[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 116 (Monday, July 18, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1155]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   HOPE DEFERRED: SECURING ENFORCEMENT OF THE GOLDMAN ACT TO RETURN 
                       ABDUCTED AMERICAN CHILDREN

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 18, 2016

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank everyone, 
especially all of the left-behind parents, who attended a hearing I 
convened last week to discuss what the U.S. Department of State's 
second annual report under the Sean and David Goldman International 
Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act tells us about the 
Department's implementation of the Goldman Act thus far.
   On a positive note, the numbers of new abductions from the United 
States in 2015 remained below their pre-Goldman Act mark, probably due 
to increased abduction prevention.
   According to the report, 600 more children were abducted to other 
countries last year, quickly replacing the 299 children, abducted in 
various years, who were returned. Overall, approximately 1,000 children 
remain in a foreign country, separated from their American parent.
   As many of you have experienced, international parental child 
abduction rips children from their homes and whisks them away to a 
foreign land, alienating them from the love and care of the parent and 
family left behind.
   Child abduction is child abuse, and it continues to plague families 
across the United States.
   For decades, the State Department has used ``quiet diplomacy'' to 
attempt to bring these children home. In a hearing I held on this issue 
back in 2009, then-Assistant Secretary of State Bernie Aronson called 
quiet diplomacy ``a sophisticated form of begging.'' Thousands of 
American families still ruptured and grieving from years of unresolved 
abductions confirm that quiet diplomacy is gravely inadequate.
   In 2014, Congress unanimously passed the Goldman Act to give teeth 
to requests for return and access. The actions against non-cooperating 
governments required by the law escalate in severity, and range from 
official protests through diplomatic channels to the suspension of 
development, security, or other foreign assistance. Extradition of 
abducting parents also may be the case.
   The Goldman Act is a law calculated to get results, as we did in the 
return of Sean Goldman from Brazil in 2008.
   This year's report, as required by the Goldman Act, singles out 19 
countries in total, including India, Brazil, Japan, and Tunisia for 
failures to work with the United States in the return of abducted 
American children.
   For instance, the report notes 83 abductions to India still open at 
the end of the year--with 25 of those being new in 2015. Only one was 
closed with a court-ordered return to the United States. These numbers 
will continue to climb each year until India creates a mechanism for 
resolution. Right now India is a magnet for abductions because taking 
parents are almost guaranteed to get away with their crime.
   Brazil had 17 abduction cases open at the end of 2015 with a 27 
percent resolution rate. Brazil has been a Convention partner with the 
United States since 2003, and yet consistently fails to comply with the 
Convention. Devon Davenport, who has testified before this 
Subcommittee, has won every one of his 24 appeals in Brazil's Courts 
over the last 7 years--and yet he still cannot get his daughter Nadia 
home.
   If there was ever a textbook case for sanctions, Brazil is it--they 
have met the legal threshold 10 times over.
   The Report lists Japan as a ``country that has failed to comply with 
one or more of its Hague Convention obligations'', specifically ``in 
the area of enforcement of return orders.'' Multiple parents have won 
pyrrhic victories in court, only to discover Japan has what the report 
calls ``systemic flaws'' with enforcement.
   What remains inexplicable is why Japan was kept off the list of non-
compliant countries for a second year in a row when even the State 
Department condemned them for ``systemic flaws'' in their ability to 
enforce court orders to return U.S. children. Failure to enforce return 
orders is an automatic trigger for landing on the non-compliant list.
   One parent had to go outside the Convention framework to achieve 
enforcement in an extraordinary case resolved after the reporting 
period.
   The report should have also counted against Japan the 40 pre-
Convention abduction cases it mentions as still pending--most of them 
for more than 5 years.
   Countries should be listed as worst offenders if they have high 
numbers of cases--30 percent or more--that have been pending more than 
a year. Countries also may be so listed if their law enforcement, 
judiciary, or central authority for abduction regularly fails in their 
duties under The Hague Convention or other controlling agreement; or if 
the country simply fails to work with the U.S. to resolve cases.
   Accurate reporting, including inclusion on the worst offenders list, 
is critical to family court judges across the country and parents 
considering their child's travel to a foreign country where abduction 
or access problems are a risk.
   However, reporting is just step one. Once these countries are 
properly classified, the Secretary of State then determines which of 
the aforementioned actions the U.S. will apply to the country in order 
to encourage the timely resolution of cases.
   Such actions could bring an end to the nightmare of the Elias 
family, whose children, Jade and Michael, have been missing in Japan 
for 8 years.
   Such actions could end the nightmares of any of the parents who 
shared their stories at last week's hearing.