On June 26, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony on the need to step up action to recover children abducted by one parent and illegally taken by the other parent to another country.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) told the committee that she was particularly concerned about international custody disputes involving children held in Saudi Arabia. She cited the case of one of her constituents, Margaret McClain, who had primary custody of her daughter, Heidi, when her ex-husband took the 10-year old to Saudi Arabia. Sen. Lincoln testified that her primary goal is to change what she called the government’s “inexcusable policy with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia so that U.S. citizens held against their will in that country are able to return to their rightful home in the United States.” She went on to say that the majority of these cases involve a Saudi father abducting a child from an American mother.
“Our policy,” Sen. Lincoln continued, “should be to aggressively seek to recover abducted children, especially when they are taken to a country in which women, regardless of their age, never achieve independence.”
The international treaty that addresses such kidnappings the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction was ratified by the United States in 1988. The convention calls for the immediate return of children to the country of residence prior to the abduction.
Committee Chair Richard Lugar (R-IN) noted that, to date, fifty countries have ratified the convention, though ratification alone has offered no guarantees against parental abduction.
“Mexico, Australia, Canada, and Germany all U.S. allies have ratified the Hague Convention,” Sen. Lugar said. “Yet they rank first, fifth, sixth, and fifteenth on the State Department’s list of countries with active parental abduction cases.”
Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Maura Harty told the committee that the State Department’s ability to help recover children illegally removed from the U.S. is often hampered by laws and court rulings of foreign countries.
The position of the State Department, Ms. Harty testified, “is that a child abducted from the United States in violation of custody rights recognized under U.S. law should be returned. Ultimately, however, the fate of these children is decided by the courts, or other authorities, in the countries to which they have been abducted.” She went on to say that the U.S. government’s overarching goal is to return the child to the U.S.
“Often, the most effective way to handle these cases is through the consistent use of our most vital resource the persuasive power of our diplomatic efforts abroad,” she said.
