Japan Panel Calls for Smooth Return of Parent-Abducted Children

October 5, 2018

Tokyo- Japan's Legislative Council proposed on Thursday that the government facilitate the return of children brought to Japan by either of their parents after the breakup of marriage.

Currently, children cannot be forcibly separated from their fathers or mothers they are now living with in Japan and sent back to countries where they were living with both parents unless the parents in Japan are present during authorities' enforcement of the separation.

There have been many cases in which parents pretended not to be at home to prevent enforcement officers from taking their children away.

In the proposal to Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita, the council called for the abolition of the condition for the forcible separation to make it easier to return children to the previous countries of residence under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

But considering mental implications for those children, the council advised that parents in the original countries come to Japan and be present in the enforcement scene.

A similar rule change will be made for parental abductions within Japan.

Japan entered into the Hague Convention in 2014. But the United States, in particular, has been increasingly frustrated with Japan's slow move to return kidnapped children.

The government aims to have necessary law amendments made during an ordinary session of the Diet next year. Jiji Press