Over 10,000 American children are parentally abducted and taken to foreign countries each year because of bitter custody disputes between multi-national or multi-cultural couples. Sadly, many of the children are taken to countries that disregard U.S. custody orders such as Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and China. The consequence is the American parent never seeing the child again. A greater consequence is the dysfunctional federal system that continuously fails to take action to bring our children home.

In the past, U.S. Senate and House committees have heard testimonies from American parents of abducted children about the unprofessional, inadequate, and lethargic effort by the designated U.S. State Department agency responsible for handling international child abduction cases, the Office of Children's Issues. Reports by the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Government Accountability Office concur with these testimonies that changes are needed due to this dysfunctional office. According to a senior official from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there is no one who can help bring our abducted kids home within the U.S. Justice Department's division designated to act on this crime, the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS).

The answer is the Parental Abduction Recovery, Enforcement, and Network Training Act, or the PARENT Act. This proposed legislation would transfer responsibilities and funding regarding international child abduction prevention from the Office of Children's Issues to a new division in the U.S. Justice Department. This future division would focus only on interstate and international child abduction cases.

To ensure the U.S. Justice Department would investigate the abduction, recover the child, and, if possible, prosecute the abducting parent, the bill calls for mandatory policies of action rather than giving federal authorities discretionary powers to act on an abduction case. All too often, U.S. Attorney offices turn their backs on international child abduction although it is recognized as child abuse as well as a felony under 18 USC §1204 (International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act). The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, currently assigned to handle incoming parental abduction cases, would be assigned to handle the case work and quickly submit it to the Justice Department.

The PARENT Act also calls for a better distribution of international parental abduction prevention courses to legal, judicial, and law enforcement officials through the use of professional organizations connected to missing/exploited children prevention awareness across the country. The PARENT Act also eliminates the statute of limitations on international parental abduction and calls for greater jail sentences for abducting parents.

It’s time to stop the Office of Children’s Issues from mishandling its international parental abduction prevention duties. Thousands of parents with abducted children in other countries have been ignored, neglected, and mistreated by this office. We need an agency that doesn’t cater to foreign officials and makes empty promises, but takes aim at protecting our children and enforces our parental rights. The PARENT Act calls for Congress to make this a reality.

For a review of the PARENT Act, please go to:
http://www.geocities.com/lsynclair/PARENT-Act.html