BACHome Letter Read During Congressional Hearing

Bring Abducted Children Home (BAC Home) is an organization dedicated to raising awareness and facilitating the return of over 321 United States citizen children kidnapped to and/or wrongfully retained in Japan.  Japan has announced its intention to sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.  While BAC Home is cautiously optimistic over this announcement, we are also sincerely concerned about Japan’s compliance with the Hague.  We thus have a six-point policy platform that we believe is essential to return kidnapped American children and prevent further abductions:

 

I. Japan Must Immediately Return the Stolen Children

 

We implore in the strongest possible and unambiguous terms that the President and The Department of State demand the return of children taken in violation of U.S. Court orders. It is imperative that these demands are made forcefully, openly, publicly, and fervently until Japan returns each and every child back home.

II. Japan Must Provide Unfettered Access to Our Precious Children

 

Article 21 of The Hague states that the Central Authority will “promote the peaceful enjoyment of access rights and the fulfillment of any conditions to which the exercise of such rights may be subject. The central Authorities shall take steps to remove, as far as possible, all obstacles to the exercise of such rights.” To this end, based on their outdated domestic laws, Japan’s idea of access is extremely restricted, and equivalent to the type of access that Felon Criminals in the United States have to their children. We want Japan’s assurance that access granted to Left-Behind Parents under The Hague will be unfettered, unmonitored and dignified to the extent possible.

III. Japanese Must Enact Retroactive Laws

 

The Hague is not inherently retroactive and effectively does nothing for existing cases. Japan would have to enact legislation within their country in order to make it retroactive. There is no indication that the Government of Japan would consider such measures by legislation or policy. The United States owes it to these children to demand retroactivity as part of a bilateral framework for returning the kidnapping victims to U.S. soil without delay.

IV. Japan’s Hague Implementation Legislation must meet the spirit of the Hague

 

It is crucial that any provisions in Japan’s drafted legislation related to rejecting requests to return a child, are in full compliance with the intent of The Hague Convention. This means that allegations of domestic violence must be accompanied by rules of evidence, with that evidence almost always originating in the country of habitual residence from which the child was taken. An allegation by a spouse alone should not be considered adequate to prevent the return of a child. The current proposed implementation statutes in Japan allow for hearsay allegations unsupported by empirical evidence to form the basis for a refusal to return children under Japan’s planned Hague mechanisms. It is our view that any allegations of abuse must be proven in a court of law in the place of habitual residence. As it currently stands abductors are able to cut off all access of the child to the Left-Behind (victim) Parent through unsubstantiated hearsay allegations filed in Japan. Facts and evidence are optional, but not necessary under Japan’s proposed system for Hague Return Denial.

Additionally, while the possibility exists of utilizing the civil remedies of The Hague in lieu of criminal remedies, the fact that international child abduction exists as a crime in the country of habitual residence cannot be used as a reason to not return the child, as Japan currently plans to require. If this were the case, then NO children could EVER be returned to the United States because the act of International Parental Kidnapping is a federal crime in the United States.

V. Japan Must Unambiguously Define the “Best Interest of the Child”

 

It is well known and researched in the legal community that for years the Japanese government has used the subjective phrase “best interest of the child” to uphold the status quo in court cases and deny any access by American parents, whereby each judge individually defines “best interest” without any standards or guidance in order to craft a ruling that will prevent the child from meeting with the American parent. The “best interest” of a child has been used as a “catch all” phrase to justify judicial rulings condemning the U.S. child from being returned to the country or home of habitual residence or of upholding pre-existing visitation schedules. In one reported case, custody of a child was given to a mother because the “best interest” analysis required that she live in a house with a Japanese garden, which the mother had and the American father did not.

 

VI. Japan Must Immediately Locate Our Missing Children

 

The following American children abducted to and/or wrongfully retained in Japan are unaccounted for and/or the present location is unknown since the earthquake/tsunami and the ongoing nuclear disaster:

Kianna Berg, Gunnar Berg,  Keisuke Collins, Michiru Donaldson, Kai Endo, David Gesselman, Joshua Gesselman, Ayako Lucy Greenberg, Shanon Yuda Ishida, Riki Ishida, Ricky Kephart, Noelle Kephart, Mary Victoria Lake, Yuuki McCoy, “Mochi” Atomu Imoto Morehouse, Rui Prager, Rion Suzuki, Tiana Weed, Takoda Weed and Kaya Wong.