The US House of Representatives Finally Heard Our Story!
(If you're in a hurry, just watch this brief YouTube clip.)
On May 23, 2023, thanks to some fantastic advocates and volunteers, the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee heard directly about my children's abduction, and my efforts to bring them home via the treadmill protest! The Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations held a hearing on International Parental Child Abduction, and listened to sad stories from parents like us dealing with the heartbreak of abductions to many different foreign countries.
Dr. Noelle Hunter, like some of the others in this photo, was once a left-behind parent herself, but successfully recovered her daughter from Mali after years of painful effort. Now as a survivor of that experience, Dr. Hunter has become a prominent researcher and advocate on the topic. She spoke about my children's case, and used the treadmill metaphor to explain what most left-behind parents faces due to lack of proper government assistance: trying and trying everything we can to be reunited with our children, but not getting anywhere.
You can watch Dr. Hunter and others giving testimony in the YouTube clip above. The hearing information, including witness statements, is available on Congress' website. And C-SPAN has searchable text/video...see if you can count how many times the word "treadmill" was mentioned!
Meanwhile, the US Senate recently passed S.R.115, a resolution against international parental child abduction, which mentions the US Supreme Court's categorization of abduction as a form of child abuse, and listing the Republic of Korea as one of the problem countries.
All three branches of the US government agree: international parental child abduction is not OK. But we need action from the State Department in order to hold South Korea and other nations up to their treaty obligations. As a result of the hearing, there will be new legislation introduced in Congress to strengthen the available remedies for achieving this, and make sure that they are actually used.
Once this new legislation is ready, we will be asking those of you in the US to contact your own Congressional representatives to urge them to vote for it. In the meantime, you can already use this email template to contact your representatives and ask that they give this problem the attention it deserves, and that they take action by writing letters directly to the Korean Embassy in Washington DC.
We are keeping the pressure on via a steady stream of media stories, and it is finally beginning to take effect within the Korean government. I met with Ambassador Philip Goldberg at US Embassy Seoul a few weeks ago, and I learned about some of the much-needed changes in enforcement regulations that are being worked on.
But as of today, our children are still not home. And I am still out walking on that treadmill. Thank you for walking with me, and for continuing to share the story and help in every way you can.