§9111 Annual Report

Summary

The Secretary of State must send an Annual Report on International Child Abduction to the right congressional committees and put it on the State Department website by April 30 each year. The report must list every country that had one or more abduction cases involving children who live in the United States and say if each country is a Hague Convention country, has bilateral procedures, has other ways to resolve cases, or has no protocols. For any country with five or more pending U.S.-related cases, the report must give key numbers and facts: new and pending abduction and access cases and children involved; what the U.S. Central Authority sent to the other country and what it did not send; reasons for any delay; numbers, ages, and how long unresolved cases have been open; how often law enforcement could not find a child, did not try seriously to find a child, or did not enforce return orders; how many cases were resolved and the percentages; recommendations to improve outcomes; and the average time to locate a child. The report must also show how many children were returned to the U.S. from each country type, list countries that failed to meet obligations, name countries showing a pattern of noncompliance and the basis for that finding, describe U.S. efforts to get non-Convention countries to join the Hague Convention or make bilateral agreements and to address pending cases, count cases resolved without return and the children involved, list countries that became Convention partners during the preceding year, report on efforts for abductions that happened before the Convention applied to the U.S., and give totals of pending cases assigned to case officers by country and overall. The report may not include personally identifiable information about left-behind parents or children unless the parent gives written permission. It must also include information on unresolved cases affecting military parents and the help offered them, how airlines are used in abductions and suggested airline practices to prevent them, and training the U.S. Central Authority has done for domestic judges and for military legal, chaplain, and family support staff. A separate section must state, for each country, whether it showed a pattern of noncompliance in the past 12 months, explain why, list any actions taken under the law, and say whether non-punitive policy options— including the consultations required under section 9123—have been reasonably exhausted.