Archive Report
Archive Report
Children and Divorce
Rising Concern Over Parental Kidnaping
Malcolm Wallop is a Republican senator from Wyoming, a state where energy development, land use and water are the big issues. But since he was elected in 1976, Wallop has spent a good deal of his time working on two problems that are far removed from those issues: child custody laws and parental kidnapping. Wallop's interest in these issues stems from the complaints of a constituent whose ex-husband took their two-year-old child and fled to his native Colombia. Wallop found there was nothing he could do under existing law, which exempted parents from federal prosecution for interstate abduction of their children. “I could not help but wonder what psychological effect this emotional ordeal would have on the two-year-old ...