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By Karen Andresen
The Federal Minister of Family Affairs had good news. A new
study has
found that "fathers nowadays" wish "to actively
take part in the care
and education of children and to be consciously involved the
early
development of infants", according to Christine Bergmann
(SPD) in a
statement of middle of July. This new generation of fathers
deserves
the support "of our whole society".
Olivier Karrer, Hervé Chapelliere and Michael Hickman
are fathers, and
they also want to care about their children. But instead of
being
pleased about the minister's encouragement, these two Frenchmen
and the
South African stand outside - scarcely two kilometers away
from her
Ministry - and starve themselves for justice, as a protest
against
German authorities and courts. Those, is their reproach, would
refuse
to produce their children, kidnapped by the mothers to Germany.
For approximately three weeks, each day from ten o'clock
in the morning
up to the late afternoon, about ten men and some few women
have met at
the World Time Clock on Alexanderplatz, in order to spark
public
interest in their family distress among the passers by. During
the
whole time, nothing has been eaten, in order to emphasize
these issues.
Only once could he see his son in two years, laments Olivier
Karrer,
one of the organizers of the demonstration. In 1998, the wife
of the
French businessman did not come back to the family house near
Paris
after a visit to her mother in Hamburg with the almost four-year
old
son Julian.
According to the Hague Convention, which became law in 1990
within the
Federal Republic and is designed to prevent child abductions,
the boy
should have been returned to France immediately. Instead,
the Frenchman
got a form letter from the district administration of Hamburg
North.
Since his wife was entitled to child support for the son,
the authority
indicated, the father was herewith required to promptly deposit
to the
State Exchequer in Hamburg the 239 marks [122 euros] per month
that
had so far been paid in advance by the authority. "That
was the first
clue I had", says Karrer, "of what my wife was really
up to".
In vain he asked the administration to cease payment. At
home in
France, Julian would get "not only all the child support
he needs, but
also the whole love", he wrote to the youth welfare office.
But his
objections did not count with the German authorities. Three
months
later, a family court in the hanseatic city awarded the mother
exclusive custody. Karrer has not even been heared.
Since that time he has lead an acrimonious fight for the
son. "I cannot
accept this as a done deed, when a woman just carries off
a child, and
all the offices in Germany support that act", the French
father
declares indignantly.
For many years, such 'Wars of Roses' over kidnapped children
took place
quite far away; somewhere in Iran or Lebanon, perhaps - in
countries
which have not signed the Hague Convention, designed to prevent
the
club law in marriage.
In the allegedly civilized West, parental kid snatching did
not seem to
exist at all. Until last year the wife of the British Ambassador
to the
USA, Lady Catherine Meyer, mobilized in Washington against
German
courts and administrations. Germany steals children, complained
the
Ambassador's wife (SPIEGEL 18/2000). Meyer's two sons had
been
adversely detained since 1994 by the German father after a
holiday stay
in Lower Saxony.
Since that time, more and more conflicts stemming from child
abductions
have been made known also in Western democracies. For instance
last
autumn, when pop star Nina Hagen successfully recovered her
ten-year
old son Otis from California back to Germany, against the
will of his
father. Nina's former boyfriend had retained Otis in Los Angeles
before.
Even president Clinton has - during his visit to Germany
in the summer
of last year - spoken out on behalf of the American left-behind
fathers
and mothers. For instance of Glenn Gebhard, not allowed since
1994 to
see his twins Glenn and Shannon, living with their mother
in Germany;
or of Joseph Cooke, whose children live with German foster
parents,
without contact to their father, by approval of German courts.
According to the Hague Convention, kidnapped children are
to be
returned "immediately" in order to prevent the boys
and girls, fallen
between the fronts of their parents, from settling in at the
new
residence. But for years now, the German judges hold themselves
rarely
to that specification - allegedly in the best interests of
the
children. Because the Hague Convention also allows the possibility
of
refraining from ordering a return if a child is "opposed"
to it, judges
and youth welfare offices first interrogate the boys and girls
concerned and ask about their wishes.
The resulting lengthy procedure, which at the end often favors
just the
parent who tries the most ruthlessly to inhibit the contact
of the
child to both parents, is meanwhile discredited also in the
opinion of
German family law experts. "A child is emotionally torn
and tossed
about, and will always attempt to please the one with which
it is just
now", says divorce lawyer Dirk Spruenken from Essen.
In the meantime, the massive international criticism at the
practice of
German state offices and courts has shown some effect:
* A mediation group of Franco-German parliamentarians has
striven for
over one and a half years with some success to bring married
couples
deadlocked in conflict back to the table, so that they can
agree at
least on some visitation rights.
* In transatlantic marriage feuds, a German-American team
of experts
created inside the Ministry of Justice has tried to mediate
since
last summer.
* In order to preclude that judges which are insufficiently
familiar
with international law decide about child abduction cases,
the number
of competent courts was reduced from more than 600 to 24 specialized
family courts.
* Since March this year, German judges may decide on custody
in
marriages between EU citizens only if the child has his legal
residence in Germany.
But the Alexanderplatz demonstrators may not yet believe
in the new
times concerning the handling of foreign marriage partners
in German
courts. "I can see no justice", says the South African
environmental
advisor Hickman, whose two sons live with their mother in
Wilhelmshaven. The American Glenn Gebhard is also skeptical.
At several
meetings, the experts from the German Ministry of Justice
seemed
pleasant enough, he says, but they could not help him to meet
his
children either.
For Angelica Schwall-Dueren, MP in the Bundestag (SPD) and
member in
the Franco-German Mediation Commission, the disappointment
results from
the "misunderstanding that we could force something through".
Indeed,
even the most involved parliamentary representatives are actually
powerless, if for example a mother who kidnapped her child
does
absolutely not want to give in, and simply prefers not to
allow her ex
husband even to visit their common child.
In contrast to France, implementation of access rights is
almost never
ensured officially in the Federal Republic, even if they were
arranged
judicially. Whereas French fathers or mothers who do not adhere
to such
agreements must reckon even on jail in the worst case, usually
nothing
at all happens in Germany. That practice, says even MP Schwall-Dueren,
"is an absurdity".
A case of a separated German couple in controversy over visitation
rights ended up in the European Court for Human Rights: last
July, the
Hamburg father even received compensation of 35'000 marks
[17'900 euros]. For years on end, the man had not been able
to see his
son living with the mother. The German courts to which he
appealed had
rejected meetings between father and son with the reason that
relations
between the two parents were too bad for visitation. For the
Strasbourg
judges, the right of the father to a family life had been
therewith
violated.
"It seems to be an unwritten law in Germany that whoever
takes as
stance most opposed to the rights of the children, prevails
in court",
laments the American Gebhard.
Hervé Chapelliere should be one weekend per month
with his son Samuel
living in Germany, German family judges had decided so. Twice
the
French psychotherapist came from Paris and met his child;
before the
third visit, a letter of his former life companion came, announcing
that it would not go off, unfortunately. Since then, Chapelliere
says,
four years have passed, he did not see his son, and he does
not even
know where Samuel lives anymore.
For Michael Hickman too, spats around visitation rights have
had dire
consequences. The South African from Durban must fly approximately
15 hours to Germany, in order to be able to embrace his sons
Sebastian
and Richard. However, only half of the planned meetings have
ever
really worked out.
"I have no right to see my children, just because my
wife says no",
explains Hickman embittered. "This State lacks a Bill
of Rights."
Translation: R. Vikstrom
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