MISSING CHILDREN AND THE NEW MILLENNIUM - Are you all ready for the new millennium? The Committee for Missing Children is
- When the Committee for Missing Children first started to assist parents who had their children abducted from the United States to a foreign country, our eyes were quickly opened to the size and complexities of the problem of children abducted across international borders. In the United States, we have laws that are honored by the fifty states when it comes to the return of an abducted child from one state to the other. We do not have any laws that make it mandatory to return a child abducted from the United States to a foreign country. There are no extradition treaties in existence between the United States and any foreign country for the return of an abducted American child. If a child is abducted from the United States, the left-behind parent will have to appeal to the foreign courts for relief. Even if the child was abducted in violation of U.S. law, there is nothing the United States can do or is willing to do. The bottom line is the left behind parent and the abducted child fall in to a quagmire called diplomacy.
- In 1993 President Clinton signed into law the "International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act of 1993." This law stated that, "Whoever removes a child from the United States or retains a child (who has been in the United States) outside the United States with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both." With this law in effect, you would think that other countries, many of them our allies, would honor the fact that an American child has been removed from our country by one of their citizens and willingly return the child. However, this is not the case. Once a parent abducts a child and crosses our border the 1993 law becomes almost a moot point. It is, for the most part, a law without teeth. There is no vehicle to enforce the law. Once more the left-behind parent must place themselves before the foreign courts and pray for some form of equity.
- In 1988 the United States joined with other countries around the world and placed into effect what we all refer to as the "Hague Treaty." Today 54 countries have signed on to this treaty. The Hague Treaty is a civil vehicle that allows for a parent to appeal to a foreign court for the return of their child to its place of "habitual residence." What the treaty attempts to do is return everybody to square one. Under the treaty the abducted child is returned to the country they were abducted from and the parents go into court and custody and visitation is reestablished. There are no criminal charges brought against the abducting parent although they would have to explain their actions to the courts and give assurances that they will not reabduct the child. Sounds simple, but its is not. Many countries such as those in the middle east, that is Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, have not signed the treaty. If a child is taken to one of these Muslim countries there is nothing the left-behind parent can do except place themselves before the courts in these countries and hope for the best. The United States can do nothing except request and assist in a welfare visit if the child can be found, but this to can be rejected by the abducting parent.
- As you can see, once a child has been abducted, getting that child back can be, at times, almost impossible. The toll this takes on the left-behind parent is tremendous. It's like losing your child, but never having closure. There is no end, no way to move on. This is where the Committee for Missing Children is trying to help. We have initiated several projects that are becoming known worldwide.
- CMC OPENS OFFICE IN GERMANY
- In February of this year we opened an office of the Committee for Missing Children in Germany. This is a one-year experiment to see if we can improve communications between the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) in Europe and the non-profit child-find groups in the United States. There are many very good child-find organizations in England, France Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, etc. However, if this is to work, we need someone who is from Europe to organize and run our office. We need someone who understands the problems a left-behind parent will face. We turned to Christiane Lops, the mother of the two little girls we helped get back to Germany. We asked Christiane if she would help set up a German office and start working with the child-find organizations in Europe. She agreed and in February Karen and I made a trip to Germany to finalize our plans. Christiane is working hard to see that we succeed in our efforts. In addition to being a mother who lost her children and had them returned, she speaks four languages, French, English, German and Luxembourg. I think we have found the right person for the job. Karen and I have included several pictures of our trip to Germany. We hope you enjoy them. As you can see Claire and Carmen are happy to be home.
- CMC ATTENDS 1999 LONDON MEETING
- Because of our efforts, Christaine and I have been invited to attend a meeting of the European NGO's this April in London. The meeting, being put together by REUNITE of the UK will address the problems facing parents in their efforts to have their children returned from another country. I have been asked to speak to the group about our large poster program that features internationally abducted children. As you are all aware, the Press of Ohio prints our large posters. The Press of Ohio has partnered with us on the posters for about six years. These posters are all over the world. They have been put up at the United Nations in Geneva Switzerland; they are all over our Congress in Washington. They are in post offices, district attorneys offices and at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Several groups in Europe have asked us if we would start to feature European children abducted to the United States on the posters. We have agreed to assist them and are considering adding children, who have been taken from a foreign country to the United States, to our pages being produced by Riverside Paper. The Riverside project places millions of images of missing children into the schools every year. It is the single largest introduction of missing children into the schools by a single company.
- CMC FUNDS THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARENT HANDBOOK
- At our Board of Directors meeting, held November 1998 at the NSSEA trade show, the Board approved funding to bring together fifteen parents of missing children to develop a handbook for parents of future missing children. This meeting which is being put together at this time will be held at the end of June of this year in Washington, DC. We will invite members of Congress and their staff as well as members of the Justice Department and NCMEC. In addition, an invitation will be extended to other non-profits to attend and offer input. The Committee for Missing Children believes that there should not be any divisions between any organizations that profess to help parents be reunited with their missing children. Any approach to finding missing children should be a unified approach and we should all work toward that goal.
- The meeting will address stranger abductions, family abductions, runaways, international abductions and missing young adults. This is not an entirely new project. The CMC brought together a group of parents of missing children and interested child advocates in November of 1995 at the NSSEA fall trade show in Las Vegas. At that time we set up an outline for the development of a parent handbook. Due to funding and lack of money available to the parents, the project was put on hold. I am extremely glad that the CMC has gotten to the point where they can now fund the program and allow the parents to attend without wondering where the next dollar will come from.
- Once the handbook is finished, they will be offered to other non-profits and the National Center for distribution to parents of missing children.
- CMC HAS THE ONLY OPEN NEWSLETTER
- Two years ago Sally Warren and John Flaherty of Creative Catalog Concepts offered to develop and have printed our newsletter. The plan was to produce the newsletter four times a year. To date we have put out two issues, Fall of 1997 and Fall of 1998. This year I will have some help gathering stories so that we can get them to Sally in a timely manner and get back on track with a newsletter every three months. I am proud of the why Sally and the fine folks at Creative Catalog Concepts have laid out the format of the newsletter. Our objective from the start was to make our newsletter an open vehicle to get as much information to the parents of missing children that we could. CMC has the only newsletter that invites other non-profits and agencies dealing with missing children to write articles and tell parents and others about themselves. We encourage this open communication and want to expand on it. Anyone reading this article that would like to receive a copy of our newsletter should drop me a line or E-mail me.
- CMC DEVELOPS RESEARCH LIBRARY ON MISSING CHILDREN
- Over the years, we have accumulated a vast amount of information on the subject of missing children. Our library consists of over 120 two-inch binders full of articles, reports, statistics and programs that deal with missing children. With the addition of the Internet, we can plug into subjects such as federal appropriations that deal with the funding for projects dealing with missing children. We can see where the taxpayers money is going and how it is being spent to locate and return children to their parents. There are hundreds of web pages dealing with this subject. Many of the non-profits have web pages and several have extensive files available of children that are missing including pictures to be down loaded. The National Center in Virginia, The Children's Help Center in Florida, and Child Quest International in California are three of the best. Our library is available to any organization and agency that wishes to use its services.
- CMC DEVELOPS EDUCATIONAL WEB PAGE www.findthekids.org
- Our web page, which is under construction, will be very extensive. We will be giving the parent of a missing child everything they will need. We will have a section listing the appropriate legislation that deals with the subject of missing children, both domestic and international. We will have our newsletter on the web. We will list all fifty-state clearinghouses as well as the 35-40 non-profit child find organizations in the US and Europe. When our handbook is completed it will be on our web page. We will have hot links to the National Center, Child Quest International and The Children's Help Center. We will have a section that gives parents of an internationally abducted child a copy of the Hague Treaty and the Hague Application. We will have a copy of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We will be listing lawyers willing to do pro-bono work for parents of missing children. And much more.
- In addition to our web page, the Committee for Missing Children/Germany is also developing a web to be used through out Europe. We will link to that web as well.
- Well thatís it for now. As you can see we have come a long way from our original committee for interested people in the school supply trade. I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish, but I am prouder of the people who have helped us get where we are. Here's hoping that the new millennium sees more children reunited with their love ones.
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