Child abductions, but not by North Koreans

By Terrie Lloyd

After the U.S. presidential election, the first foreign trip by new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to Japan. This was presumably to send a symbol to the Japanese that the U.S. values their relationship and not to cash in all those U.S. Treasuries that they are holding! Then in a symbolic action within a symbolic trip, Clinton visited with the Japanese families whose children and relatives were abducted by the North Koreans over a 30-year period since the 1970s.

Clinton told reporters, “On a very personal and, you know, human basis, I don’t know that I’ll be meeting as a secretary of state any more than I will be meeting with them as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister.” This was the right thing to say in response to a situation that has the Japanese public outraged.

But there was one segment of the population in Japan that felt Clinton’s words were more like daggers than bandages. That segment is the foreign parents of children from international marriages, who have had their children kidnapped by the Japanese parent back to Japan, never to see them again. For these people, the North Korean abductions of possibly 70 or 80 people pales into insignificance when compared to the hundreds (yes, that’s the number the CRC-Japan people are stating) of kids abducted to Japan.

And while there have been a handful of those North Korean abductees returned to Japan, there has NEVER been a successful return of a mixed nationality child to the foreign parent through diplomacy or court action. Further, U.S. officials say they only know of three cases where mutually agreed returns have occurred. And yet many court actions have been brought against Japanese abductors over the years.

This unbelievable state of affairs has started to cause major headaches for both legal and diplomatic agencies of Japan’s allies, and the U.S., in particular, appears to be looking for ways to pressure Japan to mend its ways and to institute the necessary legal changes needed so as to support and enforce an eventual signing of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Japan is the only member of the Group of Seven not to have signed this important treaty.

The pressure ratcheted up several weeks ago when the embassies of the U.S., Canada, Britain, and France, along with various representatives from other nations and foreign parents trying to get their kids back, participated in a joint conference to discuss the issue and taking action that will precipitate change. While similar conferences have happened in previous years without much more than a bout of hand-wringing, this time, the U.S. and the other Japanese allies held a rare press conference to urge Japan to sign the treaty. Furthermore, they provided information on cases where foreign parents have been cut off from their kids.

The U.S. said it has been informed of 73 abduction cases of 104 kids with a U.S. parent but where that parent is not resident in Japan, and another 29 cases where the U.S. parent is here. The other allied nations reported an additional 95 cases. As this writer can testify, these cases are just the tip of the iceberg. Most foreign parents give up after going through the farcical proceedings of the Japanese Family Courts—realizing that there is no justice when there is no law to even enact justice in the first place.

For, above all, we need to remember that Japan has no concept of joint child custody and that abduction by one parent is not a crime. The judiciary in its wisdom still follows the feudal “Iie system” (house system) whereby it believes that the child should belong to one house only.

Certainly, having a child undergo emotional surgery by cutting off one of the parents is a lot cleaner than the bickering and fighting that many Western parents go through in their shared custody divorces. But for those parents adult enough to share their kids civilly, the law offers only heartbreak and no compromise. Officially, of the 166,000 children involved in divorces in Japan every year, less than 20% of them wind up with the father, and of course in the case of foreign fathers, the number is zero.

One particularly poignant case of child abduction does not even include the Japanese parent absconding with the child, but rather her parents—who were able to convince a Japanese judge to give the child to them based on trumped up charges, rather than return her to her foreign father.

The story of Paul Wong is a story that epitomizes the problem—that of the judiciary and their slanted views on untrustworthy foreigners versus nice decent Japanese. Wong was happily married in the U.S. to a Japanese woman, Akemi, and after many years of partnership, they finally had a daughter, Kaya. Unfortunately, his wife was diagnosed with a brain tumor before the birth in 2004 and this got much worse following the birth. Akemi and Kaya went to stay with the grandparents in Japan one last time before she died in 2005. Akemi on her death bed asked Wong to leave Kaya in Japan with her parents for a while, so that Kaya could learn something about her heritage.

Wong kept his promise, and after his wife died, he made the decision to settle down in Japan so that Kaya could continue seeing her grandparents. He left Kaya with the grandparents while working his lawyer job in Hong Kong and looking for a transfer to Japan. He commuted back and forth for a year and eventually found a position in Japan.

After returning to Japan, he found that the grandparents wouldn’t let Kaya return to him, and they eventually claimed to the police that Wong had sexually molested Kaya during a visit—something which has since been disproven after a medical exam. Wong took the case to court, and despite evidence that contradicted the grandparents claims, the judge decided that “The grandparents would have no reason to not make such claims,” so he sided with them and awarded custody to them, despite them being in their 70s. After they die, Kaya will become a ward of the state.

And thus Wong was arbitrarily banned from access to his own daughter. He knows where she lives and where she goes to school, but thanks to trespass laws, he is unable to visit her. Wong reckons one of the grandparents’ motives for taking Kaya is the monthly government stipend they get for her, given that they are desperately poor themselves—and of course now they have a small piece of their dead daughter, so the emotional ties must be strong as well.

So what to do? Wong has since spent millions of yen trying to work with the Japanese legal system, but has been stymied at every step. As other foreign parents quickly find out, there is no pre-trial disclosure of evidence and no cross-examination rights. Further, there is no ability to bring in outside counselors and child psychology experts to testify for either side. In the end, the judge makes his/her own decision, based on serial presentations, with little apparent interest in whether each side is telling the truth. Indeed, several years ago, I interviewed a retired Family Court judge who intimated that he expected both sides in a child custody dispute to be lying, so “evidence” didn’t really mean much.

So there really isn’t much that Wong can do, except hope that the recent pressure for Japan to sign the Hague convention will start a legal review of the current family law system. There are over 15 domestic NPO groups who are hoping for the same changes—since these outmoded laws also affect Japanese parents as much as foreign ones. But we think change will be unlikely.

So perhaps Wong should take the advice of an old friend of mine, who had a single piece of advice to counter the Japanese condition: “...Get yourself another family, and next time don’t get divorced in Japan!”

For more on this subject, go to www.crcjapan.com.

Terrie Lloyd writes a weekly newsletter for entrepreneurs and business people about business and political opportunities in Japan.

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Latest 15 of 53 Total Comments Show All

OneForAll at 04:58 PM JST - 26th May

I know one parent who gets to take his children once a month. Court has ruled it. It is recent and the foreign parent lives in Japan. Not much but it is different from not allowed to see ones child.
igotchu at 05:27 PM JST - 26th May

You can ask the courts for visitation rights once the divorce is done. But what happens when the Japanese Parent pulls a runner and lies in court about DV and Child Abuse? You won't get access, unless you have loads of money to fight a prolonged court battle. Why should parents pay private investigators to locate their children when its the job of the state? You will see that those with money have a chance and those w/o have none. Its the responsibility of the state to at least ensure that parents have access, instead the Japanese courts will let Japanese parents walk right out of the court room and pull a runner. They even give them shelter when they claim DV and Child Abuse and they won't tell you they've relocated your children to Kagoshima or some far off place in Japan.

Once a month doesn't go far enough it just proves my point that their intentions is to deny the child access to its foreign culture while preserving their Japanese identity.
studebaker at 07:04 PM JST - 26th May

This issue is one of the big ones holding me back from getting married to a Japanese. Do foreigners have more rights if the children were born overseas and have foreign passports?
hakujinsensei at 07:17 PM JST - 26th May

good article, when japan washes it own hands it can start whining about NK etc.
hakujinsensei at 07:25 PM JST - 26th May

oh, and studebaker, it makes no difference where the child is born or how many passports as long as it is registered in the womans family registry.

A woman can start her own registry, but a foreign national may not. He is listed on her registry as a note; married to american national Bob Tom. And dont get me started as to why my child spawned with my Japanese partner can not have a middle name.

Most children have 'japanese' names on their passport, and foreign names on their foreign passport.

like sakura anne kline, will have a japanse passport that says something such as Sakura Nomura in kanji and kana of course. NO MIDDLE NAMES! You would think that they could just put it on and ignore it but the law says that only the tennou has the right to have more than two monikers；）You could name her SakuraAnne but then she will be called SakuraAnne because.... WE HAVE TO ; )

bottom line, as soon as they are listed in the that registry, they are property primarily of japan and secondarily of the mother and thirdly of her parents or relatives. Her father is irrelevant.

bottom line, if you marry a japanese national, and you love your children, divorce is NOT an option unless you want to just walk away.
bakabaka at 11:23 PM JST - 26th May

excellent point hakujinsesnsei..... that the Japanese are "owned" by the state first and foremost.
koizumi at 11:44 PM JST - 26th May

I'm with your line of thinking, hakujin, but ... on the passport thing, please allow me to correct you.

As it happens, my young daughter's middle name is Anne, just as in your example ... and it appears alone and by itself - as her middle name - on her Japanese passport. Her name does not appear in kanji or kana on this Japanese passport. And of course this Japanese passport name is the same as her foreign country passport name.

With regard to her Japanese family registry, yeah, no middle name. This rigid system of names will probably never change.
cadmium at 12:00 AM JST - 27th May

I want to thank JT for letting this article be featured on its website. This is a very important and little heard issue.
timtak at 01:42 AM JST - 27th May

"Does everyone have to change their views on religion or decency so that we can accommodate Japanese rational and eventually marry them?" Of course.

Some of my posts were deleted too. But I saw your posts igotchu before it was deleted and agreed.
igotchu at 05:03 AM JST - 27th May

Thanks Timtak, mere proof they are on the run now and we gotta keep up the pressure.

One of my biggest concerns is they sign the Hague Convention then do nothing about domestic abductions. We have to watch both sides carefully because western governments might accept the notion of domestic abductions as a domestic issue. We should be demanding that western governments put pressure on Japan to change the Family Law here. Now how they change it, I don't care as long as they fix it so both parents have access to their child and the courts enforce parental rights.
JpMoonkey at 05:52 PM JST - 27th May

Why should the Japanese whine about the abductions by NK all the time? Imperial Japan also abducted "innocent people" from other parts of Asia and brought them to Japan as laborers(forced) and prostitutes(comfort women!). They love to deny this past(history). The issue of abduction of foreign parents' kids to Japan must be taken very seriously. There is a possibility that these kids could be used as guinea pig or their organs extracted, as what happens in some countries. Like Kaya's grandparents’ motives for taking Kaya is the monthly government stipend they get for her, some Japanese will do anything for money. I recollect the story published on JT about a woman selling her school-girl daughter. Also, Japan's germ warfare project is evidence of its inhuman qualities.
jonnyboy at 06:10 PM JST - 27th May

I'm inclined to beleive they feel their existing political status quo will die out if children of mixed race become a large segment of the population. In order to preserve their political status quo they deny children of a mixed race access to their foreign parent and culture.

i any debate similar to this, you can replace the words "japanese culture" with the words "existing political status quo". "japanese culture" is a misnomer, the truth is that any change to the existing, perceived to be "homogeneous" thread of society would diminish the power of the existing political structure: people will elect officials that they feel represent themselves. but by using a nice, fluffy and intangible concept such as culture you can inspire anger at some perceived threat from outside. furthermore, cultural relativism has quite a strong foothold in other nations so it is also an effective way of scaring off would-be criticisers
igotchu at 12:25 AM JST - 28th May

Hi ionnyboy, thank-you for your comments. The words japanese culture means exactly what I said, its no misnomer. I would agree they are afraid these children could change the existing political structure, but my use of the word culture means language, religion, behaviour, attitude, preference, etc. Changes in culture will come well before these children have any affect on the political status quo, but this doesn't mean their culture will become extinct. I admit some things may die out, but the heart and soul of their culture will remain intact. My preference for chopsticks over the fork is just a small example. You see, as child I was taught to use a fork and spoon, but in my new home I learn to use chopsticks and prefer them now. I've taken to chopsticks but I've kept my mother tongue. In order to protect their culture, as it currently exist, they deny these children their rights to know more about their foreign culture. How can a homogenous society teach a child of mixed race about his foreign culture? They can use books and their version of history, but unless you're immersed in a culture you really don't understand it. The best way for these children to learn about their foreign culture is by way of their foreign parents. If my words frighten some its because they are afraid of the truth. I don't need to be politically correct for fear it may hurt Japanese peoples feelings. I've been here long enough, seen to much injustice, and gone thru enough personal pain to know the meaning of what I'm writing.
fairyprince at 01:23 PM JST - 28th May

For the most part I do enjoy Japan and the Japanese people.

But this issue alone makes me really loathe Japan. Heartbreaking indeed.

I don't think "urging" will do much to change the Japanese disgusting system.

Perhaps direct threats would work better. Maybe the US should push its thumb down hard on its satellite country (Japan) to get the changes.
GW at 08:14 PM JST - 30th May

studebaker,

Once the kids are in Jpn if the J-spouse wants to abduct they can, foreign passports dont mean anything, they wont help with anything after the fact, passports are only useful when people travel.