Washington, D.C. - The abduction of American children to Japan continues to be a pressing humanitarian issue that demands urgent attention and action. In a May 22, 2024 House Foreign Affairs hearing, U.S. Representative Chris Smith called upon Secretary Antony Blinken to prioritize the plight of over 500 American children who have been kidnapped to Japan since 1994.

The US Supreme Court States recognized that family abduction is a form of child abuse with potentially “devastating consequences for a child”, which may include negative impacts on the physical and mental well-being of the child. It may cause a child to “experience a loss of community and stability, leading to loneliness, anger, and fear of abandonment”

While the Government of Japan seeks and receives assistance from the United States in resolving the 1977-1983 kidnappings of 17 Japanese citizens to North Korea, it has neglected the suffering of American families grappling with the abduction of their children to Japan. This glaring disparity in treatment underscores the urgent need for Japan to reciprocate the assistance provided by the U.S. by actively engaging in efforts to reunite these American victims with their parents in the United States. Despite repeated appeals from affected American families, there has been a notable lack of acknowledgment or action on their behalf.

In a recent development, on April 18, 2024, the Associated Press reported a meeting between U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield met with five Japanese relatives of the abductees to North Korea and told them, “The United States stands with all the families, with all of Japan and with the international community in pressing for a resolution that will allow all families separated by the regime’s policies to be reunited.”

She furthered, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is committed to raising the abduction issue “at every opportunity and calling for the return of abducted Japanese citizens to their family,” the ambassador said, adding that America sticks to that policy regardless of the leadership.

Last month Representative Smith handed a letter directly to Prime Minister Kishida, seeking a public commitment to reunite these families. It the letter he wrote, “Mr. Prime Minister, there is no doubt that child abduction is a form of child abuse. Children who are kidnapped by one parent to live overseas and kept away from another are at grave risk of serious mental trauma, and may experience anxiety, eating disorder, nightmares, mood swings, sleep disturbances, aggressive behavior, resentment, guilt, and fearfulness.”
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“Regrettably, the abduction of American children to your country remains an ongoing human rights crisis that cannot be sidelined or overlooked.” 

Multiple amendments were addressed including the need to expand the annual report on "International Child Abduction to include a full accounting for
all kidnapped children and not just open cases."  The entire hearing is available on C-SPAN and on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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.

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.
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“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.
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“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 House and The Senate both held hearings on international parental child abduction in April. One of the focal points was the State Department's lack of use of the sanction tools under The Goldman Act.

Below is a condensed video where senators ask about the sanctions during the April 24, 2018 Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing, "Abducted Abroad: Exploring the Plight of International Parental Child Abduction and its Effect on American Families."

Representatives asked a similar line of questions in the condensed video of the April 11, 2018 House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing, "No Abducted Child Left Behind: An Update on the Goldman Act."

Rep. Christopher Smith (NJ-4) to Secretary of State John Kerry, "Japan has been breathtakingly unresponsive especially to abductions that occurred prior to ratification of the Hague (Abduction) Convention."

At her confirmation hearing to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy, gives her commitment to promote and protect the welfare of  U.S. citizens in Japan.

During the hearing she is asked by Senator Ben Cardin if she will use her position to help resolve the almost 400 American cases that will not be covered under The Hague Abduction Convention.

Ms. Kennedy states that as a parent she understands the emotional aspects of this issue and that she has already indicated her concerns to Bureau of Consular Affairs in a meeting in advance of the hearing.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KURT CAMPBELL: “The President also very strongly affirmed the Japanese decision to enter into The Hague Convention — asked that this — on Child Abduction — asked that these steps be taken clearly and that the necessary implementing legislation would be addressed.

He also indicated that while that was an important milestone for Japan, that — he also asked the Japanese prime minister and the government to focus on the preexisting cases, the cases that have come before. The prime minister indicated that very clearly, he knew about the number of cases. He mentioned 123. He said that he would take special care to focus on these particular issues as we — as Japan also works to implement the joining of The Hague Convention, which the United States appreciates greatly.”

From the letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton: "Since our letter to you dated March 14, 2011, the situation in Japan has become increasingly worse. It is our understanding that the potentially devastating nuclear radiation exposure crisis is worsening and experts are expressing grave concerns.

We, the legal custodial parents, urge you to provide U.S. assistance in locating and evacuating our helpless children..." 

By the Ambassadors and Representatives of Australia, Canada, Colombia, the European Union, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America

Tokyo, Japan
Feb. 9, 2011

We, the Ambassadors of Canada, the European Union, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, the Political Counsellor of the Embassy of Australia, and the Consul of Colombia, called on Japan’s Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs today to express the importance we continue to attach to the issue of international parental abduction, and to once again urge Japan to ratify the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“the Convention”).

Remarks

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
January 6, 2011

It is a great pleasure once again to be hosting my colleague and counterpart, Foreign Minister Maehara. Mr. Minister, I am looking forward to the 2+2 meeting with Secretary Gates and your Minister of Defense in the coming months, and I am delighted that we will host Prime Minister Kan on his official visit to the United States this spring.

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Kahala Hotel and Resort
Honolulu, HI
October 27, 2010
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you very much. We just had a very comprehensive, far-ranging discussion on many issues of concern to the United States and Japan, and I want to thank my colleague and counterpart, the foreign minister. It is a pleasure to be back in Hawaii and an even greater pleasure to be hosting the foreign minister here in Honolulu. I appreciate very much his willingness to take the long trip from Japan to be here.

Tokyo, Japan
October 22, 2010

We, the Ambassadors to Japan of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and the United States, and the Chargé d’affaires a.i. of the Delegation of the European Union to Japan, the Deputy Heads of Mission of Spain, and the United Kingdom, and the Political Counselor of France, called on Japan’s Minister of Justice today to express our concerns over the increase of international parental abduction cases involving Japan that affect our nationals as well as Japanese citizens, and to urge Japan to ratify the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“the Convention”).

QUESTION: With regard to the child abduction issues, would you expect any good sign from the Japanese government, like the GOJ will get ready to join the Hague Convention?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY CAMPBELL: Yes, I’m hopeful. I have seen a substantial change in recent months in Japanese attitudes about the parental custody and abduction issues, and I’m struck – you know, Japan is a compassionate nation, and the more that my Japanese friends and colleagues are exposed to the truth of these parents who have been separated forcibly from their children, the more that they understand the horrible challenges that this issue produces. And I think we have seen a very consequential diplomatic effort, not just from the United States, but from a very large number of industrialized democracies who have come to Japan and said, “Look, you’re an outlier on this issue. Join the Hague Convention. It will bring you in alignment with the other countries who face these difficult issues.” And I believe a process has begun in Japan.

From the Editor

Dear readers,

Konnichiwa. I hope you all enjoyed a nice holiday season with your families. My name is Ray Baca, and I am the Consul General at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. I am happy to be the guest editor for this issue of "American View," which focuses on child abduction and custody issues.