Sec. 2. Findings; sense of Congress; purposes
854 words·~4 min read·
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Congress finds the following: Sean Goldman, a United States citizen and resident of New Jersey, was abducted from the United States in 2004 and separated from his father, David Goldman, who spent nearly six years battling for the return of his son from Brazil before Sean was finally returned to Mr. Goldman’s custody on December 24, 2009. The Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues, which serves as the Central Authority of the United States for the purposes of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, has received thousands of requests since 2007 for assistance in the return to the United States of children who have been abducted by a parent or other legal guardian to another country.
For a variety of reasons reflecting the significant obstacles to the recovery of abducted children, as well as the legal and factual complexity involving such cases, not all cases are reported to the Central Authority of the United States. The number of outgoing international child abductions reported to the Central Authority of the United States has increased substantially since 2006. Only about half of the children abducted from the United States to countries with which the United States enjoys reciprocal obligations under the Hague Abduction Convention are returned to the United States.
The United States and Convention countries have expressed their desire, through the Hague Abduction Convention, to protect children internationally from the harmful effects of their wrongful removal or retention and to establish procedures to ensure their prompt return to the State of their habitual residence, as well as to secure protection for rights of access. . Compliance by the United States and Convention countries depends on the actions of their designated central authorities, the performance of their judiciaries as reflected in the legal process and decisions rendered to enforce or effectuate the Hague Abduction Convention, and the ability and willingness of their law enforcement to insure the swift enforcement of orders rendered pursuant to the Hague Abduction Convention.
The Central Authority of the United States reports that nearly 40 percent of abduction cases and access cases involve children taken from the United States to countries with which the United States does not have Hague Abduction Convention obligations or other agreements relating to the resolution of abduction cases and access cases. According to the Department of State’s April 2010 Report on Compliance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, parental child abduction jeopardizes the child and has substantial long-term consequences for both the child and the left-behind parent. .
Abducted children are at risk of serious emotional and psychological problems and have been found to experience anxiety, eating problems, nightmares, mood swings, sleep disturbances, aggressive behavior, resentment, guilt and fearfulness, and as adults may struggle with identity issues, personal relationships, and parenting. Left-behind parents may encounter substantial psychological and emotional problems, and few have the extraordinary financial resources necessary to pursue individual civil or criminal remedies in both the United States and a foreign country, even where available, or to engage in repeated foreign travel to attempt to procure the return of their children by evoking diplomatic and humanitarian remedies.
Left-behind parents who are military parents may be unable to leave their military duties to pursue multinational litigation or take leave to attend multiple court proceedings, and foreign authorities may not schedule proceedings to accommodate such duties. It is the sense of Congress that the United States should set a strong example for Convention countries in the timely location and return of abducted children in the United States whose habitual residence is not the United States.
The purposes of this Act are to— protect children whose habitual residence is the United States from the harmful effects of abduction and to assist left-behind parents to have access to their abducted child in a safe and predictable manner, wherever the child is located, while an abduction case is pending; provide left-behind parents, including military parents, their advocates, and judges the information they need to enhance the resolution of abduction cases and access cases through established legal procedures, the tools for assessing the risk of abduction and denial of rights of access, and the practical means for overcoming obstacles to recovering an abducted child; establish measured, effective, and predictable actions to be undertaken by the President on behalf of abducted children whose habitual residence is the United States at the time of the abduction; promote an international consensus that it is in the interest of children to have any issues related to their care and custody determined in the country of their habitual residence; provide the necessary training for officials of the United States Armed Forces and the Department of Defense to establish policies and provide services to military parents that address the unique circumstances of abductions and violations of rights of access that may occur with regard to military dependent children; and encourage the effective implementation of international mechanisms, particularly those established pursuant to the Hague Abduction Convention, to achieve reciprocity in the resolution of abductions and to protect children from the harmful effects of an abduction.