A friend wrote this to me:
“Hopefully you will get justice now Japan are going to sign up to the Hague convention Good luck x”
How to reply?
“Unfortunately, the Hague Convention is not designed to bring justice, although we all wish with all our hearts and souls that it were. The Hague may be useful in some countries, in some instances (about 30%) in getting newly kidnapped children returned to their families, but the Japanese have created legislation that will negate any need for compliance with the Hague Convention, and that will put all past cases out of reach. In Japan, all a child abductor has to do is fabricate a charge of physical or mental abuse (there are no rules of evidence required, so it does not have to be in any way true; an allegation will suffice, as Rui’s dear mother has chosen to do), or claim that it would be hard for the abductor to make a living in the child’s country of origin (again, factual or not – my wife earned double what was then my income here in the fashion business), or, the coup de grace, if the abductor might be charged with a crime, violating a court order or charged with kidnapping, then Japan reserves the right to protect the kidnapper. The horror of the crime committed in the US is considered irrelevant to Japanese authorities: they simply start the story of the kidnapping over again once the child has been successfully hidden in Japan, out of reach of his daddy. And in the worst injustice with regard to Japan’s relationship with all other governments, the Japanese allow their attorneys to simply say “Japan gets jurisdiction over this case” without regard for the child’s actual country of residence and origin. My son was born and raised in the U.S., lived his entire life here for 4 1/2 years. I have full legal custody, of which she has been informed. Yet, my wife’s lawyer can walk into a court room in Japan and say, “we have jurisdiction over this American child. We claim the case for Japan, because he is here now” … having been abducted. In this and many other ways, the Japanese state sponsors and entices its people to abduct children, while the governments of the world stand idly by.”
For Rui Boy 