The International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act 1993 (IPKCA) is a United States federal law.

[2] Since its enactment, the law has only been used in a very small minority of international child abduction cases prompting parents of internationally abducted children to claim an abuse of or prosecutorial discretion on the part of federal prosecutors.

[citation needed] It was reported in 1999 that in five years, 62 indictments and 13 convictions resulted from thousands of international child abduction cases.

The Justice Department said it rarely pursues prosecutions under the IPKCA, because its prosecutors assume a U.S. indictment will prevent children from being returned.

[citation needed] Speaking to a group of concerned parents at a 1999 Congressional hearing on international child abduction, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight, said, "The law is rarely used.

3378 reflects the Congress' awareness that the Hague Convention has resulted in the return of many children and the Congress' desire to ensure that the creation of a Federal child abduction felony offense does not and should not interfere with the Convention's continued successful operation.

This Act expresses the sense of the Congress that proceedings under the Hague Convention, where available, should be the "option of first choice" for the left-behind parent.

3378 should be read and used in a manner consistent with the Congress' strong expressed preference for resolving these difficult cases, if at all possible, through civil remedies.