are that no
American child has been returned. For anyone to make any sort of assurance or
to accept Japan’s explanation to give it a favorable rating in the report is
outrageous. This report must be amended to show Japan as non-complaint. There
have been over 400 abduction cases to Japan registered with the State
Department since 1994 and no child has been returned by the Japanese
government. There must be change. Nothing State is doing or has done has
created the return of a single child.” Click here to read
Collin’s testimony.
