For Rui Boy

This is astounding.  In this case, the facts really do speak for themselves.

On its website, the U.S. Embassy in Japan has compiled statistics for the U.S., Canada, France, Australia, and the United Kingdom showing the tremendous growth in the number of international child abduction cases by Japanese spouses since 2000, with the number of cases having quadrupled from 2005 to 2009.  The chart shows that there are about 400 reported cases just for these 5 nations since 2005, and many of these cases involve more than just one child.

Addition to/ Revision of this blog entry: [It should be noted here that the U.S. government changed its information strategy in subsequent years. No longer willing to provide accurate statistics disclosing the number and rate of Japanese child abductions from the United States for “reasons of diplomacy”, the passage of the Sean and David Goldman Act gave the Department of State the opportunity to devote resources to an elaborated schema within which to revise definitions of descriptive terms in order to minimze to a nearly absolute extent the reporting of the number and rate of child abductions it counts as such. From 2015 onward, there are annual reports issued by the Office of Children’s Issues in which (1) U.S.-allied countries are reported as being “compliant” with international law and making happy progress towards the eradication of abusive practices such as child abduction, and (2)  in which the Department can produce graphics and printable reports  that place non-allies or the latest strategic enemies of the United States’ favored military and economic interests in a spotlight wherein countries can be labeled as non-compliant. The ICAPRA reports now promulgate “information” in a form that readily serves the geo-political interests the governments seek to support. Each year, hearings in Congress called by Congressman Chris Smith have revealed the inaccuracies and falsifications these reports contain, and the State Department is there given an opportunity to do what it does best: to dissimulate concern, and to plead its appalling practices into the public record in the face of the direct testimony of non-State Department witnesses, advocates and expert analysts who voice their demands and opposition to these practices by which child abduction is concealed, denied, and efforts to oppose and terminate it are answered with a now standard-form verbal pronouncements that convince only the inattentive of the Department’s good faith.]

The bar graph above graphically shows the rapid increase in the number of parental child abduction cases to Japan since the year 2000. Depicting statistics provided by the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and France, the chart shows the growth in the number of cases tracked by these countries from the year 2000 through Nov. 30, 2009.

All cases shown are the result of a Japanese spouse removing the child of an international marriage from a foreign country to Japan without the consent of the other parent, or unlawfully keeping a child in Japan in violation of custody or visitation arrangements. Many of the cases involve multiple children.

In these five countries alone, the number of cases of parental child abduction to Japan has almost doubled in the past two years (2008-2010) and has more than quadrupled in the past four years (2006 – 2010).

The growth in the number of international parental child abduction cases to Japan has prompted a number of nations to call upon the government of Japan to accede to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, and to assist in resolving current abduction cases. Japan is the only G-7 nation that is not a signatory to the Hague Convention.

[Under pressure from the international community, Japan acceded to the Convention in 2014, passing a law of implementation of the treaty which entirely undermines its intended purpose, allowing all abduction cases to be decided on the whim of the abductors, themselves all Japanese citizens. This gave child abductors the protection they desired as citizens of the Japanese state, which sanctions and actively supports child abduction as a principal means of obtaining sole custody of children in the teeth of criminal violations of the law of the countries from within which the countries occur.
As result, the following statement remains entirely as accurate as it was when this entry was posted here in 2010:]

To date, no child has been returned to his/her country of habitual residence as a result of any action taken by the government of Japan.