Cold Hard Facts of Zero Change GOA report 1999……………………to……………………To present day
State Departments recommendations
o Unresolved / Failure / Ineffective / Disgraceful / Ignored
October, 1999. GAO Report. FOREIGN AFFAIRS. Federal Response to International Child Abduction.
“There are a number of problems and issues related to the federal response to international parental child abduction.
These problems have been identified by the key agencies involved—the State and Justice Departments and the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children—as well as left-behind parents and others. They are:
ogaps in federal services to left-behind parents, which make it difficult for
parents to recover their abducted children;
oweaknesses within the existing State Department case-tracking process,
which impair case and program coordination;
olack of systematic and aggressive diplomatic efforts to improve
international responses to parental child abductions; and
olimited use of the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act of 1993 to
pursue abducting parents and bring them to justice…
________________________ _________________
1 International parental child abduction is defined as the removal of a child from the United
States or retention of a child outside the United States with intent to obstruct the lawful
exercise of parental rights (18 U.S.C. 1204).
2 The actual number of cases may be greater because some parents never report the
abductions to the State Department but instead pursue a remedy directly with foreign authorities.
________________________ ________________________ _
oProblems With the Federal Response
oGaps in Services to Left-Behind Parents
oCoordination Problems in Managing Cases
oNoncompliance With the Hague Convention
oLimited Prosecutions Under the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act
State and Justice
Departments Plan to
Improve Federal Responses
The State and Justice Departments have developed several recommendations they believe will correct the problems we have discussed…...
oHowever, many of the recommendations are not clearly defined and lack specific resource requirements.
________________________ ________________________
Some Progress
Made in Specific
Areas
The State and Justice Departments have made some progress toward improving services to left-behind parents…..
o Designing an integrated case-tracking system..
o pursuing diplomatic initiatives, specifically, the State Department has made progress toward improving caseworker services to left-behind parents. In this regard, since October 1998, the Office of Children’s Issue has hired 10 additional staff to reduce caseload.
oState hired coordinator, who will work out of NCMEC and enhance relationship between State Dept.
oJustice Department has made limited funding available to nonprofit organizations to provide mentoring services to left-behind parents. Definition of Mentoring. Mentoring is a developmental partnership through which one person shares knowledge, skills, inform..
oFinally, State has pursued some diplomatic initiatives with a few countries that have had Hague implementation problems. However, most planned diplomatic initiatives have not yet begun. ________________________ ____________________
Implementation of
Recommendations Will Be
Difficult Without Clear
Resource Commitments
oAlthough State and Justice have made some progress, without clear resource commitments it will be difficult to implement the remaining recommendations in a timely manner.
oAs we mentioned earlier, according to State and Justice, they use their implementation plan to identify the resources needed to carry out proposed changes. However, neither department has been able to provide us with information about such resources.
oFor example, according to State Department officials, all of its planned diplomatic initiatives are contingent on additional funding, but they have not provided us with information about the source and level of funding necessary for these activities.
oMoreover, State and Justice have not provided us funding information for nearly all the remaining planned changes in the federal response, including the resources needed to fully implement the case-tracking system.
oIn addition to lacking resource commitments, many of the remaining recommendations we reviewed fail to identify the specific actions the State and Justice Departments will take to achieve their objectives.
oAs we mentioned earlier, the State Department acknowledges that more systematic and aggressive diplomatic efforts are needed to address Hague Convention noncompliance.
oMost of the recommendations in this regard seek to review, study, and explore Hague implementation issues but fail to identify how these activities will actually help solve Hague implementation problems.
