Close X
Monday, December 2, 2024
ADVT 
International

Indian-American Mother Bindu Philips Seeks Return Of Her Abducted Children

Darpan News Desk IANS, 29 Mar, 2015 02:52 PM
    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.

    MORE International ARTICLES

    RCMP Investigating After 18-year-old Woman Assaulted On UBC Campus

    RCMP Investigating After 18-year-old Woman Assaulted On UBC Campus
    VANCOUVER — Police are warning the public to be vigilant after an 18-year-old was assaulted on campus at the University of British Columbia.

    RCMP Investigating After 18-year-old Woman Assaulted On UBC Campus

    Jordanian Woman Accused Of Molesting Indian Man In Dubai

    Jordanian Woman Accused Of Molesting Indian Man In Dubai
    The 23-year-old Indian man was said to have entered the lift of his office, according to his prosecution statement, when the 32-year-old Jordanian woman molested him

    Jordanian Woman Accused Of Molesting Indian Man In Dubai

    How 'No English,' 'Indian,' 'Walking,' Grandfather Was Assaulted

    How 'No English,' 'Indian,' 'Walking,' Grandfather Was Assaulted
    The lawyer of an Indian grandfather who was assaulted by an Alabama police officer leaving him partially paralysed has in an amended lawsuit detailed how his repeated attempts to explain went in vain.

    How 'No English,' 'Indian,' 'Walking,' Grandfather Was Assaulted

    America's Desi Power Players: Obama Taps Indian Americans To Fix Things At Home And Abroad

    America's Desi Power Players: Obama Taps Indian Americans To Fix Things At Home And Abroad
    President Barack Obama, with the largest number of Indian Americans in his administration, keeps dipping into the expanding talent pool of the three million-strong Indian American community, to take care of issues ranging from combating terrorist propaganda abroad to nation's health at home.

    America's Desi Power Players: Obama Taps Indian Americans To Fix Things At Home And Abroad

    Gandhi Statue To Be Unveiled In Britain's Parliament Square

    Gandhi Statue To Be Unveiled In Britain's Parliament Square
    A statue of Mahatma Gandhi will be unveiled in Britain's prestigeous Parliament Square in London next month, a media report said Monday.

    Gandhi Statue To Be Unveiled In Britain's Parliament Square

    Why Does Obama Avoid Mentioning 'Islamic' Terrorism? Ask Bush's Speechwriter

    Why Does Obama Avoid Mentioning 'Islamic' Terrorism? Ask Bush's Speechwriter
    WASHINGTON - Why is President Barack Obama so hesitant to talk about Islamic extremism — the question is being raised repeatedly these days by many of his Republican opponents who accuse him of chronic political correctness or, worse, of softness on terrorism.

    Why Does Obama Avoid Mentioning 'Islamic' Terrorism? Ask Bush's Speechwriter