The government finally submitted legislation to the Diet last month for joining the Hague Convention on international child abductions but its passage appears far from certain.

Western allies have long pressured Japan to join the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, and are watching closely to see whether Tokyo lives up to an earlier promise to ratify it.

But the prospects of this happening in the near future already appear bleak because lawmakers are preoccupied with just one issue — Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s plan to hike the consumption tax.

Although Noda’s administration has decided to push for signing the Hague Convention, lawmakers in both the ruling and opposition camps have serious reservations and the bill’s passage is in doubt. According to the Lower House secretariat, a bill was submitted to the Diet in early March but has not even been referred to a committee for deliberation yet.

Lawmakers opposed to the treaty argue that joining it may result in children being forcibly returned to an abusive environment, since many Japanese mothers have cited domestic violence as a reason for fleeing their overseas domiciles and taking their children to Japan.

But abandoned spouses, who end up with little or no access to their children, have been urging Japan to take action.

At a seminar about the Hague Convention on Monday, Kazuyuki Hamada, a parliamentary secretary at the Foreign Ministry, admitted it’s possible the bill may not be approved by the end of the Diet’s current session.

Hamada, however, confirmed that the ministry is treating the issue as its top priority and will do everything in its power to ensure the bill’s passage.

« The political maneuvering is not easy because we are surrounded by so many (competing) political agendas, » Hamada said. « (Given) these agendas, we are not 100 percent certain we can ratify the Hague Convention by the end of this Diet session.

« But we are determined to push it forward because the issue is hugely relevant to the values of not only of our country, but also those of the international community, » he said.

Kirsten, an American mother who attended the seminar and asked that her last name be withheld, recounted how her former Japanese spouse abducted her 14-year-old son, in Japan. Although the case technically does not fall under the Hague Convention, many former partners in the nations, whether they are Japanese or foreigners, experience difficulty getting access to their children after they divorce of break up.

Kirsten said she was granted legal guardianship of her son after she separated from her husband, but the boy never returned from a visit to his father in 2007. Her former husband held their son for more than a year before the courts acknowledged he should be returned to his mother.

« I used to respect my dad and looked forward to seeing him on the weekends with my sister. But one time I went to my dad’s without my sister and was told that I would no longer be able to see my mother. I was really shocked, » said Kirsten’s son, who wished to remain anonymous.

The boy said he spent that year with his father looking forward to the postcards that his mother regularly sent him.

« I was very confused about the decisions my dad made. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be with my mother, » he said.

But after they were reunited, he said he was also able to gradually rebuild his relationship with his father.

Akiko Ohnogi, a psychologist who specializes in child and family counseling and has worked on many child abduction cases, stressed the importance of maintaining healthy relationships with both parents.

Such relations have « an impact on (the child’s) entire life — it’s not just something that happens during childhood and eventually goes away, » he said.

« The attachment to both parents determines how children view themselves, how they view interpersonal relationships and their general world view. »

Other panelists at the seminar included Colin P.A. Jones, a professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto and an expert on international child abductions.

The seminar was jointly organized by child rights advocates John Gomez and David Hearn, who directed the movie « From the Shadows » on the theme of international and domestic parental abductions, and which is currently in postproduction. The event was supported by the Harvard Club of Japan.

Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Minister of Justice Hideo Hiraoka, Minister for Foreign Affairs Koichiro Gemba, Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare Yoko Komiyama, and the government of Japan,

I pose the question: How many children in Japan cannot be with both of their parents on the Children’s Day national holiday?

In other words, how many children have lost a meaningful relationship with one of their parents?

Apparently, there may be 2.2 million children or more from 1992 to 2009, including 4,200 American dual-nationals. This has occurred as the result of divorce as well as child abduction, both international and domestic.

The estimate is based on statistics from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW) and Supreme Court of Japan. Each instance is a human rights violation, the loss of a child’s access to both parents at all times.

Many in Japan and around the world do not know this human rights problem is happening because it is masked by terminology. The issue is often described as a custody dispute in Japan — a civil matter — when in fact the world outside would refer to it as a child abduction. The scenario is institutionalized and sanctioned by every family court divorce ruling.

First, one must understand the conditions. If a parent takes a child from the other parent, this custodial interference is not illegal in Japan, so abductions are not counted. Therefore, it is difficult to know how many there have been.

We also know that after divorce only one parent retains custody, and there is no enforceable visitation. Hence, denial of access after divorce is not counted either, and can be done with impunity.

How many children in Japan are affected by this? Let’s look at MHLW divorce statistics and Supreme Court of Japan visitation rulings.

From 1992 to 2009 there were 4,358,276 divorces in Japan. There were 230,672 divorces involving one spouse who is not Japanese, and 7,449 divorces where one spouse is American. There are about 250,000 divorces per year in Japan. There is one child per divorce on average consistently throughout the time frame in question.

Half of the children of divorce in Supreme Court of Japan visitation appeal cases from 1999 to 2009 have ended up through the court process with less than 12 visits per year with their noncustodial parent. Typical visitation rulings grant children between 12 and 52 hours per year with their noncustodial parent after divorce, but in half of the cases visitation is less than the low end of that range.

These rulings show how much visitation the highest court in Japan thinks children should have. Maintaining a meaningful parent-child relationship with that much visitation is simply not feasible.

A pie chart that appeared on NHK’s « Close Up Gendai » show on Sept. 8, 2010, shows a survey in which 58 percent of respondents stated that they do not have visitation with their children after divorce in Japan. With a divorce rate at about one-third the rate of marriages and one child per marriage and divorce, multiplying the divorce rate by the percentage visitation rate indicated in the NHK survey means that about one-fifth of children in Japan do not have a relationship with both parents. The family is the fundamental unit of a society, but it is not being protected, with dire consequences.

If we multiply the number of children by 50 percent — those who have less than once a month visitation according to Supreme Court data — then we can estimate those who do not have regular visitation with their parent. From 1992 to 2009, this has affected an estimated 2.2 million children in Japan, including 115,000 children of dual nationality, and 3,825 children with one American parent.

The U.S. State Department also reports that 374 American children have been abducted from the U.S. to Japan since 1994. This makes an estimated 4,200 American children (3,825 + 374) who have lost the relationship with their American parent.

What is the meaning of Children’s Day, where families are given a holiday to celebrate their children, while the joy for many is taken away by a judicial system that has deprived 2.2 million families of a reason to rejoice?

The breeze that suspends carp streamers (koinobori) across the country on that day is a hollow promise of parenthood and the howl of a desolate childhood for those who long to be cherished by their kin.

A CONCERNED, LOVING PARENT

親子面会交流ネット：親権者に拒否された親たち、権利の法制化求め設立　／東京
◇６団体参加

離婚後、親権者に子供との面会を拒否されている親たちが１３日、「親子の面会交流を実現する全国ネットワーク」を設立した。子供と面会する権利の確立を訴え、今後は法制化を求めて国などへの働きかけを行う。

民法では、離婚後の親権はどちらか一方が持ち、面会交流の権利は明文化されていない。親同士で話し合う面会の仕方はこじれがちで、裁判所に調停を申し立てることもできるが強制力がなく、無視されるケースも多いという。こうした現状から権利の法制化を求める声が高まっている。

ネットワークには「くにたち子どもとの交流を求める親の会」など６団体が参加。１２日に文京区内で開いた設立集会では、３人の男女が体験を報告した。４年前に離婚した３５歳の女性は「いつでも会わせる」との条件で親権を元夫に渡した。最初は月に１度は面会できたが、夫の再婚後は頻度が減り、現在は面会を拒否されているという。女性は「子供のことが心配でならない」と声を詰まらせた。

親権問題に詳しい棚瀬孝雄・中央大教授は講演で「家制度の影響で『別居した親は他人で、子供に会わせるのは有害』との意識が根強いが、それは間違いだ。子供のためにも明確なルールを作る必要がある」と指摘した。

ネットの代表者、宗像充さん（３２）＝国立市＝は「活動を通じて、子供に会えない親がいることを知ってほしい。一人の親が親権を持つのではなく、諸外国のように『共同親権』を導入する必要がある」と話している。

【川崎桂吾】