Fighting For Their Children

By Massimo Calabresi

The case of Elian Gonzalez may be unique in the passions it has aroused, but it is hardly the only one in which parents are battling over children across international borders. A look at three cases that raise international issues:

Marc and Germanie Dieubon

Yvena Rhinvil, the mother of Marc, 10, and Germanie, 8, was among the thousands of Haitians desperate to leave her beleaguered country. On New Year's Eve they boarded a boat for the U.S. with more than 400 other migrants. When the craft ran aground off the coast of Florida, Yvena was hospitalized for exhaustion; her children were shipped back to Haiti. The episode drew cries of protest from advocates for Haitian refugees, who pointed out the cruel contrast in the way those who flee Haiti and Cuba are treated. After widespread criticism, the Immigration and Naturalization Service brought the children back to the U.S. They and their mother are living together in South Florida, but all three are awaiting a hearing for political asylum. "Our government has really used scare tactics at times to justify the treatment of Haitians," says Cheryl Little, an advocate for immigrants.

Daniel and Michelle Cooke

Joseph Cooke's two children were taken to Germany by his wife Christiana in 1992, when they were 2 1/2 and 1. Once there, she turned both kids, who have U.S. passports, over to the German authorities. For 14 months, Cooke lost all contact with his family. Finally he got a call from Christiana, who had moved to California and left the children in Germany. When Cooke tried to get them back in 1995, the Germans would not allow them to be removed from their foster family. Cooke is now turning to political pressure for help. The case was one of several that prompted the U.S. Senate to chastise Germany for failure to comply with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Khalil Shanti

As the Elian Gonzalez case was brewing, a similar episode was unfolding in Miami with a much different outcome. Maria Eugenia Pereira, a Puerto Rican woman who had been living in Jordan with her husband, left him last July and moved to Miami with their two-year-old son Khalil. The father, Ibrahim Shanti, divorced her in Jordan, flew to Miami and won two favorable rulings in Florida courts, giving him temporary custody of the child. The father and son returned to Jordan April 1. Islamic countries, most of which are not signatories to the Hague Convention, tend to rule for fathers in custody cases.

--By Massimo Calabresi