[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 1 (Thursday, January 4, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S167-S168]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Feingold, Mr. 
        Leahy, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Kennedy, and Mr. Durbin):
  S. 182. A bill to authorize the Attorney General to make grants to 
improve

[[Page S168]]

the ability of State and local governments to prevent the abduction of 
children by family members, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
the Judiciary.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senators 
Hutchison, Feingold, Leahy, Snowe, Kennedy and Durbin in reintroducing 
the ``Family Abduction Prevention Act,'' a bill to help the thousands 
of children who are abducted by a family member each year.
  We introduced this legislation last Congress, and it passed the 
Senate by unanimous consent, but unfortunately, the bill was never 
taken up by the House. This is important and needed legislation.
  Family abductions are the most common form of abduction, yet they 
receive little attention, and law enforcement agencies too often don't 
treat them as the serious crimes that they are--too often dismissing 
the seriousness of these cases as family disputes.
  The Family Abduction Prevention Act of 2007 would provide grants to 
States for the costs associated with family abduction prevention. 
Specifically, it would assist States with costs associated with the 
extradition of individuals suspected of committing the crime of family 
abduction, costs borne by State and local law enforcement agencies to 
investigate cases of missing children, training for local and State law 
enforcement agencies in responding to family abductions, outreach and 
media campaigns to educate parents on the dangers of family abductions, 
and assistance to public schools to help with costs associated with 
``flagging'' school records.
  Each year, over 200,000 children--78 percent of all abductions in the 
United States--are kidnapped by a family member, usually a non-
custodial parent.
  More than half of the abducting parents have a history of domestic 
violence, substance abuse, or a criminal record.
  Unfortunately, many State and local law enforcement agencies 
frequently treat these abductions as personal, family disputes. 
Approximately 70 percent of law enforcement agencies lack written 
guidelines on responding to family abduction and many are not informed 
about the Federal laws available to help in the search and recovery of 
an abducted child.
  Too often law enforcement assumes that a child is not in grave danger 
if the abductor is a family member. Unfortunately, this is not always 
true, and this assumption can endanger a child's life. Research has 
shown that the most common motive in family abduction cases is revenge 
against the other parent--not love for the child.
  The effects of family abduction on children are often traumatic. 
Abducted children suffer from severe separation anxiety. To break 
emotional ties with the left-behind parent, some abductors will coach a 
child into falsely disclosing abuse by the other parent to perpetuate 
their control during or after the abduction. And in many cases, the 
child is told that the other parent is dead or did not really love 
them.
  For example, on Takeroot.org, a website devoted to the victims of 
family abductions, a young lady named Kelly told the story of how her 
parents were going through a bitter divorce and custody battle when she 
was nine, and her brother was six. Her dad picked them up for a regular 
visit, but then just kept on driving.
  Kelly says, ``If I close my eyes, I can still see my mother waving 
goodbye as we watched her from the rear window of our father's truck. . 
. . Little did we know that it would be close to a year before we would 
see her again.''
  Days later, Kelly started asking her father why they were continuing 
to drive--and why they were sleeping in the truck. After a while, her 
father finally broke his silence and screamed at her that her mother 
had given him the children because she didn't love them and that they 
would just have to learn to deal with it.
  For the next eleven months, they lived like fugitives on the run, 
often dirty and hungry, ``with very little money and even less love,'' 
according to Kelly. ``We left in the middle of the night, never saying 
goodbye to friends we may have made or people we met. I still see those 
people in my mind's eye. I miss them. . . . Mostly, I miss the child I 
was, the child I lost.''
  The harm caused by these abductions cannot easily be put into words. 
In many family abduction cases, children are given new identities at an 
age when they are still developing a sense of who they are. In extreme 
cases, the child's gender is masked to further avoid detection.
  Abducting parents also often deprive their children of education and 
much-needed medical attention to avoid the risk of being tracked via 
school or medical records.
  As the child adapts to a fugitive's lifestyle, deception becomes an 
integral part of their life. The child is taught to fear those that one 
would normally trust, such as police, doctors, teachers and counselors. 
Even after recovery, the child often has a difficult time growing into 
adulthood.
  In some cases, the abducting parent leaves the child with strangers, 
or locations where their health, safety, and other basic needs may be 
extremely compromised.
  For example, in Lafayette, CA, two girls abducted by their mother 
ended up under the control of a convicted child molester. When Kelli 
Nunez absconded with her daughters, 6-year-old Anna and 4-year-old 
Emily, in violation of court custody orders, she drove her daughters 
cross-country, and then returned by plane to San Francisco, where she 
handed the children to someone holding a coded sign at the airport.
  The person holding the sign belonged to a helpful-sounding 
organization called the California Family Law Center--but the 
organization was actually led by Florencio Maning, a convicted child 
molester. For six months, Maning orchestrated the concealment of the 
Nunez girls with help from other people.
  Luckily, police were able to track down the girls, and they were 
successfully reunited with their father. That success may have been due 
to the fact that California has been the Nation's leader in fighting 
family abduction.
  In my State, we have a system that places the responsibility for the 
investigation and resolution of family abduction cases with the County 
District Attorney's Office. Each California County District Attorney's 
Office has an investigative unit that is focused on family abduction 
cases. These investigators only handle family abduction cases and 
become experts in the process.
  However, most States lack the training and resources to effectively 
recover children who are kidnapped by a family member. According to a 
study conducted by Plass, Finkelhor and Hotaling, 62 percent of parents 
surveyed said they were ``somewhat'' or ``very'' dissatisfied with 
police handling of their family abduction cases.
  The ``Family Abduction Prevention Act of 2007'' would be an important 
first step in addressing this serious issue.
  I urge my colleagues to pass this important legislation, just as you 
did in the 109th Congress.
                                 ______