Man gets arrested for trying to take his kidnapped children home.

I don't think that's it at all. Not for this, anyway. Japan and America have butted heads on tons of issues in recent history. I simply don't think this is a big enough case, personally. The ending is pretty much already decided. Best case scenario is he's deported... then he'll never see his kids until they're 18.

I don't recall any being lynched in the US as of late either. The point is the blatant racism... even when it's meant to be a favor (like blurting out in absolutely horrid English to "please wait" or some shit).

 

So, I can't become a Greek Ninja?

 

Actually, it's not just Japan. America and certain European countries have very progressive laws regarding minors. However there are well documented cases of children being taken by either fathers or mothers from various countries around the World and the other parent struggling to maintain any contact with their lawful children from that point onwards. It's a legal nightmare in many Western countries and forget the likes of the Middle East and Third World countries.

My ex-wife obtained a passport for my daughter and if she had decided to take her out of the UK for any longer than 4 weeks then there is a warrant issued for her arrest. However, whilst she remains outside of the UK the chances of her being arrested or my daughter returned is almost zero. If I then turned up out of the blue and tried to take my daughter back to the UK without my ex-wife's knowledge or forcibly, I too would be arrested.

Sadly this happens far more frequently than anyone is prepared to admit.

 

The kids should be more informed. If the kid makes life a living hell for the parent who abducted them, it's a better chance they will be returned back home. Especially if you start making accusations of sexual assult or abuse. Regardless if its bogus or not, people will take notice and hopefully do something about it.

 

That's missing the point here. The point is that, unlike the other countries you were referencing, Japan is apparently a first-world country that people generally believe is advanced not only technologically, but also in things like human rights issues, international peace issues (watch any news regarding Japan in August and all you hear is stuff about world peace, anti-nuclear movements, etc.), and on and on. People in the west seem to have a very high opinion of Japan. After living here for awhile, it seems clear that a lot of it is just smoke-screen. In order for Japan to change for the better, this sort of stuff needs to be brought out into the open for the world to see and put pressure on Japan to update its archaic and self-serving laws. I honestly like Japan overall, as much as it seems otherwise in my posts here. I would love for this stuff to be out in the open and for change to happen, because it is a way for this country to improve itself for those living in it.

 

All I can say is this is really fucked and I feel awful for the father. Hopefully, like others have said, diplomats will get involved and sort things out properly, or at the very least let the innocent man out of jail and back to his own country.
You also have to wonder what those poor children are thinking through all of this. That's a lot of emotional distress to put on a child so young.

 

Not missing the point as I make no reference really to Japan as I don't know the place well enough to make comment on it. What I am saying is that World Wide this sort of thing is sadly quite common.

Just stating a simple fact. :nod:

I'm sure that Japan does have serious issues in the way it views outsiders and foreigners as I have read more than enough comments to realise all is not well in the Japanese psyche. I know absolutely nothing of their laws & children's rights so cannot comment on them at all, so you'd be in far better position than me to pass judgement.

My point being that Japan is not the only country that needs to make reforms in relation to abducted children. In most countries the law tends to find in favor of the parent who has legal residency in that country. They also tend to feel that keeping the children where they are, rather than sending them back to a country outside it's legal remit is favorable too.

I've just spent the last 7 years making myself very familiar with child laws in Europe & America.

That's all!

Hopefully you never have to advise someone in such a position as I don't know anything about Japanese children's law, but in most other countries such allegations end up causing a huge amount of damage not only to the person falsely accused, but also to the false accuser. Social services have been known to end up removing children from families completely after false allegations have been made. It often worries me that such services immediately assume the worst, other than in order to protect themselves if the allegations are discovered to have been genuine. There's a couple in England who were accused of abusing their children and when their kids were taken into care, they were fostered. Once fostered, there was no way, even after the allegations were found to be false, for those children to be returned to their parents.

In the incident mentioned in this thread I think the father has done well to draw attention to what is clearly a very serious legal issue and as Breetai states, it is something that needs to be addressed, though not only in Japan.

 

You are missing a point that hasn't been made. There's some treaty to protect children and parents alike from parentl kidnap. Japan is the only member of the G7 that has not signed the treaty. After .5 seconds of googling, it is apparently the Hauge Convention Treaty. Not only are they not on it, they will still recognize a (Japanese only?) parent that has lost their parental rights as a parent, thus, will not view it as a kidnapping, thus will sit there w/ the cocks in their ears when father's like the subject of the original post come to fuck up the works looking for his kids.

You expect that behavior out of miscellaneous countries... not the 2nd largest economy in the world, and the country with one of the lowest crime rates on the planet.

There's apparently a horror story about a guy who married a brazillian gal and the same thing happened. They didn't get divorced though, she just fucked off one day. She died eventually, and her step husband had custody of the kids. Apparently all sorts of people got involved, but it was at the time not resolved. Not sure about now.

 

The last lynching in America happened in 1998, I find it pretty ridiculous how you can try and draw parralels between the two. What happens to white people in Japan is nothing compared to what a lot of black people have to go through in the West, or even Koreans/Filipino's in Japan.

 

At extremes, no. On a daily: yes.

For those that aren't completely worried about semantics:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/01/japan.savoie.custody/index.html

This is fucked up -- the guy is one of the rarest breed of gaijin in Japan: the naturalized citizen. Did I miss this in the original article? I skimmed it again and didn't see anything. This actually shines a whole new flood light on the case.

Now, if common sense which Japanese law is pretty devoid of can somehow prevail, this guy's shining light might be this:

But what is confusing is this:

Uh... how can one parent be a custodian over the other? I unfortunately think someone has an answer to this.

I'm sure in my own situation, like many, since my son is part of my wife's koseki, and I'm technically not since I'm a piece of shit, there could be some nasty matters in a divorce.

I have full props for this guy for thinking of his children first. If anyone took my kid and tried to keep him from me, I don't care who it is - I'd probably have to turn their asshole inside out first before doing anything. You don't want this shit happening twice, right? Amirite?

It'll be interesting to see if this shit is brought directly to the new ruling party. Hatoyama I've recently realized is western educated. Surely he's smart enough to know that civilizations that don't expand and assimilate wither and die. We have our good friend history that shows us that. I understand this is only one miniscule piece of modern day society, but is important nonetheless.

 

Some people really can't see how good they have it...

 

Would I be here if I couldn't? Search around a bit before casting judgement, please.

I'm usually the guy sticking up for Japanese society and all it's little quirks. However, the fact still remains: you're treated different b/c of the way you look --- by policy, not by chance. Even in the the shit hole known as the Southern US this doesn't happen. I've yet to see a sign anywhere in America that says "no foreigners" even if some backwards hillbilly treats you like shit. Why should I not get a bit miffed when I can speak fluent Japanese and some ass clown insists on butchering English for his own benefit?

 

Hey feel free to get a bit miffed, im not justifying anything but it really is not much compared to the bull many people have to go through in other countries like the US and UK because of the colour of their skin.

 

Gotta compare it to something. I'm sorry if it's not an all-encompassing comparison.

 

Is it just me or has the japanese media not mentioned a single thing about this case?

 

Thanks for the info. That's a whole lotta website (the actual convention one http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=text.display&tid=21) that'll trawl through out of my own interest. I've only needed to concentrate on UK law, but dabbled in European & US primarily because of family law issues of my own.

In regards to Japan not signing the treaty, that is absolutely shocking! Only 93 signatures on the petition!

 

Eventhough the court rules custody of the kids to the husband, I still ask myself what made the woman divorce him and leave in the first place.

 

She had a vision that he would kill the children so she wanted a divorce.

probably.

 

This was exactly the point I was trying to get at.

BTW, I'm sure you know damn well that Japan's actual crime rate is much higher than the reported crime rate.

 

More news updates make it sound like she just wanted cash.

News reports are now saying that prior to this incident he had already paid the Japanese ex-wife $800k USD IN CASH in order to prevent any custody issues such as this.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/10/02/am.savoie.japan.custody.cnn

Bitch is a gold-digger that is using the kids as a lever.

-hl718