American jailed in Japan for trying to reclaim his children

[Amby 490]

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Had this custody drama played out in the United States, Christopher Savoie might be considered a hero -- snatching his two little children back from an ex-wife who defied the law and ran off with them.

But this story unfolds 7,000 miles away in the Japanese city of Fukuoka, where the U.S. legal system holds no sway.

And here, Savoie sits in jail, charged with the abduction of minors. And his Japanese ex-wife -- a fugitive in the United States for taking his children from Tennessee -- is considered the victim.

"Japan is an important partner and friend of the U.S., but on this issue, our points of view differ," the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said Tuesday. "Our two nations approach divorce and child-rearing differently. Parental child abduction is not considered a crime in Japan."

The story begins in Franklin, Tennessee, with the January divorce of Savoie from his first wife, Noriko, a Japanese native. The ex-wife had agreed to live in Franklin to be close to the children, taking them to Japan for summer vacations.

Savoie in March requested a restraining order to prevent his wife from taking the children to Japan, saying she had threatened to do so, according to court documents obtained by CNN affiliate WTVF and posted on the station's Web site. A temporary order was issued, but then lifted following a hearing.

"If Mother fails to return to Tennessee [after summer vacation] with the children following her visitation period, she could lose her alimony, child support and education fund, which is added assurance to Father that she is going to return with the children," Circuit Court Judge James G. Martin III noted in his order on the matter.

Following the summer trip, Noriko Savoie did return to the United States, and Christopher Savoie then took the children on a vacation, returning them to his ex-wife, said Diane Marshall, a court-appointed parent coordinator who helped Christopher Savoie make decisions about the children.

In August -- on the first day of classes for 8-year-old Isaac and 6-year-old Rebecca -- the school called to say they hadn't arrived.

Worried, Savoie called his ex-wife's father in Japan, who told him not to worry.

"I said, 'What do you mean -- don't worry? They weren't at school.' 'Oh, don't worry, they are here,' " Savoie recounted the conversation to CNN affiliate WTVF earlier this month. "I said, 'They are what, they are what, they are in Japan?' "

The very thing that Savoie had predicted in court papers had happened -- his wife had taken their children to Japan and showed no signs of returning, Marshall said.

"Our court system failed him," she said. "It's just a mess."

In court documents, Noriko Savoie denied that she was failing to abide by the terms of the couple's court-approved parenting plan or ignoring court-appointed parent coordinators. In a May filing, she said that both Marshall and another coordinator had resigned from the case.

She added she was "concerned about the stability of Father, his extreme antagonism towards Mother and the effect of this on the children."

Savoie claimed in court documents his ex-wife was playing on the children's sympathy by crying in front of them. She responded that had only happened once, when the children took her by surprise, but allowed that "Father's continual harassment of Mother has reduced her to tears."

Noriko Savoie could not be reached by CNN for comment.

After Noriko Savoie took the children to Japan, a court in Williamson County, Tennessee, granted Christopher Savoie full custody of the children. And Franklin police issued an arrest warrant for his ex-wife, the television station reported.

But there was a major hitch: Japan is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on international child abduction.

The international agreement standardizes laws, but only among participating countries.

So while Japanese civil law stresses that courts resolve custody issues based on the best interest of the children without regard to the parent's nationality, foreign parents have had little success in regaining custody.

Japanese family law follows a tradition of sole custody divorces. When a couple splits, one parent typically makes a complete and lifelong break from the children.

The International Association for Parent-Child Reunion, formed in Japan this year, claims to know of more than 100 cases of children abducted by noncustodial Japanese parents.

And the U.S. State Department says it is not aware of a single case in which a child taken from the United States to Japan has been ordered returned by Japanese courts -- even when the left-behind parent has a U.S. custody decree.

Saddled with such statistics and the possibility of never seeing his kids again, Savoie took matters into his own hands.

He flew to Fukuoka. And as his ex-wife walked the two children to school Monday morning, Savoie drove alongside them.

He grabbed them, forced them into his car, and drove off, said police in Fukuoka.

He headed for the U.S. consulate in Fukuoka to try to obtain passports for Isaac and Rebecca.

But Japanese police, alerted by Savoie's ex-wife, were waiting.

Consulate spokeswoman Tracy Taylor said she heard a scuffle outside the doors of the consulate. She ran up and saw a little girl and a man, whom police were trying to talk to.

Eventually, police took Savoie away, charging him with the abduction of minors -- a crime that upon conviction carries a prison sentence of up to five years.

The consulate met with Savoie on Monday and Tuesday, Taylor said. It has provided him with a list of local lawyers and said it will continue to assist.

Meanwhile, the international diplomacy continues. During the first official talks between the United States and Japan's new government, the issue of parental abductions was raised.

But it is anybody's guess what happens next to Savoie, who sits in a jail cell.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/2...tion/index.html

[Peikko 1,575]

There you have it, a culture clash - sad but true.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

There were two gentlemen renting out some office space at my work who were making a documentary about custody cases involving American/Japanese children. I'm not sure if they ever finished making their documentary, but according to one of the filmmakers - this is a real problem for many Americans who've lost all contact with their children. Tragic and sad.

[Peikko 1,575]

Has there been any definitive studies produced on how the Japanese method of coping with divorce compares to the US system in terms of the effect that this has on the actual children as apposed to the parents? I think it would be interesting to find out.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

WOMEN: Foreign Spouses In Japan Seek Easier Child Custody Laws

By Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Mar 22 (IPS) - Divorce has constantly been on the mind of Imelda (not her real name), a 36-year-old Filipino woman who married a Japanese man seven years ago.

But the soft spoken woman says that despite the nagging loneliness and physical abuse she sometimes has to endure from her husband, she will never leave the man she despises for fear of losing her two children.

''I asked my husband for a divorce after my first child was born. He said okay, and told me to leave that night taking only my clothes. I couldn't bear to part from my son who was then only 10 months old,'' she explained. So, she stayed on.

Imelda is but one of what social workers and lawyers say are a growing number of women and men, both foreign and Japanese, who are locked in miserable marriages because Japanese laws ignore the individual rights of parents to see their children after a divorce.

''Japanese divorce laws ignore the rights of children to have access to both parents,'' explained Mizuho Fukushima, who works with women and foreign labourers here.

This is why in many cases women who want to leave their Japanese husbands do not do so, and their predicament is complicated by the fact that they often face economic difficulties coping with child rearing.

Fukushima says the situation is particularly difficult for foreign women because they have the added problem of getting legal visas to stay on in the country after a divorce. Asian women are especially vulnerable as a result of lingering discrimination, activists here say. The problems experienced by foreign men and women with Japanese spouses with gaining access to children after separation or divorce, was highlighted at a recent press conference by the Japanese chapter of the Children's Rights Council, a Washington- based organisation. Saying the inability to maintain ties with their children was akin to child abduction, several foreign nationals spoke out against a system that they said denied their children the right to see them and the opportunity to develop closer ties with their biological parents.

Dale Martin, an Englishman, says he has not seen his six-year-old daughter for the last two years because his Japanese wife refuses to allow it. This, he adds, is despite his telephone calls and letters and a hard-won visitation agreement signed in family courts in December 1994.

''I have no news about her even while living a few hours away from her home. I call this a violation of my daughter's rights to have access to her father,'' he told the press. Margaret Leyman, an American journalist living in Tokyo, says her Japanese former husband prohibits her son from meeting with her.

''My son, who is 12 now, lives with my mother-in-law after the family court decided I was, as a working woman and foreigner, not a responsible mother,'' she explained. ''They have prohibited him from seeing me.'' In both cases the foreign spouses had signed divorce papers that had, without their knowledge, included the awarding of custody of their children to their estranged husbands or wives.

Japanese laws recognise divorce, granted on mutual consent, on a form signed by both parties. Both Leyhman and Martin assumed, in accordance with laws in many western countries, that custody is a separate issue from divorce and would be treated as such under the Japanese legal system.

''I was shocked to realise that I had signed away my right to see my child and also denied my son's right to have a mother as well as enjoy a different culture,'' recalled Leyman. In desperation, she tried to get at least visitation rights to her child.

Fukushima says problems arise because the concept of visitation rights or shared custody is not deeply ingrained in the Japanese system. ''There are no specific laws on visitation like most other countries and consultations between judges and children are not common, so it's difficult for the parent who does not have custody to gain access,'' she explained. ''This is because Japanese tradition views children not as individuals with their own rights but as belonging to the family,'' she added.

Chieko Nishioka, who runs a shelter for foreign women, says many of them flee failed marriages with their children because they do not want to lose them. ''After they come here I help them to find jobs and new homes, which are important considerations for gaining custody of their children. The whole experience is very painful for these distraught women,'' she explained. Fukushima says in many cases, Asian women estranged from their Japanese husbands are at the losing end of custody battles. This is because the often children do not speak the mother's language, and it is easy for judges to decide that the children are better off living with the Japanese father who has the means to support them, who can remarry or have support from his parents.

But activists and those who feel aggrieved by the current Japanese law point out that there must be some changes in the law as marriages with foreign nationals and divorce rates rise.

http://www.international-divorce.com/japan_custody.htm

[Anonymous 57 0]

Umm... well, first of all, in a traditional Japanese family, it's the mother who raises the children while the father works. So of course in the case of divorce, the children always go to the mother. The father is usually allowed no contact unless the mother allows it. This guy really should have gone through the trouble of becoming familiar with the customs and laws of the native country of his ex-spouse BEFORE he married her and got himself into this mess.

Not only am I not surprised (I've heard of this happening before), I don't really feel sorry for him. He should have seen it coming.

[Peikko 1,575]

That's not what I asked. I am aware that the loss of children is traumatic for the parent who loses custody - however what about the health and welfare of the children? It might be customary to assume that both parents are necessary for the healthy development of the child, but what one might assume and what is fact may not be the same thing. I am just wondering if anyone has studied the health of the child in a Japanese style approach. Personally, I would be interested that is all.

[Amby 490]

There were two gentlemen renting out some office space at my work who were making a documentary about custody cases involving American/Japanese children. I'm not sure if they ever finished making their documentary, but according to one of the filmmakers - this is a real problem for many Americans who've lost all contact with their children. Tragic and sad.

Interesting. I think it's odd they just completely cut one parent off. It just seems so out there, but I guess it's the norm there.

[redglasses 1]

There were two gentlemen renting out some office space at my work who were making a documentary about custody cases involving American/Japanese children. I'm not sure if they ever finished making their documentary, but according to one of the filmmakers - this is a real problem for many Americans who've lost all contact with their children. Tragic and sad.

Interesting. I think it's odd they just completely cut one parent off. It just seems so out there, but I guess it's the norm there.

Even the joint custody system becomes prevalent in Japan, international child abduction will go on until Japan signs the Hague Convention.