Foreign parents usually lose their children to Japanese ex-spouse

[tasuki]

Actually, since she'll be born in Japan, I do have to apply for Canadian citizenship for my daughter, trust me, I have the mound of paperwork on my desk at home, so no, it's not automatic. And the age also depends on the mutual agreement between Japan and the other parent's home country. In the case of Canada, this age is 20, not 18. As far as I know each country has different accords with Japan, so child nationality isn't handled the same way for each nationality. In some cases, I've read, children born in Japan from a foreign parent are not granted Japanese nationality, period.

But we're getting away from the point. Basically what this article tells us is that if the Japanese parent abducts a child and makes it back to Japan, Japanese law and the lack of international accords in such matters make it next to impossible to get the child back. Yet, the Japanese parent would have to be prosecutable under the other parent's country's laws as most countries require them to hold visas or permanent resident status to reside in their host country for any length of time. So if I take Canada as an example again, if my wife (holding permanent residency), takes our daughter (who is a Canadian citizen at that point) back to Japan, then as a permanent resident of Canada, she becomes subject to Canadian abduction laws (Canadian permanent resident abducting a Canadian citizen), thus subject to extradition for prosecution. Whether that actually happens, is another story. I've done my homework...