Apart from one child returned and one obtaining visitation - then the following is true for thousands of foreign nationals - and the one person who won spent more than $250,000 US dollars.


Please check this website:

http://www.crcjapan.com

If you are married to a Japanese person, and they reside in Japan or your Japanese spouse takes your child or children back to Japan, then you have virtually no hope of seeing your child or children unless the Japanese parent allows this.

Japan allows children to be taken from any nation in the world, and they will not ratify several child conventions with regards to this matter.

You may be awarded rights to see your child or children, but this can not be enforced in Japan. I have rights to take my children back to the UK for 7 weeks a year in July and August. However, this agreed order does not mean anything in Japan.

Since this period my father died of cancer, they would not send one photo of his only two grandchildren. I have a letter signed by a Japanese Christain vicar and his wife, and another Japanese national, who confirm that they helped me once when I carried my two children (one was a 6 week old baby then) to safety from her violence aimed at my daughter. This happened in Saitama Prefecture, in Tokorowzowa.

Neither the Courts in England and Wales were interested, because the children were born in Japan, and therefore, they deemed that Japan had jurisdiction - despite me at the time being the sole parent while doing my MA in Asia Pacific Studies.

My children were sent from the UK to Japan; for the Courts of England and Wales stated that I had rights in Japan; and that 7 weeks in one block was sufficient. Of course the judge did not understand Japanese law, and just stated that "Japan is modern." That was it!

My children also do not have linguistic rights, religious rights, and under UK law I should have been protected by European Law.

If you check the site above you will see that many nationals all over the world are in the same position.

I have gone from being a single parent, to seeing my children for three hours in three years. And the only Childrens Court I visited I won and the children stayed with me. What can you do?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am now 36, and the last 3 years have been the worse in my life; and now I am trying to find work in Japan. I have an MA in Asia Pacific Studies, and know all about the Meiji period, Showa, and political leaders like Yoshida, Ikeda, Sato, Tanaka, and so forth; and about security issues and economic development in the Sea of Japan.

Yet I once more have to return to the UK and wait until December before my visa will be sorted out. I then hope I can find work in Japan, so that I can campaign closer to where they reside in Japan - and my only hope is that they will be shamed, with me having letters from Japanese nationals who verify that I protected them.

Sorry for telling you so much; but it is not easy writing about this.