Blog #4 Families

In an article entitled "International parental abductions rise with global migration", I learned that it is very common for parents or grandparents to abduct their child/children from another country instead of dealing with the hassle of cross-boundary travel. Even though this is common, charges, arrests, and convictions are extremely rare. Last year, 2012, was Canada’s first criminal conviction involving international child abduction by a parent. Left-behind parents have launched their own advocacy group, and are working to enforce the  Hague Child Abduction Convention which is an international treaty that deals with the return of children abducted by a non-custodial parent and transferred from country to country. A study done in 2012 by Cardiff Law School in the U.K. found that the global number of HCAC applications to retrieve an abducted child had risen by 45% in the last 10 years.

According to a U.S. State Department report, the number of new international parental child abduction cases in the United States alone has doubled since 2006, from 642 to 1,135, with the majority of cases involving children taken to one of the convention’s 89 signatory countries. Think about that. Only 89 countries around the world have signed a treaty to return a wrongfully abducted child to its parents/guardians. However, the "child return" rate from these countries is far from satisfactory. According to the report only 436 of the 1,135 children abducted or wrongfully retained in other countries were returned to the U.S. 

The silver-lining to this story is that there is a bill, expected to be introduced to the U.S. Congress in 2013, and it proposes establishing an Office on International Child Abductions to promote measures to prevent abductions from the U.S., advocate for abducted children and assist left-behind parents in resolving their cases. This will be called the Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction, Prevention and Return Act (HR1940) in honor of Sean Goldman.

Sean, at four years old, went to Brazil with his mother for a 2-week vacation. However, his mother refused to return to the United States. His father, David Goldman, wanted his son back and lawsuits and counter-lawsuits ensued both in the United States and in Brazil. The mother eventually filed for, and was granted, a divorce by a Brazilian court. She then remarried and subsequently died while giving birth to a child in 2008. After her death, the Brazilian husband obtained a custody order for the child from the Brazilian courts by failing to inform them of Bruna's death and requesting a new Brazilian birth certificate be issued that listed himself as the father under the Brazilian concept of socio-affective paternity, on the basis of which, he refused to return the boy to David Goldman, Sean's father. Based on a decision of Brazil's Supreme Court, Sean was handed over to his father on December 24, 2009.

http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2013/02/22/international_parental_child_abductions_rise_with_global_migration.html