I was the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee when the Senate unanimously gave its advice and consent to ratify the Child Support Convention.

Back when I was a prosecutor, I saw how hard too many families had to scrape and claw just to receive their just support, and I saw how far the United States came in the last decades of righting that wrong. It was the right thing to do to help families in the United States and other countries get what is rightfully theirs. I am grateful to Congress for passing this important implementing legislation. It’s a reminder of how the Administration and Congress can work together across party lines to help lead the international community on issues that really matter in peoples’ lives.

The United States was the first country to sign the Convention in 2007. Protection of our most vulnerable citizens, our children, is fundamental to who we are. We stick up for kids. We protect the innocent. Every child deserves to be supported by both parents. We know that recovering child support when the child and one parent are in one country and the other parent is in another is difficult and too often impossible. The United States has a comprehensive system to establish, recognize and enforce domestic and international child support obligations. The Convention just requires that all treaty partners have similar systems in place and, as a result, more children in the United States and abroad will be receiving more support, more expeditiously than ever before.