Thread: Mother wants Obama to help get kids back

Mother wants Obama to help get kids back
MIDLOTHIAN | Father fled with 4 girls to West Bank, she says

July 22, 2008Recommend

BY MAUREEN O'DONNELL Staff Reporter/modonnell@suntimes.com
A Midlothian mom is hoping Sen. Barack Obama's trip to the Mideast will shine light on what she says amounts to the kidnapping of her four young daughters by her estranged Palestinian husband.

Colleen Davis Bargouthi held a news conference Monday to appeal to Obama to visit her daughters, ages 6 to 11, who are living with her husband in the West Bank. She said he has plans for the girls after high school to wed cousins in arranged marriages.

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Bargouthi, 36, said she met Yasser Shibli Bargouthi, 38, when he was in the United States on a student visa. They married in 1994 and had daughters Emily, 11; Hannah, 8; Amanda, 6, and Sarah, 5. The marriage was troubled, she said, but she never expected him to take the children.

She said her nightmare began in 2007, when a family visit to her in-laws near Ramallah stretched to 10 months. Her husband announced they were there to stay, she said. Bargouthi said she was kept a virtual prisoner in her in-laws' home. She said her husband hit her and menaced her with guns, saying he could kill her.

He kicked her out of the house and told her he would return the girls if she went home and found a job and a place for the family, she said. She returned to the United States in May with her son from her first marriage, Ricky, 15. She found work as a cabdriver.

Yasser Shibli Bargouthi has since told her the girls will never leave, she said. She calls every other day, but "I'm only allowed to speak with the speakerphone on. If Yasser hears me say anything he disapproves of, he will disconnect the phone call." He is also planning to remarry, she said.

Bargouthi, flanked by international-law attorneys, said she's repulsed by her in-laws' talk of arranged marriages for the girls to cousins. "It's not only immoral, it's unhealthy, and it's against the law in most places,'' she said.

Her younger daughters are already losing their English, she said. But one told her mother she didn't like her new bed, saying: " 'It feels like a doughnut -- it's empty in the middle without you.' "

Obama's office said the senator "has been working with the State Department on behalf of Ms. Bargouthi. Our office will do everything in its power to ensure that the State Department gives this case the attention that it deserves."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/o ... 2.article#

DO NOT MARRY A PERSON FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY

AND DO NOT HAVE A CHILD BY SOMEONE FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY

SIMPLY PUT IF YOU DO YOU ARE ASKING FOR A TROUBLED LIFE

DO NOT MARRY A PERSON FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY

AND DO NOT HAVE A CHILD BY SOMEONE FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY

SIMPLY PUT IF YOU DO YOU ARE ASKING FOR A TROUBLED LIFE

Exactly....especially if they are from a totally different culture. I tell you this world travel and dual citizenship and all this is going to be a nightmare for alot of people. They pushed this agenda ahead without thinking of all of the potential problems. Heck we can't find missing children or people here and now it's global? Dead beat parents and abducted kids and we have nothing in place to handle it well enough here without going world-wide....mixing laws and cultures and all that...... Not a wise move because I doubt you ever know their real intent or just when they might hop a flight and turn your life up-side-down.

Her younger daughters are already losing their English, she said. But one told her mother she didn't like her new bed, saying: " 'It feels like a doughnut -- it's empty in the middle without you.' "

Obama is also like a donut :P

Thank you very much, Foster children in America often times live better than children with their own parents. The last time I checked foster parents get about $300 for child's needs. Another Day on This.....

This poor mother, and children... this dad is just doing this out of meanness.

The poor mother may not ever get them back in America.

Crazybird: my child is finalizing a paper tomorrow, Wednesday, on Child Support worldwide - America - cannot barely deal with children's problem much less worldly concern for this problem area.

Children just need to watch who they are born to and where.

Originally Posted by vmonkey56

DO NOT MARRY A PERSON FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY

AND DO NOT HAVE A CHILD BY SOMEONE FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY

SIMPLY PUT IF YOU DO YOU ARE ASKING FOR A TROUBLED LIFE

Especially from an Islamic country! That is just begging for trouble.

I have heard many of these horror story's !! It happens quit often