March 19, 2013
The Dutch government and a prominent Dutch attorney received a humanitarian award yesterday at George Washington University Law School for helping the American Holly Collins and her children receive asylum in Holland twenty years ago as they escaped from an abusive husband and father from whom the American government failed to protect them.
These efforts and the story of this family’s saga involving domestic violence are documented in the film No Way Out But One. Holly Collins became the first American woman granted asylum by the government of the Netherlands.
Els Lucas is the Dutch attorney who helped Holly prove the violence from which she and her children suffered and the U.S. government’s refusal to safeguard them. In fact, it was the United States government from which Holly needed protection because in 1994 the FBI had turned her into a fugitive for having to run from the orders of an American family court which endangered her children.
This brief synopsis of the film No Way Out But One from the Stanford University Law School’s Center for Internet and Society is very descriptive.
When other countries are forced to provide asylum to United States citizens to protect them from our laws and their implementation, shouldn’t that give us cause for reflection? Shouldn’t we in the United States, our legislators, and those working on writing and influencing our family law rules, laws, and procedures recognize that something is wrong and requires change?