A Father's Love (36 page)

Even when I have had to correct or reprimand Sean, he has never once said, “This is awful. I hate you! I want to go back to Brazil.” He has responded remarkably well.

I do my best to arrange my work schedule so I can be there every day when Sean gets home from school. We do everything together; he accompanies me everywhere I go, except for date nights with Wendy—although it is not unusual to see Wendy and me with her boys and Sean, enjoying everyday life together. Sean knows that I love him, and that he is home, right where he is supposed to be.

I
'M LOOKING FORWARD TO HELPING OTHER HURTING PARENTS. BEHIND the scenes, I'm already doing what I can. I'm in communication with other left-behind parents, offering them guidance and hope, but right now my top priority is raising Sean. Nevertheless, everywhere I go, I try to share the surprisingly simple lessons I learned through my ordeal: No matter what situation a parent goes through with a child, you have to believe; you have to remain focused and stay the course. As you do whatever you have to do because of the love for your child, you draw energy and stamina from deep within. All of heaven and earth is on your side, though you may encounter many obstacles along the way. Stay with the truth and maintain your dignity and integrity, and you will be amazed at who will come forward to help. You can't give up, because you are motivated by the love of your child. This is the message that resonated in my heart for five and a half years, and it is the message I share with hurting parents everywhere I go these days.

Sean and I are enjoying life together. We've been reunited; we are healing; we are loving; we are father and son. Sean has a great group of friends, is doing well in school, and continues to adapt well to his new life in America and to the home he once enjoyed so much, where he received so much love prior to his abduction. People who meet him for the first time might notice a slightly different inflection in his speech, in the pronunciation of certain words. Apart from that, they would assume he is a typical ten-year-old boy—because he is! Most folks could never imagine what my son has experienced already in his young life.

Sean and I both know that we can never repay all the people who had a part in reuniting us. But because of what we endured, and what we learned, we hope to help other families who have been victimized by parental abductions. Nearly three thousand American children remain in international abduction situations at this writing, and that number grows annually. Those parents and family members are struggling to hold on, to endure, to make it through another day. It is with great pain that I see so many other parents and children living the perpetual nightmare of being separated, with seemingly no end in sight. They desperately need a team of champions as I was so privileged to have. I want to do all that I can to help them.

I realize that had Bruna not died, it is highly unlikely that our story would have surfaced the way it did, in the media and in diplomatic circles. I was just one of many left-behind parents appealing for help. In an ironic and tragic twist, Bruna's death gave me back the son she had attempted to tear away from me.

I am concerned for others who have been victimized by parental child abductions. What can be done to help them? Up to now, apart from Sean, no other unlawfully abducted American child has ever been returned to the United States by Brazil under the Hague Convention. And consider what it took to get Sean home: the death of my son's mother; the airing of the story on national television that just happened to catch the attention of Congressman Smith and Bernie Aronson, two men willing to sacrifice their time and influence to help get Sean home. How often is that going to happen for other left-behind parents?

Then consider the unanimous resolutions in both the House and the Senate, the personal statements by the president of the United States and the U.S. secretary of state, the hearing by the congressional Human Rights Commission, Senator Lautenberg's holding back nearly $3 billion of aid to Brazil, and the multiple trips to Brazil by Congressman Smith. I am forever grateful for all of these, but let's be honest. How often will such things happen for the parents of other abducted children?

Not often. Maybe never.

Thousands of American families whose children have been abducted by a parent can't mobilize this kind of pressure, and they shouldn't have to.

Yet during Sean's abduction, we knew of at least sixty-five other American children who had been abducted to Brazil. That number may be higher today. Similarly, Japan has never even signed the Hague Convention agreement, so is it any wonder that at least ninety-nine American children remain abducted in that country? There may be many more. A large number of the abducted children in Japan are sons and daughters of American servicemen or -women who wore their country's colors proudly, married Japanese men or women, had kids, and then were utterly abandoned. As Bernie Aronson has said, the system to bring back abducted children is broken and needs to be fixed.

The game plan for most abductors is fairly simple. Keep filing legal actions until the left-behind parent gives up due to financial, physical, or emotional exhaustion. The abductors play the clock out until they break down the left-behind parent. Sadly, that is what usually happens.

That's why Congressman Chris Smith proposed leveling the playing field through the legislation he introduced in June 2009 making the battle for abducted children a government-to-government issue, rather than a government-to-individual or -family issue. Most individuals or families lack the resources to fight against a foreign legal system for any prolonged period of time. Currently, there's no real mechanism for parents in the United States to fight for their kids—no system that works with the help of the government, that is. That's why, along with Congressman Smith, Bernard Aronson, and the Bring Sean Home Foundation, I have been calling for reforms.

From Sean's and my experience in dealing with an international abduction, and of course, through my many conversations with Bernie Aronson and Congressman Chris Smith, I've settled on two main steps that could help prevent international parental abductions and provide for immediate assistance when such abductions happen.

First, we need a high-level advocate in the State Department, a special ambassador, so to speak, empowered to deal directly with abduction issues. This person should report to the U.S. Congress about every abducted child. Think of it. I went more than four years before anyone in the government really took action to help bring my son home. Just knowing that such a high-level position existed, that a parent could not expect to abscond with a child without the full weight of the U.S. government being brought to bear in opposition, could deter many parental abductions. In Congressman Smith's bill, HR 3240, the International Child Abduction Prevention Act, he advocates for an “ambassador-at-large” to work on these issues with a single-minded focus. A similar position in human trafficking legislation proved very effective.

Second, our government should impose a range of sanctions and other punitive measures on countries that refuse to comply with the Hague Convention guidelines for dealing with international parental child abduction.

HR 3240 lists eighteen specific punitive measures our country would take against countries that harbored or facilitated the abduction of children by their parents. We have established these kinds of stipulations to combat the horrendous crime of human trafficking, through legislation also written by Congressman Smith, and the same sort of penalties can be imposed on those who engage in or foster international parental child abduction. These punitive measures would be clearly spelled out in advance. No surprises, but no compromise either.

Thanks in part to the worldwide attention this issue received because of Sean's abduction, in 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for a special ambassador to deal with the issue of abducted children. That's progress, and it is a good first step, but not enough. We all know that rules without consequences are meaningless. If a parent reprimands a child for misbehaving, and the child promises to behave but doesn't, if there are no consequences, nothing will change. The same can be said of nations that flagrantly abuse abduction. As long as we keep saying, “We're really upset. We're really upset,” but do nothing to motivate compliance, nothing will happen. Or, as Bernie puts it, “A diplomatic request for which there are no consequences for refusal is just a sophisticated version of begging.” If nations harboring or facilitating abductors don't pay a price, nothing will change. Until other countries learn that the United States is willing to put some teeth into these measures, we will continue to be regarded as a paper tiger. And children will continue to disappear.

Senator Frank Lautenberg saw the relationship between punitive measures and Sean's return. “It didn't happen because we were being nice. It happened because we decided to get tough,” he said. “We put a hold on a bill that would give Brazil $2.75 billion worth of trade opportunity, and then they decided to listen to their courts, who said return the boy to his father. I put a hold on the bill with a promise that if the boy was returned, I would take it off, and I responded quickly, because the mission was not to punish Brazil; the mission was to get the boy back to his natural father.”

 

 

PEOPLE SOMETIMES ASK me, “Were there any good guys? Were there any white hats in your story?”

I reply, “Yes, lots of them.” I'll be forever grateful to every person who helped Sean get home, from Mom and Dad and our extended family, Mark DeAngelis, and Congressman Smith to the little lady three thousand miles away who said a prayer for us in her church. Every prayer was needed, every positive thought and letter was important, because, as it was, we got out of there by the skin of our teeth. When I stop to think how many heroes showed up in Sean's and my life, I am overwhelmed. Honestly, there are too many to list, but I am truly thankful for each one.

The Brazilian legal system, though often a source of great consternation to me, eventually worked in Sean's and my favor. It took far too long, but they did the right thing. Bernie offered me valuable insight into the attitudes in Brazil that influenced our case. “In fairness to the Brazilians, it was sort of a war between the old Brazil and the new Brazil—the old Brazil represented by the Lins e Silvas and their cronyism, and the modern Brazil that is trying to become a player on the international scene and a nation ruled by law.” The new Brazil was exemplified by the courageous and articulate Patricia Lomego, who, once the Brazilian Central Authority unreservedly supported the case, was a tireless advocate for the application of the Hague Convention. There were and remain good people in the judiciary and the Supreme Court of Brazil who wanted to do the right thing.

Ricardo and his young lawyers fared well in facing up to one of the most powerful and influential families in the country. Tricia Apy served well, too, especially in advancing my Hague petition in a timely manner, a key point that gave me a firm foundation from which to operate. Had Tricia and Ricardo not been so meticulous with every court filing and response, surely Sean's abductors would have found some legal loophole, however small it might have been.

To me, the Brazilian people who rallied to my side were heroes. Some Brazilian journalists changed their tune, and were more honest and almost sympathetic in their coverage of the story.

The court-ordered psychiatrists who brought the report describing the parental alienation to which Sean was being subjected were also heroes. It took enormous courage on their part to go against what the Lins e Silvas expected.

Secretary Clinton and President Obama should also receive some credit. Nobody would have criticized them had they not raised the issue of Sean's abduction, especially when there were so many other important, pressing matters that begged for their attention. Moreover, it is likely that neither of them, nor Tom Shannon and Dan Restrepo, who went above and beyond the call of duty in mobilizing the U.S. government behind my case, would have done so without the quiet persistence of Robert Gelbard.

And of course, Bernard Aronson was a hero. Bernie spent a year of his life working on Sean's case. Without Bernie's willingness to use his knowledge and influence in positive ways, it is highly unlikely that our case would have risen to such high political levels. Moreover, Bernie's savvy in evoking media interest and coverage was a marvelous gift to us. A few months after Sean was home, Bernie invited us to attend a baseball game with him in Washington, D.C. Bernie arranged for us to go down onto the field to watch batting practice and get autographs from the players. Sean loved it, and so did I!

Later that summer we went to another game, and at the end of the game, the Nationals allowed the kids attending to run the bases. Sean and one of Wendy's boys went down onto the field with me to run the bases.

Watching from the stands, Bernie said, “This is just perfect. A normal day: a father and his son at the ballpark. This is what the fight was all about.”

During that trip, we also got to visit the television studio of
America's Most Wanted
, located at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. Wendy's boys and Sean even got to listen in on the tipsters' calls during a segment of the show in which a bad guy was profiled. Avery Mann, John Walsh's assistant, showed us around and gave us practical tips on how to help and encourage families of abducted children. Like John Walsh, Avery shares our passion for helping bring home abducted children, and we hope to work together closely in the future.

Certainly, Congressman Chris Smith; his wife, Marie; and his chief of staff, Mary Noonan, are true heroes to whom Sean and I will remain forever grateful. It is impossible to express how much respect and admiration I have for them, and how deeply thankful I am for their self-effacing, indefatigable efforts to bring Sean home. Similarly, Mark DeAngelis and Bob D'Amico, who first set up the Web site and formed the foundation Bring Sean Home, worked as though Sean were their own son. Today, they continue to lead the organization as we attempt to bring attention to other parental child abduction cases. The organization itself, Bring Sean Home, and the power of the Internet became major factors in our case. At one point, while I was holed up in my hotel room during the last trip to Brazil, I watched a thread on our Web site log more than fifty thousand hits in twenty minutes. Supporters were constantly on the site, posting news, providing updates, and organizing vigils. Interestingly, many of the supporters were from Brazil. They are all heroes to Sean and me.