Our thanks to M for this deeply moving story of an American father and daughter reunited after 30 years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LhBbvys-ve0
Two months after Scott Becker’s wife had a baby daughter, April, the marriage fell apart. The mother moved and didn’t tell Becker anything about his daughter or even their whereabouts. But for 30 years he didn’t give up hope of seeing her again, he hired private detectives, and for the past 10 years had a website dedicated to finding her. She too made efforts to track him down, all to no avail.
Then one day – she was by this time 30 – she Googled a phrase which led to his website, and they were later reunited. She now has children, so Scott’s a grandfather. Watching the video floored me, I have to say, especially when at 0:47 she describes her reaction at finally being in touch with him:
I must have cried for three hours straight.
Over the years a number of women had approached Becker, claiming to be his daughter. In his own words, ‘I’ve gotten taken a few times’. Those women should now be serving long jail sentences.
April describes her mother in warm terms at the end. But if her father had taken her at two months of age and moved to an unknown location, you can be sure the police would have been all over the case. This is just another one of countless cases of state-sponsored brutality against fathers to add to the pile.
As far as the mother was concerned, how could she have had so little humanity as to deprive her daughter of her father’s love, and her ex-husband of his daughter’s love? To my mind, what she did – and actions like it – should be criminal offences resulting in long prison sentences.
We’re going to be putting an increasing focus on fathers’ and children’s human rights over the 18 months remaining before the next general election.
It’s about damned time a political party spoke out for fathers and children.
