Mother appeals Osaka court order to return child to father in Sri Lanka under Hague pact
OSAKA – The mother of a 5-year-old girl appealed an Osaka family court order Wednesday that her daughter must be returned to Sri Lanka to live with her father in accordance with the Hague convention on child abduction. The court order for the child’s return was the first such decision by a Japanese court to come […]
Child abductions down in year since Hague pact, but not all are happy
Since Japan belatedly joined the Hague Convention a year ago, the Foreign Ministry has hailed the pact as instrumental in reducing cross-border child abductions involving failed marriages, but there are still several issues that need improvement, parents say. The ministry, which oversees matters related to the 1980 treaty, said it has received 25 requests for […]
Girl’s return to Sri Lanka is first in response to Hague Convention court order
A 5-year-old girl was returned to live with her Japanese father in Sri Lanka in early April after being abducted by her mother and brought to Japan, a government official told The Japan Times on Wednesday. It was the first time Japan fulfilled a court order mandating the return of a child to his or […]
State of the reunion: Evaluating the Hague pact’s success
More than a year has passed since Japan officially adopted the Hague Convention on child abductions and while the number of reported cases has fallen over the past 12 months, the government is still finding its feet on this complex issue. As most parents know, there is nothing quite so life changing as having children. […]
Custody case a test for Japan, says U.S. father seeking access to girl held by grandmother
A U.S. man seeking access to his daughter said Monday that the case is an opportunity for Japan to prove to the world it no longer tolerates parental child abduction. U.S. Navy Cmdr. Paul Toland is suing the mother of his Japanese ex-wife for denying access to his 13-year-old daughter. His former wife left with […]
Two years after Japan signed Hague, children have been returned but old issues remain
‘What brand of Champagne did you drink?” The lawyer delivered the question with a dramatic flourish, and I suppose it was a reasonable question to ask, even if rhetorically. I was being cross-examined as an expert witness in a child custody-related trial in a Western courtroom. One parent wanted to relocate to Japan with the […]
Help for those seeking left-behind parents in Japan
Two adult daughters contacted Lifelines hoping to get help with issues related to their fathers. One is looking for information pertaining to a legal case over her late father’s health while he served in the U.S. armed forces in Okinawa. First, however, is M.Z., the daughter of a foreign mother and Japanese father. She was […]
Three years after Japan signed Hague, parents who abduct still win
As he sat waiting in a van near his estranged wife’s family home in Nara, where his four children were living, James Cook felt very alone. It was an emotion he’d become all too accustomed to in the years since his wife had taken the children on a holiday to Japan and never returned, leaving […]
Japan’s Supreme Court hands down a road map for parental child abductions
In 2014, after years of diplomatic pressure and countless horror stories about parents losing all contact with children taken to or retained in Japan, the nation finally joined the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. This should have relegated to history Japan’s growing reputation as a “black hole” of abduction of […]
Supreme Court breaks new ground, ruling in favor of U.S.-based Japanese father in international custody battle
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in favor of a U.S.-based Japanese father seeking to reunite with his teenage son, who was taken by his estranged wife to Japan in 2016, concluding that the wife’s dogged refusal to abide by an earlier court order mandating the minor’s repatriation amounts to her “illegally confining” him. The […]