The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights, chaired by Christopher Smith (R-NJ) has scheduled a hearing on Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 2 pm, called “International Child Abduction: Broken Laws and Bereaved Lives.”  The announcement, including a list of witnesses, is here. 

The timing of this hearing is interesting – it comes a week before the start of a Hague Conference Special Commission meeting reviewing the practical operation of the Child Abduction and Child Protection conventions.  Preliminary information for the meeting, including the U.S. response to questionnaires distributed by the Hague Conference, are available here.

UPDATE: Here’s the final witness list for the hearing, and a link to a webcast of the hearing (which doesn’t start until about 3:30 on the timer.)  Patricia Apy’s testimony is available here. (Thanks to Melissa Kucinsky for passing this along.)