An order passed by Obama could see US try to force India to comply with it.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: A new legislation that President Barack Obama signed into law last week, that authorizes the State Department to take forceful measures against any country that does not help return an American child illegally held there, has the scope of a future diplomatic tussle between the US and India.
The Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act is inspired by a father whose son was kept in Brazil by his wife and her parents for more than five years. He’s now reunited with him.
At the heart of the new order by Obama are people like Bindu Philips, a resident of Plainsboro, New Jersey, who has been fighting hard for the last six years to get her twin sons back from India, after she accused her now ex-husband, Sunil Jacob, of having kidnapped them and ‘brainwashed’ them from having any contact with her. The boys are now 13 years old. The last contact she had with them was two years ago when she went to India on a trip.
“I’m longing to see my children,” Philips, 43, said in an interview to The Times of Trenton. “I really hope I will be reunited with them soon.”
“The Goldman Act works to right the terrible wrong of international child abduction, end the enormous pain and suffering endured by separated children and parents and force the federal government to act to bring abducted children home,” said U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th Dist.), who sponsored the bill. “Left-behind parents will now have tangible support and backing from their federal government.”
Smith intends to bring the matter to the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi’s notice, when he visits Washington, DC.
According to a report three years ago by The Trentonian, Bindu Philips had then said the problem is with countries like India, who have not signed the Hague treaty.
Philips’ twins were two of the 94 American children reportedly abducted to India as of figures three years ago, which is not a signatory to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
The alleged kidnapping was orchestrated under a scheme of deception, according to the FBI complaint filed in a New Jersey federal court by Special Agent Monica Cueto. On December 22, 2008, when Sunil Jacob was still married to Bindu Philips, Jacob brought his wife and their two children to India on “what victim Philips and the two child victims believed to be a family vacation,” according to the complaint.
But the trip was anything but a vacation. The FBI complaint alleges that Jacob on a continuous basis deprived Philips from seeing her two children. Philips made repeated attempts to see her children while she was in India from December 2008 through early April 2009, but Jacob and his family thwarted her efforts through verbal and physical assaults, the complaint alleges, said the Trentonian.
The nightmare got worse when Philips returned to her Plainsboro Township home in April 2009 only to discover that Jacob arranged to have all of the family’s belongings removed while they were in India, according to the complaint.
Philips took the matter to court, securing visitation rights to her children by New Jersey Superior Court in Middlesex County in December 2009. Jacob, however, didn’t comply with the order. The court then granted Philips full and legal custody of her two boys and in July 2010 the Plainsboro Township Municipal Court filed arrest warrants against Jacob charging him with kidnapping and custodial interference. The FBI filed the complaint against Jacob on April 1, and Jacob has given no indication he’ll return the twins to their mother, now his ex-wife.
However, matters became complicated when an Indian court intervened in the matter. Bindu says she had made a website for the twins’ 13th birthdays, hoping to at least offer one-way communication and affirmations of love and her struggle to bring them back. Jacob prevented further posts through Indian courts, where Philips says he is delaying all of their cases, the Times reported.
A New Delhi court served the last order in conjunction with U.S. courts, but it has yet to be enforced, Philips said, but things could change if the US puts pressure on India, and India complies.
The question, however, is, will India cave in to a domestic order passed in the US?
US on its part is likely to tread on the matter lightly for fear of another controversy brewing in the wake of the Devyani Khiobragade fiasco, which saw the husband and children of the domestic worker who had accused the diplomat, Sangeeta Richards, being secretly flown out of India by the State Department.
It’s unlikely the State Department would take the risk of doing that again in the case of the sons of Bindu Philips, even though the order by Obama adds the word ‘forcefully’ in its language in order to secure American children and give custody to parent(s) in the US.
If the case drags on for another five years in the case of Bindu Philips, it would become redundant, as the two boys now in India would then become adults and would be in a position to take their own decisions in life.
2 Comments
I truly wish Bindu Philips is reunited with her children very soon. With the Goldman Act, the reality is that it will likely be several years before anyone will see the impact of the law. At age 16 the children’s case ages out. Before the Goldman Act can do anything, the Department needs to implement a new report and decommission the old report. Very unlikely that will happen in 2015. With some luck and appropriations maybe in 2016. Then the Secretary of State would place priority on the most non-compliant countries. Unfortunately India is not at the top of the list. Additionally the Secretary of State can ask, as with similar laws, for a waiver in the name of the national security interest of the United States. More needs to be done as opposed to wait to see if the Goldman Act will do anything.
1) “It’s unlikely the State Department would take the risk of doing that again” is the real truth in the story here. The idea that the state dept will authorize sanctions against any country over child abductions is non-starter. Wont happen. EVER.
even the former controversy over ruffling the feathers of an Indian diplomat is clearly going to take priority over anything, much less two children residing with their father in India. Sad but true.
Even though the new bill “AUTHORIZES” the state dept and or the pres to take “forceful measures” against any country, the state dept already had all of those possibilities as options in their quiver. And having the redundant authorization is by no means an obligation to use that tool. The language is completely non-binding and therefore is optional. So there are no teeth in Smiths bill. All of the measures in that new bill were previously options available to the dept of state, and were and have been used in other situations long before Goldman voluntarily sent his son to Brazil. All of the “forceful measures” have been around forever. Nothing new there, except Smith passed a bill saying they are new……and now he is saying that because of his bill, parents like Philips “will NOW have the tangible support and backing from their federal government”.
So the proof of Smiths claims and promises will be in how soon the Philips children return to New Jersey as a result of the bills measures. (we havent seen Smith make trips to India yet have we?) (but maybe Philips hasnt made the volume of political contributions to Smiths re-election fund that Goldmans organization has, YET)
2) “If the case drags on for another five years in the case of Bindu Philips, it would become redundant” . Really is that your best conclusion? If the Philips case drags on another year, that fact alone will demonstrate tangible failed results of the bill, and yet another failed piece of legislation that falsely promises remedies for victims (children no less), but actually politically capitalizes on them instead.
Time will reveal the truth on this one .
And by the way, these are 2 of 94 children in India….if 80 of them drag on for another 5 years…..
Of the thousands abducted worldwide, if less than 80% of them drag on for another 5 years….. what will that say about Smiths bill?
I would like to believe Smiths promises here, but I see Philips is also working with the FBI. I would put my faith in the FBI more than Smiths bill if I was her.