Tinton Falls resident David Goldman’s four-year battle to win the return of his now 8-year-old son, Sean, after an international parental kidnapping moved to the spotlight in Washington yesterday.
The House of Representatives voted 418-0 in favor of a resolution, HR 125, calling on Brazil to honor an international custody convention “as a matter of extreme urgency” and immediately return Sean to his father.
Goldman supporters now hope the case will be a topic of discussion on March 14, when President Obama meets with Brazil’s president, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, at the White House.
Goldman’s local supporters are planning a rally near the White House
during the Obama-Lula meeting. Information about bus transport is
available here.
The boy’s mother, Bruna Goldman, took him on a vacation to
her native Brazil in 2004 and never returned to the U.S., telling David
Goldman by phone that she wanted a divorce. She remarried, but died
last year after giving
birth to a second child, leaving Sean in the custody of his Brazilian
stepfather.
Here’s C-Span video of the House vote.
It has been a crime to keep that boy there, justice wins finally.
The #1 priority in this case is to return Sean Goldman to his father here in America.
That was the clear and unequivocal message at the rally outside the White House yesterday - Bring Sean Home!
The second clear priority is a much needed overhaul of how the international treaty governing these cases is implemented in practice.
The US has the most to gain from the success of the Hague Convention and the most to lose - more children are abducted to and from the United States than any other Hague country.
Yet, within the international community the United States is frequently cited as being one of the biggest violators.
I spoke briefly with Congressman Chris Smith yesterday in Washington DC and finally, I felt I had met a US official who gets this point.
I am the British father of a now 7 year old daughter, Emily Rose Hindle who was taken from her home in the UK and brought here to the US in 2003 by the her American mother claiming domestic violence and assisted by the US Department of State.
Officials at the Office of Childrens Issues tasked with implementing the Hague Convention at the State Department helped to hide Emily in the US as efforts to find her caused her to be classed variously as a missing child and ultimately as missing and endangered.
The endangered classification came about due to efforts by her mother to sell little Emily in Wisconsin which also placed her into the care and contact of a convicted pedophile, Leslie Merriam. The response of the State Department to the police was that her British father was an abuser and was not to know where Emily was at.
All allegations of domestic violence, sexual abuse and a host of other disgusting allegations were repeatedly thrown out in court but this did not stop Barbara Greig of the State Department from having Emily's dad barred from coming to the US for court hearings and visitation until recently.
It also did not stop the State Department from requesting the arrest and deportation of Emily's father in 2004 to stop court hearings and visitation from taking place and Emily has had no visitation with her dad for three years now in complete defiance of the Hague Convention and US court orders.
More than this, Emily was born with an eye defect which was treated in the UK to stop her going permanently blind in her right eye. No treatment has been forthcoming in the US and little Emily has now past the age by which she would benefit from being treated - she has been left to become permanently blind in an eye.
In 2003, Emily was voluntarily returned to the UK by her mother whereupon th eBritish police removed Emily from her mother and gave her to dad as court proceedings had commenced in the British courts.
The State Department than claimed Emily's dad had abducted her from Florida claiming she had been resident there for more than 6 months - Emily was consequently sent to Florida only for proceedings to start but find she had been there for less than 6 weeks!
Was Emily returned to the UK?
No - the court in Florida stating that in Volusia County they are "provincials and we don't do the Hague Convention here" according to Judge Doyle.
The Hague Convention is a double edged sword - the United States, and particularly David Goldman, are entirely correct to demand Brazilian compliance and return Sean forthwith - but the rest of the world is equally right to demand the US also comply with its obligations and behave properly - something many parents, myself included, do not believe has been happening.
David Goldman has been through a nerve shattering ordeal but there are positives and many parents at home and abroad are looking at this case with disbelieving hope - hope that finally, the impetus to straighten out so many injustices has now arrived.
Bring Them All Home!
Thank you for the update, but please note that the resolution presented by Rep Chris Smith is H.RES 125 (HR 125 is a completely different piece of legislation).
Have a look at the BringSeanHome.org Washington DC rally photos!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35278616563&ref=
Will also be posted soon on BringSeanHome.org
http://www.BringSeanHome.org/