Almost a hundred children born to Indian-American couples are facing an uncertain future due to the trauma of separation of their parents and the complex legal issues involved.
The United States is now urging India to join an international convention to safeguard the rights of these children.
Visiting Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, Michele Bond on Tuesday, drew attention to the fact that a growing number of children of such couples were facing difficulties due to ‘International Parental Child Abduction’ (IPCA) and urged India to join the ‘Hague Abduction Convention’ to create a more effective response to deal with such cases.
Inter-country battles“Inter-country parental child abduction is a situation that is attained when one parent takes a child or children to a foreign country to prevent the other parent from seeking custody of the child,” Ms. Bond said on Tuesday following an India-U.S. consular-level dialogue. The Assistant Secretary of State, who is the highest official to look into U.S. consular affairs, highlighted that such humanitarian issues need to be addressed on a priority basis.
“India’s case-load (regarding IPCA) is second largest in the United States which is followed by Mexico,” she said explaining that at least 90 children from 80 Indian-American families were affected by separating parents and the legal problems involved.
“As more and more Indians are studying and working in the U.S, such cases are growing in number and we need to get a better mechanism to deal with this,” Ms. Bond said.
