| Gunnar Daniel Berg |
 |
| LBP Name: Douglass Berg |
| Abduction Date: Aug 2009 |
| Last Contact: Aug 2009 |
| Kianna Joanna Berg |
 |
| LBP Name: Douglass Berg |
| Abduction Date: Aug 2009 |
| Last Contact: Aug 2009 |
| Erika Toland |
 |
| LBP Name: Paul Toland |
| Separation Date: Aug 2003 |
| Last Contact: Jul 2004 |
| Keisuke Collins |
 |
| LBP Name: Randy Collins |
| Abduction Date: Jun 2008 |
| Last Contact: Jun 2008 |
BACHome Press
PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
Thursday, September 22nd, 2011PUBLICLY press Japan for the return of Abducted US Children and provide transparent dialogs with Japan on this issue
Hundreds, if not thousands (Child Abduction in Japan… The REAL Numbers –http://bit.ly/pteCAe ), of US Citizen Children have been abducted to, or retained in, the country of Japan.
Japan has never returned a single child, has no legal concept of “joint-custody”, no enforcement of visitation, no requirement for rules of evidence on claims of DV.
The US Congress, in HR1326, has publicly condemned Japan and demanded the immediate return of this children.
However, the Executive Branch has only held back-room discussions. Additionally, there are persuasive claims the DoS is significantly downplaying the number of actual cases.
There needs to be complete transparency into this process, and public condemnation of Japan. These are our country’s children. We the people deserve to know if they are being traded for bases or other government goals.
U.S. Consulate in Japan Gives Kidnapped Child Back To Her Captor
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Osaka, Japan – August 31, 2011
According to William Lake, on August 24, 2011, 14 year-old Mary Victoria Lake, a U.S. citizen, who was kidnapped by her mother and taken to Japan in 2005, in one of the most high-profile international kidnapping cases in the United States, walked into the U.S. consulate in Osaka, Japan . She asked to be rescued from her kidnapper, an act of enormous bravery by a teenager who has been cut off from her father and held captive overseas for the past six years. Indifferent and incompetent U.S. Consular officials refused to aid or rescue her and instead sent her back to her kidnapper.
Her father, William Lake, was later informed of his daughter’s attempted return by caseworker Virginia Vause from the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues (OCI). During the multiple conversations with Ms. Vause that day, he learned that the consular officials had made a single attempt to call him at his residence. They did not to leave him a voicemail nor did they attempt to contact him on his cell phone or send an email. When Mr. Lake brought up the issue of why his daughter was turned away from the consulate, he was told that the consulate would not assist in his daughter’s rescue because they needed to have his written authorization to take her into custody. Furthermore, if Mary was taken into custody the Consulate would have to assign a staff member to stay with her until her return to the U.S., an inconvenience that the State Department refused to accept. They also needed him to sign an agreement, in advance, to repay any airline costs. These documents would take at least a week to process once OCI sent and received them.
None of the other parents we have checked with, who have been fighting for the return of their children for years, were aware of these consular requirements. State Department caseworkers had failed to inform them either out of negligence or purposeful deception, which leaves all internationally abducted children exposed to the same risk.
According to U.S. Department of State figures there are 268 cases involving 374 American citizen children who have been kidnapped to Japan since they started keeping track in 1994. OCI Division Chief Stefanie Eye has acknowledged “that our data is based entirely on proactive reporting and that because our database was designed primarily as a case management tool, it is difficult to provide statistical data with complete accuracy.”
Based on our statistical analysis, Bring Abducted Children Home (BACHOME.org) has estimated 4,417 American children have lost significant, meaningful access to their parent after divorce in Japan and by international abduction. Each one of these is a human rights violation.
This is third and latest episode of gross negligence by the Department of State toward Mr. Lake and his daughter. Twice previously, they illegally issued passports for his daughter without obtaining the father’s signature, even after it had been established that her father was the lawful parent and the mother was a wanted kidnapper.
Almost all of the existing cases involve at least one parent who is Japanese. This case however is a clear exception. Neither one of the victims nor the kidnapping mother are of Japanese ancestry. There is simply no reason for Mary to be held in Japan. However, no one from the White House or The State Department is publicly demanding the return of Mary Victoria Lake or any of the other 374, and more realistically, thousands of American children held captive there.
It has become starkly apparent to the parents victimized by the crime of parental child abduction that the Department of State clearly values the relations with foreign nations over the safety, well-being and lives of U.S. citizen children being held captive in Japan.
Bring Abducted Children Home
BACHOME.org
ShareParents urge V.P Biden to address International Parental Abduction
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011BACHome (Bring Abducted Children Home) parents and members sent Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a letter concerning his upcoming meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister. BACHome is urging the Vice President to publicly address the ongoing issue of children taken from the United States and abducted to Japan. At the time of BACHome’s letter to Vice President Biden, there were 123 known active cases, involving 173 American children who remain detained in Japan by their abducting parent.
BACHome (Bring Abducted Children Home) parents and members sent Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a letter concerning his upcoming meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan. BACHome is urging the Vice President to publicly address the ongoing issue of children taken from the United States and abducted to Japan. BACHome is also encouraging the Vice President to discuss this heartbreaking and grave issue while in his private meeting with the Prime Minister.
Currently the U.S. Department of State has been successful in resolving zero cases. At the time of BACHome’s letter to Vice President Biden, there were 123 known active cases, involving 173 American children who remain detained in Japan by their abducting parent. Neither diplomatic or political means nor the Japanese courts have been able to come to a positive resolution concerning not just American citizens abducted to Japan, but from other countries as well.
The closed-door negotiations between the U.S. Department of State and the Japanese governmen have come to a crawl. During his testimony at a July 28th Congressional hearing, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Dr. Kurt Campbell made a comparison to the similar problem we had with Germany in the 1990s and how it was resolved. At that time, U.S. President Clinton stepped in making strong, public statements, which then lead Germany to take action and resolve open cases. Today, the Obama Administration finds itself experiencing the same ongoing problem with Japan. BACHome and other parents hope Vice President Biden will take up a similar leadership role during his trip to Japan.
Vice President Biden will be meeting with Prime Minister Naoto Kan, between August 22nd and August 24th. The Prime Minister is scheduled for a future visit to the United States, in September 2011.
ShareBACHome OPED
Thursday, July 28th, 2011By Paul Toland and BACHome published in the Japan Times
WASHINGTON — Ever since Christopher Savoie was arrested in 2009 after a failed attempt to retrieve his abducted children, Japan has been overwhelmed by international pressure to resolve its ever-increasing number of abduction cases. After years of demarches and public pleas by foreign governments, Japan has finally announced its intention to sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
For the 85 other governments that have signed onto to this treaty, it represents a guideline for returning children who have been abducted abroad, and it represents a promise that a foreign court will not simply usurp custody orders and “steal” jurisdiction away from a child’s habitual residence.
While the rest of the world has greeted Japan’s announcement with cautious optimism, left-behind parents who have been victimized by this human rights tragedy have followed the government’s discussions closely, and with growing concern. Watching the parliamentary debates that have been taking place in the Japanese Diet, it is difficult to believe that Japan intends to abide by the Hague treaty in good faith.
To date, most debate within the Japanese Diet has revolved around creating “exceptions” under which Japan would not have to return abducted children. These telling debates are in obvious opposition to the spirit of the Hague treaty in which signatories purport to want to return a child to his or her home following an abduction.
Also disturbing is that Japan government officials are considering a three-year “preparatory” period before ratifying and implementing the Hague treaty, yet the same government officials have claimed for the past 25 years that they have been “studying” the Hague treaty, and the Japanese Diet has been conducting a working group on reforming family law for the past several years. With that much study and preparation, why would the Japanese government need longer than the one year preparatory period that has been more than sufficient for most other countries?
As the National Director for Bring Abducted Children Home (BAC Home), a Washington-based nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness and obtaining the return of children kidnapped to and/or wrongfully retained in Japan, and a left-behind and the only living parent to my daughter, who was abducted to Japan eight years ago, I worked with BAC Home parents to outline our concerns in a press release directed at the Japanese government. The press release makes specific demands of the Japanese government in order to assure that Japan is, in fact, intending to abide by the Hague treaty in good faith and with the basic understanding that it is not in a child’s best interest to be kidnapped in the first place.
First, members of BAC Home are gravely concerned that the Japanese government will not be willing to address the current cases of parental abduction (since the Hague treaty is not retroactive).
Japan owes it to these children and the parents who have suffered for years from this grave injustice to provide a bilateral framework solution to promptly return these abducted children to their habitual residence without delay.
Second, Japan must utilize standard rules of evidence when domestic violence is alleged. Allegations alone are not adequate to prevent the return of a child. Evidence, originating in the child’s country of habitual residence, must be utilized to rise to the Hague treaty’s legal burden of proof standard of “clear and convincing” evidence required in domestic violence allegations.
Currently, abductors in Japan are able to cut off all access to the Left-Behind Parent through unsubstantiated hearsay allegations. Facts and evidence are optional, but not necessary under Japan’s proposed system for Hague Return Denial, and this is unacceptable.
Third, Japan must provide unfettered access to our children. Article 21 of the Hague treaty directs that countries will “remove, as far as possible, all obstacles to the exercise of (parental access) rights.” Japan’s idea of access is restricted to courthouse playrooms and police boxes, roughly equivalent to the access that Felon Criminals in the United States have to their children. Left-behind parents want Japan’s assurance that access to our children will be unfettered and dignified.
Additionally, the Japanese government seems concerned that international child abduction is considered a crime in many other nations, and has vowed to not return abductors who are labeled as criminals or charged with a crime. This is not a determination for Japan to make. Japan cannot simply exonerate its citizens who break the laws of another nation while residing in that nation.
For years the Japanese government has used the subjective phrase “best interest of the child” to justify abductions by its citizens and deny access to left-behind parents. Left-behind parents are unsure how Japan’s signing of the Hague treaty will alter this long-held practice. Typically in Japan,the judge individually defines “best interest” without standards or guidance, using the “best interest” of a child as a “catchall” to justify judicial rulings preventing the abducted child from being returned to the left-behind parent. 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 left-behind father did not. If and when Japan finally signs the Hague treaty, other countries will be watching Japanese very closely for decisions rendered based on an illogical bias such as this.
Finally, and most seriously, 20 American children abducted to or wrongfully retained in Japan are unaccounted for since the tsunami and the ongoing nuclear disaster.
We implore the Japanese government to immediately assist in determining the whereabouts of these and all abducted children, and to relieve the left-behind parents of the grief and worry they suffer in not knowing whether their children are alive or dead.
Nothing is more important and deep-seated in this world than a parents love for his or her child,but of equal importance is a society’s responsibility to ensure that its most vulnerable citizens, its children, have the opportunity to know and love both parents. Let’s hope that signing the Hague treaty will move Japan one step closer to fulfilling this responsibility.
ShareMan released from Japanese Internment – children remain with abductor
Thursday, July 7th, 2011NIIGATA — A Mexican man was found guilty and given a suspended jail term Tuesday for attempting to recover his abducted daughter last November by entering his own home, which he had been locked out of in Niigata on the Sea of Japan, and encountering resistance from the child’s grandmother who tried to prevent him from seeing his daughter. Both he and the Grandmother received minor injuries as a result of her resistance and the ensuing altercation, but the grandmother was not charged with any crime.
The Niigata District Court sentenced Nathanael Teutle Retamoza, 33, to two years in prison, suspended for four years, for attempting to recover his one-year-old abducted daughter and take her to the United States to prevent her from remaining in Japan, a black hole for child abduction from which no abducted child has ever been returned. Japan has stated that they are preparing legislation to help settle international child custody disputes, but this action has so far resulted in zero returned children from Japan to any foreign country.
The ruling said it was “selfish” for Retamoza to act on his urge to see his daughter, who had been abducted by his wife two months earlier, without heeding the sentiment of his daughter’s abductors. It also noted that he prepared for his daughter’s rescue well in advance as he booked U.S.-bound air tickets for himself and his daughter beforehand.
However, the court said the prison sentence is suspended as Nathan stated that he regretted inflicting pain on his former mother-in-law. Nathan’s statement was most likely made under duress and after extensive torture, as Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have repeatedly called upon Japan to end their “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of prisoners. The Court has now stripped Nathan of all parental rights and given full custody to his daughter’s abductor. The court additionally placed a restraining order upon Nathan based on hearsay allegations from his wife, unsubstantiated by evidence.
In a similar case, an American man was arrested in September 2009 in Fukuoka Prefecture after trying to recover his abducted children, as his ex-wife had broken US law, abducted his children, and fled to Japan. Prosecutors could not file criminal charges against Christopher Savoie, as he was the sole legal custodian of his children in both the United States and Japan. Savoie’s children remain with their abductor, who was identified in Tennessee court records as being “mentally unstable” and “guilty of serious medical neglect” of their children.
To pacify the rest of the world’s civilized nations, Japan decided in May to join the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which sets procedures for settling international child custody disputes. As of publication of this article, Japan has still never returned a single abducted child to any foreign nation and remains a haven for international child abduction.
ShareBACHome Letter Read During Congressional Hearing
Thursday, May 26th, 2011
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.
Printed Version here
ShareJapan Highlighted During Hearings for Child Abduction
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011On May 24, 2011, BAC Home members completed two days of meetings in Washington D.C. which culminated in attending a Congressional hearing on International Child Abduction. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) who has been a strong advocate of human rights issues and was key in last year’s H. Res. 1326 near unanimous passage last September chaired the hearing.
At the hearing, which placed a strong emphasis on the abduction of children to Japan, Representative Smith announced a new bill that he is introducing to Congress. The bill will create a framework for the U.S. government to more actively deal with the international abduction of U.S. children. He also announced that there will be additional hearings on the issue and a special hearing specifically on abductions to Japan. This is a major step in moving forward toward meaningful change.
The four hours of testimony included three experts and six left-behind parents of children abducted to several countries, including Japan. Representative Smith closed out the hearing by reading from BAC Home’s policy which was drafted in response to Japan’s announcement of intent to sign The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Here is an overview of our position. BAC Home believes the following six point policy is essential to return kidnapped American children and prevent further abductions to and within Japan.
I. Japan Must Immediately Return the Stolen Children
II. Japan Must Provide Unfettered Access to Our Precious Children
III. Japanese Must Enact Retroactive Laws
IV. Japan’s Hague Implementation Legislation must meet the spirit of The Hague
V. Japan Must Unambiguously Define the “Best Interest of the Child”
VI. Japan Must Immediately Locate Our Missing Children
BACHome Concerned over Japan Crisis
Wednesday, March 16th, 2011
Mar 16, 2011 – In light of the horrific 9.0 Mega-earthquake which struck the nation of Japan this past week, BACHome (Bring Abducted Children Home) sends its sincere condolences and concern for those directly affected by this horrific event.
Members of BACHome wish for a speedy recovery and understand the enormous pain and loss the people within Japan are undergoing at this time.
The left behind parents of BACHome in the United States, Australia, France, and within Japan, share your pain in that they have not heard from, nor they know the condition or whereabouts of their missing and abducted children. BACHome eagerly awaits word of any information about the safety and whereabouts of their children.
BAC-Home (Bring Abducted Children Home) is an organization set up to bring awareness to Internationally abducted children, assist in the recovery of children abducted internationally, and end parental alienation.
ShareLetter to Secretary Clinton
Monday, March 14th, 2011March 14, 2011
The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC 20520
RE: EMERGENCY PASSPORTS FOR U.S. CITIZEN CHILDREN ABDUCTED TO AND WITHIN JAPAN
Dear Madam Secretary,
Bring Abducted Children Home (BAC Home) is an organization dedicated to raising awareness and facilitating the return of the at least 321 United States citizen children kidnapped to and/or wrongfully retained in Japan.
As Japan faces the tragic aftermath of their earthquakes and its increasingly likely and potentially devastating nuclear radiation exposure, our children are at immediate and present danger.
High-ranking Japanese government officials including Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano through the Associated Press have acknowledged signs of fuel rod melting to the likelihood of fuel rod melting. The Fukushima plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) through Reuters have openly acknowledge fuel rod exposure.
As ABC news among other sources the aircraft carrier “USS Ronald Reagan and other US Navy ships in the waters off the quake zone in eastern Japan were repositioned after the detection of a low-level radiation plume from the troubled Fukushima nuclear plant located 100 miles away.”
This was detected 100 miles away from the nuclear plant that continues on a potential path to meltdown.
We implore you to amend current Department of State policy and issue the victimized parents of the abducted U.S. citizen children emergency passports without their children being physically present. Due to the gravity of this crisis, time is of the essence.
This may be our one and only opportunity to save them and avoid adding further American tragedy to this situation where one could have been rapidly and proactively avoided.
Sincerely,
Members of BACHome
ShareJapan must end the scourge of parental child abduction
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010By Amy Savoie of BACHOME
To the government of Japan:
Parental child abduction to Japan has become an epidemic that has received its share of dramatic media coverage this year, and even though many countries have long been pressuring Japan to address this issue, the demands for a solution have recently become more frequent, and noticeably more urgent.
Over the years, ambassadors from Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States have all repeatedly called upon Japan to resolve the problem of parental child abduction, but progress has been sorely lacking, resulting in the buildup of international pressure that has finally exploded onto Japan’s newspapers and into policy discussions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In October, envoys of 11 nations plus the European Union (comprised of 27 countries) told Justice Minister Minoru Yanagida that they believe children should grow up while keeping in touch with both their parents, and that Japan should sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which provides rules and procedures for the return of abducted children. Japan is “considering the matter.”
For years, the Japanese government refused to acknowledge that parental child abduction was even a problem, but this issue has finally become too big to ignore. In September, Virginia Rep. Jim Moran warned Japan that Congress “is watching and expecting action.” Now the Japanese authorities are, at long last, talking about child abduction to the media and to foreign governments, although they are unfortunately doing so in a highly guarded and disingenuous manner, often with the complicity of the Japanese press, who use “quotes” when discussing “abduction” in order to minimize the “issue.”
One of Japan’s favorite myths, proffered to justify parental kidnapping, is that joint custody is strictly an undesirable “Western value,” and therefore Japan should not have to capitulate by adopting such a peculiar foreign practice. However, since Japan’s Asian neighbors — Taiwan, South Korea and China — as well as other non-Western countries, such as Nigeria and countless others, recognize joint custody and also routinely enforce U.S. and other valid custody orders for joint-parenting time, this “Western value” assertion falls flat on its face.
Furthermore, loving one’s children and wanting to spend time with them is most certainly not just a “Western” value.
It can be very frustrating to navigate around the Japanese facade (tatemae) of ridiculous parental child abduction excuses, but with the U.S. Congress recently condemning Japan for its complicity in the child abduction problem (by a landslide vote of 416 to 1), and with President Barack Obama’s visit to Japan approaching, it seemed timely to provide a few insights.
• Excuse #1: It is Japanese culture for the father to forget about his children after a divorce.
It is presumptuous and embarrassing for the Japanese government to argue that it is “Japanese culture” to care so little about one’s own flesh and blood — that Japanese fathers want to have nothing to do with their kids after the breakup of a marriage. Japanese parents, fathers included, love their children immensely, and samurai warriors used to literally fight wars over the safety of their eldest sons.
The real indigenous cultural problem here is that it is a feature of Japanese culture not to openly complain about clearly unjust or irrational rules, regardless of their dire consequences. The Japanese even have a popular word for this forbearance principle: gaman.
• Excuse #2: The abducting Japanese parent should not have to submit to the whims of the “foreign” United States government.
Actually, most of the abducting parents voluntarily brought these so-called whims of the U.S. government upon themselves when they went through the process of acquiring their U.S. green cards and establishing themselves as U.S. permanent residents. So this excuse has no merit. The abductors signed documents in which they voluntarily agreed to abide by the laws of the United States, but instead they laughed in the face of the government and kidnapped the children anyway — breaching divorce contracts, ignoring court orders and violating U.S. laws they had agreed to uphold.
So, this cannot be dismissed as some foreign government’s unjust quest to intrude on something that is a “family matter.” This is about Japanese citizens lying in courts of law, breaching contracts and violating statutes after promising not to.
Excuse #3: These women are all fleeing domestic violence.
This is an offensive, racist generalization that tries to portray all foreign males as aggressive, bullying barbarians. In fact, it is often the abductor who is the abuser, absconding with the children so that he/she can continue to exert an abnormal level of control over the kids without the inconvenience of having to deal with an ex-spouse’s involvement. The United Nations Convention on Child Rights has held that parental child abduction is child abuse, and this has been corroborated by child psychology experts from many countries.
• Excuse #4: These are not really abductions. The parents are merely coming home to Japan.
Perhaps Japan was the abducting parent’s original home (where the abductor grew up), but “home” for the children was the country where custody had already been decided, i.e. where the children had been living at the time of the abduction. So this “coming home” argument is specious and hypocritical.
The government tries to convey that it is justifiable for Japanese parents to “take kids home to Japan” (tsure-kaeri or tsurete-kikoku), but when a foreign parent takes the children to another country (that parent’s home country), the Japanese call it kidnapping (tsure-sari) or abduction (rachi). The Japanese government and media behave duplicitously every time they pretend these unilateral relocations (relocating without permission from the other parent) are not the same thing.
Instead of describing both situations only as tsure-sari (or only as tsure-kaeri), the Japanese government cleverly (and intentionally) uses different sets of words that convey two totally different meanings depending on who the kidnapper is.
• Excuse #5: It is Japanese culture to “flee to Japan” after a divorce.
In most of these abduction cases, there were voluntary divorce contracts and court-ordered custody agreements in place at the time of the kidnapping. I do not think that all Japanese citizens would agree that it is an accepted aspect of Japanese culture to break contracts and to lie in a court of law (“No, your honor, I would never kidnap the children.”).
Would Japanese corporations want to align themselves with this purported value system? Would they want to maintain that such untrustworthiness is a “Japanese” value?
Rather than defend this behavior, Japan should realize that it is bad for its international reputation to appear to condone lying, committing perjury and perpetrating fraud upon a court of law (whether the court is in the U.S., Australia, Colombia, France or any of the other countries whose envoys appealed to the Justice Ministry last month).
The Japanese government should not excuse and disregard its citizens’ violations of law simply because the violations occurred in some other country. Neither is it in Japan’s interest to establish the precedent that someone can sign a contract (divorce contract or otherwise) and, after collecting a substantial sum of money from the other party, flee from the contractual obligations by escaping to Japan and hiding behind the veil of “cultural differences.”
Share