International parental abduction in Japan

In Japanese legal system, child custody dispute including abduction is seen as a civil domestic dispute. Japanese police will not see such removal as "abduction" because such action is not an abduction by a stranger and that children's welfare is not affected by it. Peculiar to Japan is that this sometimes involve abduction of grandchildren by the grandparent.

For this reason, Japan is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction which require signatory government to criminalise such action. The Japanese government will not extradite their citizens, despite Interpol notices having been issued that would cause them to be arrested upon entry to countries which are signatory to the convention. According to Ichiro Komatsu, Director General of the International Legal Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that from a sociological and political point of view there is no Japanese constituency for such a move. [cite web|url=http://www.crnjapan.com/foreign_law/usa/en/state_department_evidence.html|title=US State Department evidence about family law problems in Japan|accessdate=2007-06-18|author=United States State Department]

There are currently 39 open cases involving 47 American children spirited away to Japan. [http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=4342760&page=1] The United States Department of State website states that "...in cases of international parental child abduction, foreign parents are greatly disadvantaged in Japanese courts, both in terms of obtaining the return of children to the United States, and in achieving any kind of enforceable visitation rights in Japan. The Department of State is not aware of any case in which a child taken from the United States by one parent has been ordered returned to the United States by Japanese courts, even when the left-behind parent has a United States custody decree." [cite web|url=http://travel.state.gov/family/abduction/country/country_501.html|title=International Parental Abduction - Japan|accessdate=2007-06-18|author=United States State Department]

In almost all case, such case involved Japanese mother removing the child from non Japanese father. This contrast with situation where Western mother lose children who are taken away by a foreign father often from Islamic countries. Part of explanation lie with the fact that, in Japan, mother is almost automatically gain custody of children unless exceptional circumstance prevail against such convention. In Islamic country, the father's side family always retain the custody of children. In each case, respective participants see Western court system to be biased against them (for not granting them the custody right) and see it as their moral right to resort to abduction as a mean to regain what they see it as rightfully theirs. Moreover, in their respective home country, they would receive tacit political support due to somewhat popular support from the public.

Below are advocacy website for left behind parent who lost their children to Japanese parent.
* [http://www.crnjapan.com The Japan Children's Rights Network]
* [http://www.crcjapan.com The Children's Rights Council of Japan]
* [http://www.frij.net Father's Rights In Japan]

References