If you care about American children kidnapped and taken to Japan, torn away from their American families and lives, then please:
Call your congressman and senator’s offices.
(Find their office phone numbers here:
http://www.yourcongressyourhealth.org/index.php)
- Urge them to take a public stand on international parental child abduction to Japan.
- Urge them to pressure /call / contact US Ambassador for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, and Secretary Hillary Clinton, and President Barack Obama to DEMAND that our kids be returned home immediately, and that backchannel diplomacy is inadequate.
- Personalize it … Tell them your friend Brian Prager’s son Rui has been taken, and that you know this is an emergency and want to help. 😦
- Urge them to press for this NOW, in anticipation of Japanese Prime Minister Kan’s visit to Washington scheduled for March or April of this year!
- Tell them the kids can be returned without affecting the US’ ability to maintain its strategic partnership and bases in Japan one way or another. The issues are separate.
- Tell them you want them to take a public moral stand against this crime (parental kidnapping to Japan), which has been happening for decades, but which has spiked enormously in the last 5 to 10 years, with an annual quadrupling of the number of kidnappings taking place.
- Tell them that on Japan’s behalf, Clinton and Obama have made open public announcements of grief and sympathy for the 5 remaining Japanese citizens kidnapped to North Korea 35 years ago whose whereabouts are unknown, but have made no comparable or appreciable public demands that the American kids who have been illegally taken and held in Japan be returned.
- Tell them that according to the US Department of State there are 340 known minors who are being held illegally in Japan, but that the actual numbers are known to be multiples of that, due to kids whose cases have gone cold, parents of kids either not knowing what to do, not having a case with or not in contact with the DOS, parents who have become exhausted and given up, and other forms of attrition.
- Tell them to urgently demand that the State Department demand our kids. Insist that ratifying the Hague Convention would require that the Japanese implement legislation to backdate the Hague to deal with current cases of abducted children because the Hague Convention alone is not automatically retroactive. No country has ever backdated the Hauge, so it is extremely unlikely that Japan, which has resisted the convention for 30 years, would do so. Therefore the current US policy of urging the Japanese to ratify the Hauge is NOT ENOUGH to both prevent further abductions and bring our abducted children home!
- Tell them that France and members of the European Union are in the process, right now, of gathering to protest the ongoing abduction of children to Japan, and that joining in this international pressure build up is timely, now.
- Finally, tell them that bringing congressional/ senatorial pressure on the State Department is REQUIRED in order for the Dept of State and the US President to discover that they have to act because it becomes politically necessary. Otherwise, they have stated that absent that pressure, they will simply allow the status quo of continuing abductions.
The time is now to end abduction of children to Japan.
And last,
12. Please consider forwarding this message to others (individuals or organizations) who you feel may find it compelling and would also be willing to make a call.
We can only succeed if we join together in great numbers to change the fate of our children and push for action.
Thank you!
For Rui Boy 