International child abduction is not new. A case of international child abduction was actually documented aboard the Titanic. However, the incidence of international child abduction continues to increase due to the ease of international travel, increase in bi-cultural marriages and a high divorce rate. When abduction occurs, the first line of defense is the State Department.
The State Department's Office of Children's Issues (CI) works with U.S. embassies and consulates abroad to assist the left-behind parent in a number of ways. In cases where the Hague Convention applies, the Department will assist parents in filing an application with foreign authorities forreturn of the child; attempt to locate, visit and report on the child's general welfare; provide the left-behind parent with information on the country to which the child was abducted, including its legal system, family laws, and a list of attorneys there willing to accept American clients; provide a point of contact for the left-behind parent; monitor foreign judicial or administrative proceedings; assist parents in contacting local officials in foreign countries or contact them on the parent's behalf; provide information concerning the need for use of federal warrants against an abducting parent, passport revocation, and extradition from a foreign country to effect return of a child to the U.S.; and alert foreign authorities to any evidence of child abuse or neglect.
However, there are several activities that the Department may not engage in. They may not intervene in private legal matters between the parents; enforce an American custody agreement overseas; force another country to decide a custody case or enforce its laws in a particular way; assist the left-behind parent in violating foreign laws or re-abduction attempts; pay legal or other expenses; act as a lawyer or represent parents in court.
The Hague Convention does not provide relief in many cases. Accordingly, a private industry emerged to address this gap. Covert recovery was first made public when Don Feeney, a former Delta Commando, responded to a desperate mother's plea to locate, and recover her daughter from Jordan in the 1980's. Feeney successfully located and returned the child. Since then, a movie and book about these exploits lead to other desperate parents to seek him out for recovery services.
The recovery industry is not regulated. There is no educational, or license requirements, and no oversight. By the late 1990s websites advertising recovery services exploded. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the parents that responded to recovery agents, reported paying enormous sums of money without relief. Parents and recovery agents have been arrested and killed during recovery attempts.
An advocacy networks known as P.A.R.E.N.T. International. (Parents Advocating for Recovery through Education by Networking Together) was founded by Maureen Dabbagh who sought to find a way to bring children home without the use of force, or mercenary tactics. She proved that children could be recovered from non-Hague countries without the use of para-military type tactics, and later founded Dabbagh and Associates, which provides professional services to law enforcement, lawyers, NGO's and parents.
By 2005, the number of individuals advertising recovery services on the Internet had decreased. The majority of those they did, referred to being a licensed professional, such as a private investigator, mediator, etc.
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