Czech man takes son out of Japan in suspected child abduction

Monday 09th November, 04:53 AM JST

TOKYO —

A Czech man has taken his 5-year-old son apparently to a place overseas from his home in Gifu Prefecture, prompting the boy’s Japanese mother to seek help from the Foreign Ministry in searching for the boy’s whereabouts, sources close to the matter said Saturday.

The ministry, however, has few means in dealing with the case as Japan is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention that standardizes laws that prevent international parental child abduction, they said.

Japan remaining a non-signatory has drawn international criticism recently after an American father who tried to take back his two children from his Japanese wife was arrested on suspicion of child abduction in Fukuoka Prefecture in September.

The children might have been handed over to the father’s side if Japan were the member of the convention, which stipulates that children should be returned to the original residing place when they are taken forcibly. The mother was reported by some American media to have unlawfully taken the children first from the United States.

While such cases of Japanese women taking their children to Japan after divorcing or separating from their non-Japanese husbands or partners are often reported and cause problems, cases in which children are taken out of Japan have been relatively rare.

In the latest case, Kayoko Yamada, a 40-year-old resident of the city of Yamagata, Gifu, sought help from the Foreign Ministry after her husband, a 31-year-old Czech Republic national, left home with their son on Aug 23, according to the sources.

Yamada received a phone call the following day from the husband, saying he and the son were in Frankfurt, Germany. She has received no contact since then, and assumes they are probably in the Czech Republic, the sources said.

Yamada and her husband have been living in Japan but recently were talking about divorce.

Experts say Japan could seek help from Czech authorities in search of the whereabouts of Yamada’s son if Japan were a member of the convention.

With the annual number of international marriages rising by almost six times over the last 30 years to some 37,000 in Japan last year as a government report indicates, divorce and such related problems have been on the rise as well.

The number of children taken by Japanese parents from the United States, Britain, France and Canada to Japan totaled over 160 as of this May, and some cases involve those wanted on abduction charges.

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Latest 15 of 165 Total Comments Show All

jojo_in_japan at 09:17 PM JST - 10th November

I'm shocked at how many posters are supporting what this guy did! I wonder if things were reversed and a Japanese woman took her child away from the father from the Czech Republic back to Japan...how would you react then?

DOLPHINGIRL ... Have you NOT been following the news about the Savoie case??? DUH!!!!!
yourock at 10:46 PM JST - 10th November

good luck to the guy, wise move taking your kids out of japan before a nasty divorce (Where you know you aren't allowed to be a part of your child's life again). On the other hand, we should ask, how would you feel if your child was taken to another country? Just horrible for the mother, I wouldn't know what to say to her. Destroyed of all purpose in life. Terrible thing to occur. No-one wins. No-one.
griff at 02:13 AM JST - 11th November

how ironic
CandleStickPark at 06:12 AM JST - 11th November

hahaha Funny - WHy does everyone insist that Japan is "backwards" or wrong. You know, I do not agree in any way that a man is not allowed visitation once divorced. I don't like this one bit, BUT, I also don't like the fact that the US is PRINTING money - something I'm not allowed to do at home, and GIVING IT AWAY to huge corporations to avoid closure - never got that kind of help... This does not mean I can just walk into the US treasury and TAKE MY MONEY (I pay taxes...that money, part of it anyway, is MINE).

Same thing here, The man had no right to take these kids, he stole them, he kidnapped them, he abducted them.

Now, he may have had a good reason to do this - maybe the lady was sexually abused the kids, maybe she was going to make them do enko or some crap like that...BUT, you would think something like that could be taken to the police.

yeah I know I know, Japan police are hopeless. So are american police. I ask them to help me get my money from AIG but they just laugh at me.
Makkun70 at 10:05 AM JST - 11th November

Breaking Japanese Immigration Law was advised to me by my Embassy, off the record, they said keep the passports past 21 years as Japan cannot force them to give them up. Of course, in the eyes of the Japanese authorities they would be Japanese, but if needed they'd be another nationality as well. I'd advise anyone else to do the same, keep them bottom drawed in case you need them. It's to the kids benefit in the long wrong as they can decide to flit between both cultures with ease as they get older and enjoy the benefits of each. Keep the passports, Japan cannot destroy them, just don't flash them around at Narita past 20 years old..
Makkun70 at 10:16 AM JST - 11th November

Same thing here, The man had no right to take these kids, he stole them, he kidnapped them, he abducted them.

He's still their father by right of marriage and they are still Czech citizens as well as Japanese, so that's a strange case of abduction if you ask me.

I heard that Japan sides with the mother as in most case it's the father who moves on to a new life with a younger wife. We can only look at Koizumi as an example, he wanted nothing to do with his son from his previous marriage.

I'm assuming the law is following the age old cultural norm and that if the marriage breaks down, it's usually the man doing the breaking to go off with his new wife, to create a new family, free from the stigma of previous relationships and offspring.

It's very feudal as was Japan, the ex-wife is almost erased, this over time has created a situation where the ex-wife gets all the rights. Gone are the oyaji days of old, Dads don't want to erase that chapter of their life fully and now want to see their kids.

The law needs changing or more kids will be pulled out of Japan and good luck to them I say, you take your chances in this life and if the law of one country backs you and you're not breaking any law then go for it..
yamashinaku at 12:28 PM JST - 11th November

Smart guy!
tkoind2 at 03:01 PM JST - 11th November

I don't support child abduction by either parent. But the sitution in Japan is legally and socially one sided. Simply put. Japanese parent wins. Period! This is not right.

Without more details I can't justify or condemn this man for his actions. I can say this, if I thought my partner would abscond with my children and forbid me from seeing them before a legal court fairly decided their custody disposition, I too would take them somewhere that the law is capable of seeing beyond one's nationality and able to look at the case in a fair and just manner.

For now, Japan's position on this matter is like many of its legal positions. There is one law and standard for Japanese. And often a xenophobic standard for the rest of us. Japan should be ashamed of this as a modern nation and set things right. Otherwise the world will continue to see Japan's legal situation as archaic, racist and backwards.
sangetsu at 10:11 PM JST - 11th November

Well said, tkoind2. Actions like the one in the story are less the fault of the parents involved than they are the fault of the Japanese government.
Miyaratmosphere at 09:14 AM JST - 12th November

tkoind2 at 03:01 PM JST - 11th November

I don't support child abduction by either parent. But the sitution in Japan is legally and socially one sided. Simply put. Japanese parent wins. Period! This is not right.

Without more details I can't justify or condemn this man for his actions. I can say this, if I thought my partner would abscond with my children and forbid me from seeing them before a legal court fairly decided their custody disposition, I too would take them somewhere that the law is capable of seeing beyond one's nationality and able to look at the case in a fair and just manner.

For now, Japan's position on this matter is like many of its legal positions. There is one law and standard for Japanese. And often a xenophobic standard for the rest of us. Japan should be ashamed of this as a modern nation and set things right. Otherwise the world will continue to see Japan's legal situation as archaic, racist and backwards.

Well said. That's definitely the way I think.
noborito at 03:41 PM JST - 12th November

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/11/japan.custody.battle/index.html
soothsayer at 07:36 PM JST - 12th November

Given Japan's lop-sided and unjust position on custody, it's very hard to blame the father for taking his kid out of the country. Given that he is the father, and that he and his wife were still married, and that they share custody, then it arguable that it is now up to the wife to go to them and sort our their marriage under a more balanced legal system than Japan's. At any rate, let me be the first (and I can't believe I am the first!) to say that I hope they can patch things up and live a happy life together!
dracpoo2 at 11:38 AM JST - 13th November

@ hehehohohaa

So it is ok for the woman not to see her son again? Why do you hate mothers so much.

The men in these cases could ask the same thing about themselves!!!!!!

The meat of this matter is that the Czech people might not want to help this lady, because Japan is rather pig headed and has not signed the Hague Convention. There will be alot more cases like this I predict. Foreign parents are running scared because they have no rights here.
Jizzeez at 04:19 PM JST - 13th November

Smart move given Japan's anti-foreign father laws.
Vapour at 05:50 PM JST - 13th November

This Czech man didn't research his legal case enough. Czech is a Hague convention signatory and an EU state, which means that the wife can sue him in Czech family court and get her son back. It doesn't matter that Japan isn't a signatory. Moreover, a family court rarely deviate from primary caregiver principle. There is a similar case where U.K. court returned a child to Japanese mother in Japan. Plus, litigation in Czech must be cheap compared to Japan or U.K.