INTERNATIONAL PARENTAL KIDNAPPING AND GERMANY (Senate - June 23, 2000) 

[Page: S5730]  GPO's PDF
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I am troubled--deeply troubled. I am troubled by a report in the Washington Post that--yet again--illustrates Germany's reluctance to return American children who have been kidnapped by a parent and taken to Germany. The Post article details the latest event in the continuing international struggle that American Joseph Cooke has endured as he seeks the return of his children. As my colleagues may recall, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder recently promised President Clinton during the President's visit to Europe that Germany would help Mr. Cooke and grant him and his family visitation rights. Well, despite this promise at the highest levels government, the Kostanz Special Service for Foster Children now is limiting the access that Joseph Cooke's mother has to visiting her grandchildren--apparently as a punishment for all the recent media attention the case has received. This is outrageous, Mr. President. And it simply cannot be tolerated.

Let me take a moment to review the events that have led to where we are today on this issue. At the recent European conference on `Modern Governance in the 21st Century,' President Clinton met with Chancellor Schroeder to discuss several pressing international concerns. One issue, in particular--one I had urged President Clinton to raise with the Chancellor--was the tragic situation of U.S. children being abducted by a parent and taken to Germany.

It was necessary to raise this issue with Chancellor Schroeder because parents--and not just American parents, either--have had a very difficult time getting their children back when they have been abducted and taken to Germany. Although Germany has signed the Hague Convention, our ally--yes, our ally--has not taken their obligations under the Convention seriously. In fact, from 1990 to 1998, only 22 percent of American children for whom Hague applications were filed were returned to the United States from Germany--and that percentage includes those who were voluntarily returned by the abducting parent.

Last month, I spoke on the floor about the Joseph Cooke case--a case that illustrates perfectly Germany's reluctance to return kidnapped children. In Mr. Cooke's case, his wife took their two children to Germany, and without his knowledge, turned them over to the German Youth Authority. Despite Mr. Cooke's desperate attempts to get his children back, a German court decided that they were better off with a German foster family than with their American father. Only after President Clinton's meeting with Chancellor Schroeder and only after Mr. Cooke's case received considerable publicity and media attention, did Germany agree to help Joseph Cooke.

The Germans promised to allow Mr. Cooke and his family visitation with his children. The Germans also promised to form a working group with the United States to examine pending abduction cases. Chancellor Schroeder agreed to `think about organizational and institutional consequences to be taken' to speed up the German court process and make changes in German law to allow visitation rights for those parents previously prevented from seeing their children at all. Although the Chancellor acknowledged that it would be difficult to reverse German custody decisions, he assured President Clinton that this soon-to-be-created commission would work on providing the so-called left-behind parents access to their children.

But now, as the Washington Post reports, Germany is restricting visitation of the Cooke children's American grandmother from open, six-hour visits to supervised, two-hour visits in a psychologist's office. We must take a very tough stance against this, Mr. President. We must judge Germany by its recent actions--not its recent words--recent, empty words. We must hold Germany to its promises and see to it their government matches words with deeds and returns every single American child.

Given Germany's reversal on the visitation agreement, I am even more skeptical now about the sincerity of Germany's commitment to return kidnapped children. I say that partly because German officials have repeatedly blamed their non-compliance on the independence of their judiciary system. They say that they are reluctant to challenge court rulings because the courts are separate and independent from the parliament. Chancellor Schroeder even likened such interference to the days of Nazi Germany, when he told a German newspaper that: `We have always fought for the well-being of the children to be at the core of divorce and custody cases. That is the only standard. The times in which Germany would routinely change the decisions of the courts [during the Nazi era] are over, thank God' (Reuters, 6/1/00).

I find that argument very interesting since the United States has a very independent judiciary branch, yet we return children in 90% of all international abduction cases. And, our return rate of German children, specifically, is equally high. Even according to the German Justice Ministry's own figures, from 1995 to 1999, there were 116 cases of German parents demanding children back from the United States. Of those cases, the U.S. courts refused to return the children in only four cases. During those same five-years, there were 165 known cases in which a parent living in the United States wanted his or her children returned from Germany. Yet, in 33 of those cases, German courts declined to return the children (AP Worldstream, 6/2/00).

Mr. President, I am also concerned about Germany's offer to create a `working group' with the United States given the result of a similar promise Germany made to France. French President Jacques Chirac, who has characterized Germany as applying `the law of the jungle' in abduction cases (The London Evening Standard, 6/1/00), repeatedly asked Germany to address the difficulty his country is having in getting French children returned. In response, Chancellor Schroeder agreed to create a `working group' between the two nations to reach some resolution. While this working group was created a year ago, results have yet to come in on its effectiveness. Given France's experience, it is crucial that we hold Chancellor Schroeder to his word and see to it that his words are not just empty promises made in an attempt to improve a tarnished image in the international community.

Assistant Secretary of State for consular affairs, Mary Ryan will be in Germany this weekend where, according to the Washington Post, `she will be raising this specific issue with every person she meets in the German government.' I am encouraged to see that our State Department has indicated that it is outraged by Germany's action--perhaps now, they will take these kinds of cases seriously and take some type of significant action against Germany. Never-the-less, I urge her and our State Department and President Clinton to not take Germany's broken promises lightly. We must insist that the Germans reverse these restrictions on visitation, otherwise there is absolutely no reason to set up the commission.

Mr. President, we cannot tolerate lip service from our allies. We must hold the German government's feet to the fire. No excuses should be accepted by the parents of these children, nor by this Senate, nor by this Congress, nor by the American people. This must be a priority.
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