America
Indian-American mother seeks return of her abducted children
By
Arun KumarWashington, March 29
Recounting her
heartrending tale of woe, an Indian-American mother turned to US
lawmakers for help to get back her two children allegedly abducted to
India by her ex-husband six years ago.
"Help me to make my voice
heard in a way that shall be meaningful and allow me to be reunited with
my children who need the love and nurturing of their mother," said
Bindu Philips testifying before a House panel with a few other parents
of abducted children.
A subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs
committee was reviewing Obama Administration's implementation of the
Goldman Act to Return abducted American Children at a hearing last week.
Besides
lobbying on the Capitol Hill to make their case, about 25 parents of
abducted children representing five organizations also held a
candlelight vigil before the White House.
"Tragically, my world
and that of my innocent children, was violently disrupted by my
ex-husband, Sunil Jacob in December of 2008," said Philips, a mother of
twin boys, Albert Philip Jacob and Alfred William Jacob, both 14 now.
Accusing
Jacob of orchestrating the kidnapping of the children during a vacation
to India, she told the panel: "On reaching India I was not only
physically and emotionally abused by my ex-husband but also by his
parents."
She was not only "very cruelly separated from my
children" but also not allowed to see or communicate with them after her
husband transferred them to another school with strict orders not to
let the mother or any of the maternal relatives see them.
"Unable
to communicate with the children," Philips returned to the US in April,
2009 to find their residence in Plainsboro, New Jersey, stripped of
everything by her ex-husband's friends "leaving me with not even a
single photograph of my children."
In Dec 2009, the Superior
Court Family Part in New Jersey, "not only granted me sole custody of
the children" but also "demanded their immediate return to the US," said
Philips.
In turn, her ex-husband filed for custody of the
children in Indian Courts after the US child custody was filed, Philips
alleged. The case is currently pending in the Supreme Court of India.
"My
children have lost 6 years of their mother's love and care and I have
lost 6 years of my children's childhood that neither of us can ever get
back," she said imploring "the Congress to assist me in righting the
wrongs that have been done to the children and me."
Susan Jacobs,
Special Advisor for Children's Issues at the State Department, told the
panel the US was committed to finding a viable solution for resolving
each and every abduction case.
It was also committed to advocate
for membership in the international treaty on the issue, and to create
safeguards that will minimise the occurrence of international parental
child abduction, she said.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])