[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 30 (Thursday, March 16, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H1080]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        INTERNATIONAL ABDUCTION

  (Mr. LAMPSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to tell the story of Jim 
Rinaman and his daughter Julia. Her story is the sixth account in my 
series of 1-minutes of more than 10,000 children who have been abducted 
to foreign countries.
  In 1996, Mr. Rinaman's ex-wife, Sylvia Breitbach, escorted her mother 
back to Germany and took Julia with her. Ten days later Jim was 
notified via fax that she would not be returning and that she was 
keeping his daughter in Germany.
  He immediately filed a Hague petition. And at an initial hearing, 
Sylvia was ordered to return Julia. She appealed the decision and has 
gone on to delay further court proceedings.
  Jim has been through the German court process three times and still 
has not gained custody of nor access to his child. He has no contact or 
had had no contact with Julia since her abduction.
  Mr. Speaker, these 1-minutes are about families and reuniting 
children with their parents. They are just the first steps in what will 
be an ongoing dialogue with the American people, the foreign countries 
who have our children, and my colleagues to bring our children home.

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