Passports USA.com

Report to Congress on International Child Abductions in Responseto the Statement of Managers Accompanying F-103 Omnibus Appropriations Bill P.L. 108-7

In the Statement of Managers accompanying FY 03 Omnibus Appropriations Bill P.L. 108-7, the Conference Committees on Appropriations directed the Department of State to provide additional information regarding international parental child abduction cases and the Department''s efforts to combat the problem of international abduction. The Committees specifically cited four areas that required the Department''s response:

“…to submit a report to the Committees on Appropriations which includes the following information: the country, location, and number of all known U.S. citizens under the age of 18 who have been abducted by a parent or relative as the result of a custody dispute and who are being held abroad in contravention of U.S. law or judicial orders;”

Attachment A is a count by country of open cases of which the Department of State Office of Children''s Issues is aware regarding minor children abducted from the United States or wrongfully retained in a foreign country, who have not been returned to the U.S. These cases largely involve, but are not limited to, U.S. citizen children. As of May 31, 2003, the Office of Children''s Issues was aware of 904 open abduction cases and 156 access cases initiated by U.S.-based parents seeking a child''s return or access to a child currently located in a foreign country. An abduction or access case involving multiple children in one family is only counted in this listing as a single case and therefore the number of children involved is actually somewhat higher than the total listed in Attachment A.

The Department is not always aware of international parental child abduction and access cases involving U.S. citizen and U.S. resident children taken from the United States to an overseas location. Parents are not obligated to inform the Department of State when they initiate inquiries and actions to seek the return of a child or international visitation and access rights. In countries that are not party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction ("Hague Abduction Convention"), legal remedies involve filings in foreign courts for which no Department of State or U.S. embassy intervention is required. Some parents attempt to settle disputes involving children through extra-judicial methods like mediation and reconciliation without requesting assistance or informing the Department. Parents or their representatives must establish contact with the Department of State''s Office of Children''s Issues in order for their child''s case to be monitored and appropriate assistance provided. In countries that are parties to the Hague Abduction Convention, parents can request the assistance of the Department of State, acting in its role as U.S. Central Authority under the Convention, to initiate the Hague application process and forward their application for return or access to the Central Authority in the country where their child is located. U.S. Central Authority involvement is not, however, mandatory. Return and access applications may also be filed either directly with the Central Authority of the country where the child is located or with a foreign court. The foreign court or foreign Central Authority is not required to advise the Department of State that such applications have been filed without the Department''s assistance.

This count of children who remain overseas only includes "open" cases. Open cases involve instances in which the left-behind parent has informed the Department of State''s Office of Children''s Issues that a child was abducted to or unlawfully retained abroad whether or not the parent has taken steps such as the filing of a Hague application to request the child''s return. An open case is either "preliminary", "active" or "inactive." "Preliminary" cases include instances in which the parent has informed the Office of Children''s Issues that a child has been abducted internationally but has not yet initiated steps, such as the filing of a Hague application, for the child''s return or access to the child. "Active" is defined as a case of international abduction or access for which a final determination to grant or deny return or access has not been made and in which the parent and the Department maintain continued contact to move the case forward. A case changes from "active" to "inactive" when the facts of the case do not allow, or the parent does not permit, a further reasonable pursuit of the child''s return or access to the child. A case that remains "inactive" for two years will be closed (and thus not included on the attached count) in the absence of further relevant initiatives by the left-behind parent. Cases that have become inactive or closed may be re-activated upon the left-behind parent''s request if further action is warranted.

The general statistical reports used to obtain the counts listed in Attachment A were generated by the Department of State''s international parental child abduction case tracking system. The open case counts involve, for the most part, American citizen children. However, the open cases reflected in Attachment A include cases of children who are not American citizens. This is because the Hague Abduction Convention (and corresponding U.S. law) applies to all children who were "habitually resident" in the United States at the time of their abduction to or wrongful retention in another country party to the Convention. As part of its responsibilities as a party to the Hague Abduction Convention, the Department of State, acting in its role as U.S. Central Authority, facilitates the return of children from one Hague party country to their Hague country of habitual residence regardless of the child''s nationality. The U.S. currently recognizes 52 other countries as parties with the United States to the Hague Abduction.

The country-by-country listing in Attachment A also includes separate totals for open international access cases involving children who continue to live abroad, often in contravention of U.S. custody orders, whose parents are residing in the United States and continue to have difficulty obtaining or exercising visitation with the child. Our currently available statistical reports do not distinguish between international access cases that involve contravention of U.S. custody orders and those in which no U.S. custody order exists. Thus, the counts include some access problems that do not involve violation of a U.S. court order.

As shown in Attachment A, the most common destination countries for children abducted from the United States are Mexico, Germany, Jordan, Japan, Egypt, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. The high number of international parental abduction cases involving children taken across the U.S.-Mexican border is also reflected in the Hague applications received from Mexico by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which, on the Department of State''s behalf and pursuant to U.S. law and corresponding federal regulations, facilitates processing of Hague applications regarding children abducted to the U.S. from other Hague party countries. Four countries (Germany, followed by Saudi Arabia, France and the United Kingdom) account for almost half of the current open international access cases in the Department''s files.

The Statement of Managers also directed the Department to provide:

“a summary of actions taken by the Department of State to secure the repatriation of abducted American children; and a list of diplomatic measures, including treaties and agreements, that can be used to facilitate the repatriation of abducted American children.”

Diplomatic Initiatives and Actions taken to Secure the Repatriation of Abducted Children:

A. Working with parents:

When a United States citizen child is abducted abroad, the Department''s Office of Children''s Issues (CA/OCS/CI) works with United States embassies and consulates abroad to assist the child and left-behind parent in a number of ways. Despite the fact that children are taken across international borders, international child custody disputes remain fundamentally civil legal matters. If a child custody dispute cannot be settled amicably between the parties, it often must be resolved by judicial proceedings in the country where the child is located. Though the taking parent may also face criminal charges, pursuit of criminal legal remedies against the taking parent will not guarantee the return of the child.

Consular officers in the Office of Children''s Issues and at our posts abroad are prohibited from acting as attorneys or providing legal advice. Instead, embassy and Department officers help parents by focusing on providing general information resources and assisting parents to liaise with U.S. and foreign authorities. Each abduction officer in the Office of Children''s Issues is assigned to monitor cases and assist parents regarding abductions to a specific set of countries.

Abduction officers are the primary point of contact for left-behind parents in the U.S. and act as a liaison with federal and state agencies, including law enforcement officials. They provide contact information regarding other organizations that can help parents deal with the trauma of the abduction. They can provide written information or direct parents and their attorneys to internet-based resources that set out the legal options for seeking return of the child to the United States. In cases where the Hague Abduction Convention applies, Office of Children''s Issues officers assist parents in filing an application with foreign authorities in the country where the child is located for return of or access to the child. Abduction officers can also contact U.S. embassies and consulates abroad to attempt to locate, visit and report on the child''s general welfare. They directly, or through liaison with consular officers in the country where the child is located, alert foreign authorities to any evidence of child abuse or neglect. They provide information to left-behind parents on the country to which the child was abducted, relating to its legal system, custody laws, and a list of local attorneys willing to accept American clients. Although they cannot directly intervene in foreign judicial proceedings, they can also inquire as to the status of judicial or administrative proceedings overseas and assist parents in contacting local officials in foreign countries or contact them on the parent''s behalf. Abduction officers also provide information concerning how U.S. criminal warrants against an abducting parent, passport revocation, and requests for extradition from a foreign country may affect return of a child to the United States. In their work with left-behind parents, abduction officers in the Office of Children''s Issues provide the informational tools parents can then use to determine their own best course of action according to the unique circumstances involved in their family''s case.

The Office of Children''s Issues also administers the Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program and advises parents how they can file a request to be contacted at any time application is made for a new U.S. passport for their child under 18 years of age.

B. Monitoring Hague Convention implementation and operation in other countries:

In countries that are parties to the Hague Abduction Convention, the Department''s Office of Children''s Issues works with our embassies to monitor foreign government processing of applications for returning children to the United States. The Office of Children''s Issues maintains contact with parents, their attorneys and foreign Central Authorities to facilitate and track the progress of Hague applications for return through the foreign Central Authority and judicial system. When compliance problems appear, the Department makes our concerns about compliance known and, wherever possible, identifies and supports possible solutions.

For instance, in some countries, judges order the return of a child consistent with the Convention but lack the mechanisms to enforce their orders. In some other countries, judges either are not aware of their responsibilities under the Convention, or simply disregard them. The Office of Children''s Issues has helped sponsor judicial training involving judges from the U.S. and other countries. The Department, working in coordination with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, has also hosted groups of judges and other officials responsible for implementing the Hague Abduction Convention in their countries on visits that allow them to meet and talk to their counterparts about how the Convention is implemented in the U.S.

On the multilateral level, the Department''s Office of Children''s Issues continues to work, in collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, with the Hague Permanent Bureau on a “Good Practices” guide that will help both new and old Central Authorities establish common procedures and practices when handling Hague abduction and access cases. This will, we hope, foster greater consistency in how Central Authorities handle cases and prevent some of the start-up problems we have seen with new members to the Convention. Department officers regularly attend Hague Special Commission meetings to communicate U.S. concerns about the Convention''s operation and the U.S. maintains an active role in developing standards for Hague Abduction Convention implementation.

In cases involving long judicial delays, the Office of Children''s Issues requests status reports from the foreign Central Authority and may register concern if delays in processing return requests appear unwarranted. If a foreign court decides to deny a child''s return to the United States, the court''s decision is reviewed to determine whether the decision is consistent with the Convention. If the Department finds that the court''s decision to deny return appears inconsistent with the Convention, or if a foreign court''s decision to return a child is not enforced, the Office of Children''s Issues contacts the foreign Central Authority to voice our concern that the provisions of the Convention are not being respected. If the foreign Central Authority is unable or unwilling to suggest a remedy to address our concern, the Office of Children''s Issues works in coordination with the Department''s Office of the Legal Adviser to provide embassy officials guidance on approaching the foreign government to communicate our continued concern. Senior Department officials also frequently raise international child abduction and access concerns in their meetings with foreign government officials.

The Department is taking an active approach in engaging foreign governments on the issue of international parental child abduction. We are emphasizing to foreign officials at the highest levels, both here in Washington and during consultations abroad, that children who have been abducted or wrongfully retained should be returned; that taking parents should not benefit from having committed a crime in the U.S.; that we need to work with their governments to find ways of returning children to the U.S.; and that when returning children is a problem, the bilateral relationship will suffer.

C. Identifying alternatives for working with non-Hague partner countries

The Department would like to see more countries become parties to the Hague Abduction Convention. We have spoken to a number of countries about signing on to the Convention and just recently accepted the accession of Malta, the 52nd country that we work with in the Hague Abduction Convention framework. However, in our view, countries that accede to the Convention should be prepared to meet fully the obligations they undertake when they become parties.

The Department evaluates whether a country''s legal system would preclude implementation of Hague Abduction Convention responsibilities. Some countries have legal systems and practices that conflict with the basic principles and objectives of the Convention. In those instances where Hague membership and compliance are unlikely, we are examining the viability of alternative bilateral consular arrangements that could improve mediation and access assistance provided to parents but would fall short of the wide range of responsibilities Hague compliance would require. We have initiated discussions with several countries in the Middle East along these lines.

D. Coordinating with other U.S. agencies.

Even before the war on terrorism, the Department of State was working with other U.S. agencies to improve information sharing on cases involving international parental child abduction. In November 1998, a Senior Policy Group was established to coordinate policy and expedite appropriate reforms in federal responses to international parental child abduction.

The Senior Policy Group, comprising key high-level representatives from the Departments of Justice and State, established a joint Plan of Action in 1998 for nine major areas of action. These areas include establishing better information sharing and a more coordinated Federal response to international parental kidnapping; expanding diplomatic efforts to resolve international parental kidnapping cases and to educate the public about them; improving implementation of the Hague Convention; fostering more widespread and effective use of National Crime Information Center and Interpol to stop abductions in progress and to locate abducted children and abductors; strengthening passport issuance and revocation procedures and training border inspectors; expanding availability of resources to assist left-behind parents; seeking solutions to problems of parental access; providing education and training; and developing a database on international parental kidnapping cases. Considerable progress has been made in each of these areas since 1998. The Senior Policy Group continues to meet and guide interagency coordination efforts that improve government response to international child abduction.

On a monthly basis, a Working Group including representatives from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Departments of State and Justice, the FBI and Interpol, meet to share information about specific cases and their activities related to combating international parental child abduction.

Abduction officers in the Office of Children''s Issues are in frequent contact with local, state and federal authorities related to their active caseloads. The Office of Children''s Issues and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children''s International Division work together and share information about abduction cases that come to their attention.

E. Using tools to discourage and prevent abduction

The Child''s Passport Issuance Alert Program is a passport lookout system with which custodial parents can register to alert U.S. passport issuing offices worldwide if a child''s custody is in dispute or the parent fears someone will seek a passport for their minor child without their knowledge and consent. This lookout system strengthens safeguards built into the two-parent signature rule used since July 2001 for all passport applications submitted for U.S. citizens under 14 years of age. The Child''s Passport Issuance Alert Program and the two-parent signature rule do not prevent the child''s use of a passport previously issued but can, when used together, prevent potential abductors from obtaining a new U.S. passport for a child. In some instances, the Alert Program has succeeded in locating children whose whereabouts were unknown and thus allowed the Department to work with the left-behind parent to seek the child''s return.

U.S. Visa ineligibility Under section 212(a)(10)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, foreign nationals who abduct or wrongfully retain, or assist in the abduction or wrongful retention of a U.S. citizen child, as well as certain of an abductor''s relatives, may be inadmissible. The threat of not being able to travel to the United States can deter a potential abductor or encourage an abductor to return the child. Many foreign nationals value the contact and business, employment, social and other opportunities created by being able to travel to the United States. The law does not apply to U.S. citizens, including persons who are dual nationals. It requires that a sole custody order have been issued by a U.S. court, and that the abducted child is a U.S. citizen. It applies to the abductor(s); those who give safe haven or material assistance to an abductor; and also certain relatives of the abductor. It does not apply when the child is being held in a country the U.S. recognizes as a party to the Hague Abduction Convention, and no longer applies once the child turns 21 or marries. A foreign national''s inadmissibility ends when the child is returned, although a waiver may be granted for certain limited purposes in order to allow a child’s return (for example, the taking parent applies for a visa in order to bring the child back to the U.S.).

Treaties and Conventions Used in Work Related to International Parental Child Abduction

The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations provides a framework for U.S. embassy officials'' efforts to protect U.S. citizen children overseas. The Vienna Convention provides for foreign embassies and consulates to visit and verify the welfare of their nationals. By exercising this authority, U.S. embassies and consulates can help left-behind parents maintain a connection to their U.S. citizen children through welfare/whereabouts visits conducted by embassy consular officers. In instances when parents overseas refuse to allow an embassy officer to conduct a welfare visit with an American citizen child, the embassy can request host government assistance in gaining the parent''s agreement to the visit or, if that fails, to have host government authorities conduct the visit and provide a report to the U.S. embassy concerning the child''s health and welfare.

The Hague Abduction Convention is a framework for recovering children abducted from one country to another. The Convention is currently in force between the United States and 52 treaty partners. Approximately 15 additional countries have acceded to the Convention but have not yet been accepted as partners by the United States. The Convention establishes that the best vehicle to resolve custodial issues is in the country of the child’s “habitual residence.” Therefore it involves jurisdiction and not custody. The Hague Abduction Convention establishes that habitual residence of the child before the child''s removal is a key point of consideration, though not the sole determining factor, when a country''s judicial authorities make the decision to grant or deny the return of a child under the articles of the Convention. The citizenship of the abducted child and parents is not an issue. The efficient and consistent application of the Hague Abduction Convention denies the taking parent any benefits from abducting the child.

The Hague Abduction Convention, when it works, works well. But the Convention is not uniformly applied in all jurisdictions. To avoid as much as possible such discrepancies in the processing of return requests filed by U.S.-resident parents, we do not automatically accept the accession of new parties. The United States, like all Hague Abduction Convention signatories, was obliged to accept the accession of original signatories. Each new country that now accedes to the Convention undergoes a review process, during which countries that are already Hague parties each have the right to evaluate whether they will accept the new member state. In our view, countries that sign and ratify the Convention should expect such scrutiny and be capable of and committed to meeting all of their Hague responsibilities when we agree to accept them as partners.

Return to International Parental Child Abduction Page

---