Families Across Borders | law, policy, news and views
Domestic Violence and Political Asylum
After 14 years, the pathway to asylum in the United States for Rody Alvarado seems finally to have cleared, with the Obama Administration indicating this week in a filing in immigration court that it considers her to be eligible for asylum. This story in the New York Times by Julia Preston gives some of the background on the [...]
Snatchback?
The November issue of Atlantic Monthly: “The Snatchback” by Nadya Labi follows the efforts of a Florida man to re-abduct a 9-year-old boy from Costa Rica after the child was retained there by his biological father. Labi’s long story focuses mostly on the custody dispute and the man hired to carry out the snatching, but she [...]
Adoption Notices: Kenya and Ethiopia
The State Department periodically issues notices to inform agencies and prospective adoptive parents about on-the-ground developments in particular countries. A notice last week concerning adoptions in Ethiopia reminds adoptive parents “that before an immigrant visa may be issued to an adopted child, a U.S. consular officer must ensure that the adoption is legal under Ethiopian law [...]
State Department ACPIL Meeting
The annual meeting of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law (ACPIL), held in Washington D.C. this week, included a panel on international family law issues. The discussion included: An update on the Child Support Convention, which is the first treaty to be taken up by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during this session of [...]
Japan urged to solve global child custody disputes
This Associated Press story, following up on the Savoie case in Japan, is available on the NPR website accompanied by photos showing a meeting on Friday between Japan’s Justice Minister, Keiko Chiba, and the ambassadors from the U.S., Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, and Spain. The ambassadors renewed their demands that Japan sign the [...]
Hague Adoption Convention reaches 81 members
With the recent ratifications or accessions of Greece, Cape Verde, and Togo, there will now be 81 contracting states for the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. Here’s the announcement from the Hague Conference web site.
Multiracial Children in Postwar Germany
Here, from the English website of Der Spiegel, is an article that discusses the adoption of multiracial children born to German women in the years after World War II. The Difficult Identities of Postwar Black Children of GIs by Stephanie Siek tells the stories of a number of these children, now grown, and describes several organizations [...]
Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn turning to civil authorities in child abuse cases
Paul Vitello reports in the New York Times that ultra-orthodox haredim who have long avoided reporting crimes within their community have begun to turn to police and prosecutors in cases of child sexual abuse. Vitello describes measures taken by District Attorney Charles Hynes to build ties within the community; the story indicates that prosecutors in Brooklyn have [...]
Conferences on International Family Law at the French Cour de cassation
This announcement of two upcoming conferences in Paris was posted today by Gilles Cuniberti on conflictoflaws.net, with links to the conference programs: A conference on November 9 on the importance of nationality in French-Moroccan relations (Les enjeux de la nationalité dans les relations franco-marocaines). The speakers will be judges from France and Morocco. A conference on November 20 [...]
“No Toilet, No Bride”
This article in today’s Washington Post reports on a remarkably successful campaign in northern India encouraging women to insist that a prospective groom agree to provide a home with a toilet before they agree to marry.
