By Irina Hasala
Journalist, newspaper Helsingin Sanomat | World news

(Japan) Thousands of children are taken out of reach of their other parent each year in Japan. Tapio Tarvas lost contact with his daughter. Jeffery Morehouse, an American, did not get his son back even by court order.

In 2008, Tapio Tarvas was waiting for his Japanese spouse and their baby to return to Finland. After weeks of silence, Tarvas received a message: she would stay with their daughter in Japan. Permanently.
 
"My ex-wife said she might come when the child was four or five. It was a mental breakdown for me." Tarvas only met his daughter again when she was 8 years old.
 
According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child should have contact with both parents after separation, unless it is harmful to the child.
 
However, in the case of Mr. Tarvas and thousands of Japanese couples, this agreement is not being honored. In Japan, it is estimated that more than 100,000 children lose contact with one of their parents every year.

By Yuki Sato
​Yomiuri Shimbun, Staff Writer

An increasing number of foreign nationals are claiming that their children have been abducted by their current or former Japanese spouse, following the breakdown of their marriage. Not allowing a child to see one of their parents is considered a criminal act in major European countries and the United States, leading to a diplomatic conflict in which Japan is being called on to revise its laws.

"Seventeen men and women, including three children in their teens and 20s, filed a class action lawsuit regarding parenting time (visitation) with the Tokyo District Court on the 11th of November 2020, seeking ¥100,000 in damages from the government of Japan for parents and children separated due to divorce or other reasons, claiming that they were forced to suffer due to inadequate laws and that their basic human rights, which are guaranteed by the Constitution, have been violated. According to the plaintiffs, this is the first time that children have become plaintiffs in a lawsuit over parenting time, and a man and woman living in Chiba Prefecture are also among the plaintiffs."

For the second year in a row, international partners of the G7 Kidnapped to Japan Reunification Project wrote to representatives of the G7 countries in advance of the 45th G7 summit that will be held on August 24-26, 2019 in Biarritz, France. The international alliance is comprised of parents and organizations from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The immediate objective is to put the Japanese parental child abduction issue on the G7 Summit agenda and bring about a rapid resolution to this crisis affecting the human rights of thousands of children abducted to or within Japan.

Since the letter was sent on April 24, 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte have made statements to the press on the abduction crisis to and within Japan. President Macron confirmed he has raised the issue with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. 

Japanese leaders and diplomats regularly lambast North Korea for the abduction of their citizens by state spies – one of countless human rights abuses committed by Pyongyang.

What is less known is that hundreds of American children have been abducted to Japan in defiance of international conventions, while at home, hundreds of thousands of Japanese children suffer from facto parental kidnappings.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan hosted a panel in Tokyo to discuss domestic and international parental child abduction. Topics included harm to the children, shortcomings in Japanese family law and how Japan's Continuity Principle ​is keeping children kidnapped. Panelists included:

• Mr. Akira Ueno, Attorney, Nihonbashi Sakura Law Firm
• Professor Noriko Odagiri, Professor of Clinical Psychology Tokyo International University
• Mr. Tommaso Perina, an Italian Father
• Mr.Vincent Fichot, a French Father

WASHINGTON—Parents Jeffery Morehouse, Juan Garaicoa, and Michelle Littleton sat before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Dec. 10 to testify about the same terrible fate of their children—international abduction by a spouse.

“While most children were returning to school, my children were boarding a plane and being kidnapped to war-torn Lebanon,” Littleton, a mother of three, said.

“She had kidnapped our son to Japan,” said Morehouse, the founder and executive director of the non-profit Bring Abducted Children Home. “I don’t even know where he is being held.”

“Time is of the essence and now is the time to bring our children home,” pleaded Garaicoa, whose two children remain in Ecuador.

While the countries, children, and spouses are different, they share the same frustration of fighting to be reunited with their children in foreign lands.
Morehouse won custody of his children in U.S. courts—and twice in Japan—but his teenage son, Mochi, who was taken by his wife at age 6, remains in Japan with his mother because there is no enforcement mechanism under Japanese law.
​
“In the end, the court refused to reunite Mochi and me,” said Morehouse.”It does not matter how a child ends up with the abductor in Japan, they will not uphold laws and treaties to return children to their rightful home.”

Jeffery Morehouse dropped his 6-year-old son off with his mother for a weeklong visit in 2010 — and she managed to abscond with him to Japan.

On Monday, Mr. Morehouse, executive director of Bring Abducted Children Home, called on Congress to step up American efforts to bring his son and other children back from overseas, saying the government’s actions are inconsistent and insufficient.
​
“President Trump ran on putting America first,” Mr. Morehouse said in his testimony to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on global human rights. “Well, America first means putting American children first and bringing them home.”

The network, Japanese Cultural Channel Sakura, uses racist overtones to mock the U.S. and parents of internationally kidnapped children for wanting to be part of their children's lives. Below is the disturbing broadcast in its entirety. ​

Channel Sakura has hosted the Prime Minister as well as other top government officials on their programs.
​
The following is a condensed broadcast version of a news program in Japan supporting international parental child abduction.

U.S. Congressman Chris Smith provides an impassioned plea for the return of "Mochi" Atomu Imoto Morehouse and all children kidnapped to Japan by a parent. The video was released at a May 29, 2017 press conference in Tokyo by Jeffery Morehouse and attorney Akira Ueno at the Tokyo Courthouse. (full transcript in Japanese and English follows)

ジェフリーモアハウスは、2010年以来、彼の誘拐された息子、モチ君と再会すべく、粘り強く、思慮深く、努力し続けています。
 
国際的な人権を監督する公式な議会小委員会の議長として、私は、ジェフリー氏を議会に招待しました。彼に自らの話を議会で証言してもらうためです。彼の証言を聞いた私は、深く感動しました。彼とモチ君が、この悲痛な、そして非合法な引き離しの結果として味わっている苦痛、苦しみ－－その苦痛を知るにつけ、彼の息子に対する愛情がどれだけ並外れたものか分かります。
 
2015年にジェフリー氏が米国議会に報告したとおり、彼は2007年以来アメリカ合衆国においてモチ君の単独監護権を有しています。この事実はまた、2014年に日本の法廷でもまた合法なものとして認められています。にもかかわらず、彼の息子が日本政府によって彼のもとに戻されなかったことについて、私は衝撃を受けました。
 
彼がどれほどの苦痛を味わっているか、それは私の想像を超えるものでしょう。彼と会い、話を聞く度、私はそう感じます。彼は、モチ君が無事に帰ってくるために、精力的に努力し続けている愛情深い父です。
 
1994年以来、アメリカ合衆国から日本への親による誘拐事件は数百件あります。その中でもジェフリー氏のケースは、母親による重大な違法行為がある点で目を引きます。日本にとどまることが「子供の最善の福祉」であると主張することは間違いです。もちろん、それは誘拐された後で日本に行った場合でも、日本で誘拐があった場合でもです。親による子の連れ去りは、児童虐待です。そしてそれは、その状態が続く限り、日々進行し続けています。
 
日本は、人口の多い大国です。そして我が国の友人であり、重要な同盟国です。しかし、いかなる民主国家も、いかに立派な政府であっても、こうした犯罪行為を許し続けてはなりません。
 
2011年に、私は、日本に連れ去られた子供との再会をただただ願うたくさんのアメリカ人の親御さん方のために来日しました。私がお会いした日本側の官僚の方や政府高官の方は、こうした国際的な子の連れ去り引き離しが、子供と引き離された親の両方にとってどれだけ深い傷を残すかということについて、大いに賛同してくださいました。
 
日本が国際的な子の誘拐に関するハーグ条約にすでに署名していることは周知のとおりです。これは、こうした子供の誘拐事例をハーグ条約の精神に沿って適切に解決するという政府の意思の顕れです。
 
にもかかわらず、すでに数年前に裁判所での判断が出ているはずのモアハウス氏のケースは、いまだ解決できていません。父子の再会はできないままであり、日本における人権問題として取り上げられ続けています。
 
私は日本政府の友人たちに求めます。どうか、いまだ未解決の国際的な子供の誘拐問題について、決定的な措置を取ってください。どうか、モチ君を、愛情に満ちた父親の下に帰してあげてください。

Jeffery Morehouse has been tenaciously and thoughtfully trying to reunite with his kidnapped son, Mochi, since 2010.
 
As the chairman of the official congressional subcommittee that oversees international human rights, I invited Jeffery to testify before congress to tell his story.  I was deeply moved. The love he has for his son is extraordinary—as is the suffering and pain he and Mochi endure as a result of this heartbreaking and illegal separation.
 
As Jeffery reported to the US Congress in 2015, he has had sole custody in the United States since 2007. This fact was also recognized as legal by the courts in Japan in 2014.  Thus, it is shocking that his son has not been returned to him by the Japanese government.
 
I can't imagine the pain of this kind of separation, and I hear it in his words every time I see him, and that is often.  He is a loving father tirelessly trying and working for return of his son.
 
There have been hundreds of parental abductions from the U.S. to Japan since 1994.  Jeffery's case underscores a serious injustice.  It is false to claim that it is “in the best interest of the child” to remain in Japan—or anywhere after being kidnapped and taken there.  Child abduction is a daily, ongoing form of child abuse.
 
Japan is a great country with many great people.  It is a friend and important ally of the United States.  But, no democratic, honorable government should allow this type of criminal act to continue.
 
In 2011, I traveled to Japan on behalf of many American parents who simply wanted to be reunited with their children.  Japanese elected officials and government officials with whom I met, agree that the forced separation is deeply damaging—both for the child and the left behind parent. 
 
Japan as we all know has since signed the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction—signifying the government’s intention to properly resolving these child abduction cases.
 
But the Morehouse case, already adjudicated in the courts years ago, continues to raise troubling questions about Japan’s human rights’ record and its commitment to reuniting families. 

​And so I call on my friends in the Japanese government to please take decisive action in this and other pending international child abduction cases.  Please return Mochi to his loving father.

"The Canadian father is far from alone in trying to navigate a seemingly impenetrable and hostile Japanese system sometimes described as a black hole for children."

​Tim Terstege, Kris Morness, and Bruce Gherbetti are among the parents who continue to try to reunite with their kidnapped children.

The following article originally appeared in the July 2015 Nashville Bar Journal.

It’s author, Dr. Amy Savoie, is a licensed Tennessee attorney and a registered patent attorney with the USPTO. She holds a Ph.D. from Dartmouth and her pro bono and consulting practices are focused on parental child abduction and children’s human rights issues.

A new law was supposed to enlist the State Department in helping to bring the kids back, but Tokyo has talked its way out of cooperating.

The following article originally appeared in the May 2015 Nashville Bar Journal.

It’s author, Dr. Amy Savoie, is a licensed Tennessee attorney and a registered patent attorney with the USPTO. She holds a Ph.D. from Dartmouth and her pro bono and consulting practices are focused on parental child abduction and children’s human rights issues.

ABC News Radio’s Eleni Psaltis presents Japan In Focus, a new program that takes a close look at significant political and cultural developments in Japan. On the April 13, 2015 broadcast she speaks with Director of the Hague Convention Division at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kaoru Magosaki. During the interview he admits that Japan “cannot enforce any sort of access.”

Bring Abducted Children Home’s Managing Director, Randy Collins interviewed on KPSU’s Fathers, Mothers, and Families.

Randy Collins on NBC4 News in L.A. discussing Keisuke’s Law.