This week, it was hard to avoid the biggest news story coming out of Brazil: the fate of the Goldman case.
Sean Goldman, born in the US, was abducted by his Brazilian mother in 2004 when he was four. She brought him to Rio de Janeiro, remarried, and died during childbirth last year. Sean’s father, an American, has been fighting for five years to get him back since he was illegally retained in Brazil. Sean’s Brazilian stepfather and grandmother have been fighting for custody.
After winning at the first and second levels of the Brazilian courts, David had another victory: the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Sean must be returned to the United States immediately. The decision was lauded in Brazil and the U.S. though it remains to be seen how quickly Sean will be turned over to the U.S. consulate.
There are over sixty kidnapped American children being retained in Brazil, and there are dozens of Brazilian children being held illegally abroad. Under the Hague Convention, abducted children should be sent back within six weeks to their country of habitual residence where the local judicial system will decide on the child’s custody.
Comments:
Maxine T. McClellan:
Hi,
We have formed a new group in Minas Gerais Brasil called Minas International. It is a non-profit organization for fluent English speakers both Expats and Brasilians living in Minas. We are in the process of creating a website which I expect to be live in early January. I would like to embed a link to your blog site. I have already embedded your word of the day (which is very well done!). Do you have an link I can embed? While I could just include the actual URL I thought it would be nicer if we could use your logo with a click over feature.
Let me know.
Thanks,
Maxine
P.S. We also just started tweeting under MinasIntl. Give us a follow!
Ryan Adams:
Hey there I am from America but I will be moving to Belo Horizonte. I was born in California and lived there my whole life. I am so excited to move to Belo I have a non-profit / ministry that helps local churches around the world come up to the 21st century standard in design, organization, and volunteering…. Anyways I saw this comment about how you have a non-profit that has full speaking english people….. do you have a website I would love to network with you all:) I will be out in Belo in Sept for 3 months… then I will move down there Jan 2011…
Blessings, Ryan
ryan@theurevolution.com