Nick Lampson: “I rise today to tell the story of Tom Sylvester and his daughter Carina. Her story is the fifth account in my series of…”

“I rise today to tell the story of Tom Sylvester and his daughter Carina. Her story is the fifth account in my series of one minutes on the more than 10,000 American children who have been abducted to foreign countries. Carina Sylvester was born in 1994 and was abducted by her mother Monika in 1995 and was taken to Austria. An Austrian trial court found Monika Sylvester to have violated The Hague Convention, but she refused to comply with the court order and did not voluntarily return Carina. Carina is now 5 years old and has lived in the home of her maternal grandparents in Graz, Austria; and since 1995, Tom has seen Carina only occasionally and only under strict supervision. Mr. Speaker, this Nation has an enormous problem with children who have been abducted internationally and Congress must be part of the solution. These one minutes are about families and reuniting children and parents. They are just the first steps in our ongoing dialogue with the American people and my colleagues in an effort to bring our children home.”