THE FATE OF AMERICAN TEENS, CELINA & STEPHANIE YAVELOW

DUTCH COURTS TRAMPLE HUMAN RIGHTS OF AMERICAN TEENS

The Netherlands – January 11, 2002 – For the fourteenth hearing in the case of the teenaged daughters of American composer and author Christopher Yavelow, abducted by their Swiss mother Monique Fasel to the Netherlands, the High Court of Amsterdam last week handed down a verdict violating practically every human rights law and treaty the country pretends to uphold.


Celina (15) and Stephanie (13) Yavelow, both native-born American citizens, had spent more than half their lives in the United States before their abduction to the Netherlands in October 1999, a violation of the International Parental Kidnapping Act (18 USC 1204).


They pleaded, "We are American citizens! We want to stay in America!" but Fasel, using falsified documents, duped American law enforcement agencies, and authorities in the Netherlands, where she fled to avoid a court-ordered hearing in Maryland. Yavelow immediately filed for a hearing in the Netherlands, which the Dutch scheduled for August 2000. To his dismay, they postponed the hearing to December 2000, then again to June 2001, and finally to November 2001, yielding the current January 2002 ruling.


In the meantime, Yavelow and his daughters met secretly next to canals, in alleys, and behind buildings almost every day for nine months. These meetings were a godsend to the girls after having been held incommunicado for over a year by Fasel, who was aided by members of some cults she belongs to.


Pressure from the children and from Yavelow and his lawyer brought about mediation and counseling for the family throughout the year 2001. This resulted in the girls spending ten days a month with their father from June through December. On the other 20 days of each month, the girls enjoyed emailing and chatting on the phone with him daily. Things were running smoothly, and everyone hoped the situation would remain as it had been for the past seven months.


The mediator/counselor had been scheduled to testify and this was, in effect, a guarantee that the status quo would be maintained. Moreover, in the Netherlands, children of twelve or older are allowed to make their own decisions concerning custody. Throughout the previous hearings, Celina and Stephanie had written many letters to the judges, who ignored them. At this most recent hearing, they were actually allowed to speak for themselves, and this they did, requesting even more time with their father.


However, at the last moment, for unknown reasons the counselor’s employer forbid her from testifying. So, the Dutch government stepped in. Essentially this means that the whim of the mother rules above everything, including Dutch law and international human rights treaties. European Union family rights organizations report that 95% of all fathers in the Netherlands have no access to their children following a divorce, and that this is usually at the mother’s request. Putting all decisions into the hands of a woman who has proven herself a kidnapper and child abuser with a classic case of “Divorce-related Malicious Mother Syndrome” would seem to be inadvisable under any circumstances.


Nevertheless, that is the way it goes in the Netherlands, the land where women’s rights have been taken so far that men no longer have many rights left themselves, and fathers have less than that. Because the children did not have their counselor present to stick up for their interests, the judges summarily granted all the mother’s requests no matter how outrageous. Yavelow is now forbidden all contact with his daughters, whether email, mail, phone, or waving to them on the street.

Reason given: “mother’s request.”

Also, at the mother’s request, the judges reduced access from 10 days per month to every other Saturday. However, immediately following the court ruling, Fasel’s lawyer informed Yavelow’s that she did not intend to comply with this part of the ruling. All access is terminated. She can do this because in the Netherlands, civil rulings are not enforceable.


This fact is hard to grasp by people in “common-law” countries such as the US, UK, and Australia. Prohibiting contact between a child and her parent is forbidden by the Dutch constitution and penal code, as well as by many international treaties to which the Netherlands is a signatory. These treaties include the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.


However, laws and treaties do not carry much weight here. Yavelow commented, “My daughters and I trusted people from the very country that has so many times proven itself untrustworthy. That was a mistake. Naturally, I will appeal this ruling to the highest court of the Netherlands. Further, I’m aware of the fact that on the day that the decision came in and was read by my daughters, one of my daughters petitioned the courts to have custody transferred to me, and the restoration of her right to return to our home country (the United States) whenever she wants. Somehow, eventually, justice will prevail. Unfortunately, through disregard of human rights treaties and their own laws, the Dutch have already robbed my children of three years of their childhood.”


Why did Yavelow’s daughter suddenly petition the court to restore her right to return to her own country? Because, at the mother’s request, the Dutch court also ruled that the children could not ever leave the Netherlands without their mother, and they are well aware of their mother’s all-consuming hatred of their own country, the United States of America, and anything American.

In essence, these two American teenagers are being held hostage against their will by the Dutch government, and subjected to a systematic campaign of de-Americanization.

Such destruction of a child’s nationality and the prevention of foreign nationals to return to their homeland is forbidden by many of the same treaties mentioned above. Yavelow, who had seven paternal grandparents on the Mayflower, added, “This Thanksgiving, I visited the Pilgrim Museum in Leiden, the town where the British pilgrims who founded our country stayed for eleven years before sailing to the new world.


We often hear that the pilgrims came to America because of religious intolerance; the Dutch had passed laws forbidding them to pray in their own homes. It turns out that the Dutch at the same time, had passed laws allowing them to confiscate the pilgrim children and raise them as Dutch. This was a cause of concern to our forefathers who managed to escape to Massachusetts before any of their children were taken. Obviously, they were justified in their fears, as our case demonstrates even 380 years later.”



Stolen Children Network
+31-650-853-863
info@StolenChildren.net
http://www.StolenChildren.net