Lawmaker: U.S. needs to pressure Japan to comply with international child abduction laws
April 12, 2018
Japan remains a haven for parental child abductions and a U.S. lawmaker Wednesday urged the Trump administration to do more to pressure the country to fulfill its obligations under international law.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said during congressional testimony that between 300 and 400 children of international marriages have been abducted from the U.S. to Japan since 1994, and that more than 35 are still awaiting reunification with their American parents.
“Every day these children are separated from their U.S. parent, the damage compounds,” Smith said before a Congressional subcommittee on global human rights. “We must do better. We must not leave any child behind.”
Under international pressure, in 2014 Japan signed The Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. The treaty requires the government to set up a process to allow foreign parents to appeal for visitation or return of their children. But Japan has been slack in administering the convention, according to Smith.
“How many of these children have come home four years later?” asked Smith. “How many even have access to their left behind parent now? Almost zero.”
James Cook, a Minnesota medical device specialist trying to gain custody of his four minor children from his estranged Japanese wife, also testified before Congress.
In July 2014, his Japanese wife Hitomi Arimitsu took their children to Japan to visit her family and refused to return. Cook submitted an application for return under the Hague treaty and the case has made its way through both the Japanese and American court system, but Cook has still not been able to see his children.
A Minnesota court ordered the return of Cook’s children in 2017, but the ruling wasn’t carried out in Japan.
A key issue is that Japan does not have a way of enforcing its Hague commitments. It requires the abducting parent to voluntarily turn the children over and doesn’t allow the use of force in extracting the children. There have been numerous cases of parents simply refusing to comply with the Hague rulings.
Cook’s wife petitioned a Japanese court against the ruling to return the children and it was overturned, a decision which Japan’s Supreme Court upheld in December 2017.
“[My wife] has achieved the perfect consequence-free abduction with the aid of Japan’s systemic non-compliance and [the US Department of State’s] inaction,” Cook said in his testimony.
“After over 2.5 years in this process, I have nothing,” he said. “This process has cost me everything.”
Attention to the issue within Japan has been growing in recent weeks. Last month, all EU Ambassadors to Japan signed an official letter of diplomatic protest to pressure Japan to follow international law and enforce decisions which give an international parent custody or visitation rights.
Also in March, Japan’s Supreme Court ruled that a Japanese mother who is refusing to return her child to their father in the United States is “illegally restraining” the child under the Hague Convention.
It was the first such ruling by a Japanese court.
The court ruling and international pressure are a cause for optimism, according to John Gomez, an American who is chairman of the Kizuna Child-Parent Reunion group in Japan.
Gomez said that barriers remain, including an underlying “continuity principle” in Japanese courts means that the abducted child stays with the abducting parent.
“Until the ‘continuity principle’ by which judges in Japan issue rulings is actually discarded and kidnapped children are returned, we must keep pushing to the utmost for the children to be returned to their loving parents,” said Gomez.
Rep. Smith said in his testimony that the State Department needs to apply more pressure on Japan and other countries that have refused to cooperate in returning abducted children. A 2014 law that Smith sponsored, the Goldman Act, requires the State Department to develop an agreement with Japan about children that had been abducted and to hold Japan accountable.
However, Smith said that no action has been taken against Japan for past or current cases, and the State Department hasn’t even listed Japan as “non-compliant” in its annual report on the Hague convention.
“We hope that the State Department will do its job and implement the Goldman Act,” Smith said. “We hope that the Trump Administration will be different than the last.”
US House pressures countries on child abductions
December 14, 2013
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/131211/us-house-pressures-countries-child-abductions
US House pressures countries on child abductions
The US House of Representatives voted Wednesday to punish countries that do not promptly return abducted children, upping pressure in an issue that has soured relations with Japan and other allies.
With no dissenting votes, the House voted to create an annual report to assess every country’s history of child abductions and to require President Barack Obama to take action against nations with poor records.
Potential US measures include refusing export licenses for American technology, cutting development assistance and putting off scientific or cultural exchanges. The president would have the right to waive the punishment.
Representative Chris Smith, the author of the legislation, said it would put the force of the US government behind solving the more than 1,000 cases each year in which US children are taken overseas, generally by a foreign parent after separation from an American partner.
“It is a full-court press to finally elevate this issue, where American children’s human rights are being violated with impunity,” Smith told reporters.
“Right now, it’s like other human rights abuses, maybe on page five as an asterisk” in talks between the United States and other countries, he said.
Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, previously led legislation that set up annual reports on human trafficking and religious freedom, which have often caused discomfort for countries deemed to be lagging behind.
The child abduction legislation still needs approval in the Democratic-led Senate, but Smith voiced confidence at passage as the bill has been revised over several years to ensure support of both parties. The State Department had initially voiced concern at proposals to impose outright economic sanctions over child abductions.
By far, the greatest number of abduction cases takes place in Japan, the only major industrialized nation that has not ratified the 1980 Hague convention that requires countries to send abducted children back to the countries where they usually live.
Japanese courts virtually never grant custody to foreign parents or fathers.
Paul Toland, who served in the US Navy in Japan, said that his daughter Erika was put in the care of her maternal grandmother and that he has no visitation rights after the girl’s mother committed suicide.
“For me, this will be my 11th consecutive Christmas without my daughter,” he told reporters.
In the wake of persistent US and European criticism, Japan’s parliament took key steps this year to join the Hague treaty. But critics say that the decision will not address past cases.
The House legislation calls on the United States to seek legal agreements with all nations not party to the Hague convention to lay out ways to return children within six weeks after abduction cases are reported to authorities.
Smith named the bill after David Goldman, who succeeded in bringing his son Sean back to the United States after a five-year fight with Brazilian courts.
“We won’t stop until we get the children home, one by one, child by child,” Goldman said.
Parents of children in countries including Brazil and Argentina said that they often had no recourse, even if individual officials in foreign countries are sympathetic to their cases.
Arvind Chawdra, whose two children were abducted to India, said he had no other option but to take out a newspaper advertisement because he does not know where they are.
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Article about Chris Smith bill
December 14, 2013
http://www.northjersey.com/community/family/Bill_may_help_left-behind_parents_pursue_kids_in_global_custody_fights.html?page=all
Bill may help ‘left-behind parents’ in global child custody fights
State Department figures show 7,000 American children were taken by a parent to a foreign country to stay between 2008 and 2012, leaving behind the other parent to fight for custody or visitation rights in places where United States court orders mean nothing.
The result is often heartbreak, as most children never return. Adding to it is the frustration from dealing with both the foreign government and the U.S. State Department, which parents and some in Congress say does not put enough emphasis on getting children back.
“Does the word parental in front of kidnapping make it less of a crime?” Michael Elias of Rutherford asked at a House hearing in May, the second time he’s told his story before Congress in the past three years.
A Marine veteran and Bergen County sheriff’s officer whose wife used illegally issued passports to take their son and daughter to Japan seven years ago, Elias has become one of the public faces for a group that calls itself “left-behind parents.”
His willingness to go public with his personal struggles could pay a small dividend today as the House is expected to give strong bipartisan support to a bill sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith that pushes the State Department to use more powerful diplomatic tools.
Unfortunately for Elias and those like him, the department is not very interested in the new powers.
In June, Japan took a step forward when it signed the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, an agreement that lays out a framework for custody disputes. But Japan’s action will affect only future cases, and existing disputes will be in a legal limbo.
“All the left-behind parents like Michael Elias will be shut out,” said Smith, a Republican from Robbinsville who is a subcommittee chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Smith has been urging presidents and ambassadors in President Obama’s administration and President George W. Bush’s before him to raise the issue of child abductions at high-level discussions with foreign leaders.
Doing more
Smith’s bill would require the president to take specific actions — ranging from private requests all the way to economic sanctions — if abduction cases are not resolved or if countries show a pattern of non-cooperation. The State Department would have to provide Congress with statistics that Smith says are incomplete now, and pursue separate agreements known as memoranda of understanding with countries that are not likely to sign or abide by the Hague convention.
“The Pollyanna-ish, naive view that the administration keeps spouting is that Japan signing the Hague Convention might create a climate [for solving earlier cases],” Smith said. “There needs to be a memorandum of understanding or a sidebar agreement to say all of the existing cases will be solved civilly and with an eye towards justice.”
A State Department spokes¬man, when asked about Smith’s bill, recommended checking a federal website that the agency has created that spells out how different countries deal with abduction cases.
At the May hearing, the department’s special adviser for children’s issues, Susan Jacobs, disagreed with Smith that a separate agreement with Japan would make any difference.
“We have three memoranda of understanding with Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, and there’s been no enforcement mechanism and no [child] returns,” Jacobs said. “We believe the Hague Convention provides the best opportunity for resolving these cases. One of the problems with Japan is their belief about custody, that one parent is supposed to drop out of the child’s life when there is a divorce.”
She said once the convention takes effect in Japan, she hoped to be able to work on better compliance, and at least provide for some visitation for parents.
Smith’s bill is named after Sean and David Goldman, the Tinton Falls son and father whose case caught national attention after Sean Goldman’s mother took him to Brazil in 2004 and his grandparents sought custody after she died in 2008.
Smith had been pressuring the State Department to act and made two trips with David Goldman to Brazil, which had signed the Hague convention. The boy was finally returned in 2009 after Sen. Frank Lautenberg said he would block action on a trade bill Brazil wanted.
Goldman has called the forces that aligned to help his family a “perfect storm,” but said most families in the same situation struggle with little hope.
No improvement
For Elias, the only developments in recent years have been negative. He was deployed to Iraq when his wife began an affair with a Japanese man. She told Elias she wanted a divorce when he returned from the war.
A Bergen County judge awarded joint custody and ordered that the children’s passports be surrendered. But his wife, who had worked in the Japanese consulate in New York, was able to get new passports issued by the Chicago consulate as she and her companion fled with the children.
Smith traveled with Elias’ parents to Japan in 2011, and at the time they were told by authorities that a criminal investigation was under way into the passport issuance.
In February, Elias received a letter notifying that the Japanese prosecutor in the region had concluded no charges would be filed. The letter was dated October 2010, or three months before Smith and Elias’ parents had been in Japan.
“It was a slap in the face,” Elias said. “People tell me I should just pick up the pieces and move on. But two of my pieces are in Japan.”
Email: jackson@northjersey.com
Blog: northjersey.com/|thepoliticalstate
Rep. Chris Smith pushes for federal action on NJ child abductions
May 10, 2013
David Goldman, Monmouth County, is one of the only known left-behind parents to retrieve his child from Brazil.
Written by
Malia Rulon Herman
@mrulon
WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey continued to hammer the U.S. government Thursday over a string of international child abduction cases that remain unresolved, including several from his home state.
“The status quo is simply not adequate,” Smith said at a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on global human rights and international organizations, which he chairs.
Bindu Philips of Plainsboro, N.J., told committee members that while on a family trip to India in December 2008, her ex-husband, Sunil Jacob, left her at a cousin’s home and began a new life with their children — removing all contact.
“Every day I awaken to the heart-wrenching reality that I am separated from the children that I love more than anything in the world,” she said. “I implore you, members of Congress, to help me in my quest to be reunited with my children.”
Philips has an active case with the State Department, has been in touch with the Indian consulates in New York and Washington, and was awarded full custody of both boys by the family division of New Jersey’s Superior Court.
Michael Elias, a former Marine Corps sergeant and now a Bergen County sheriff’s officer, experienced a similar ordeal. It also started in December 2008, when his ex-wife, Mayumi Nakamura, took their two children to Japan and cut off all contact.
He was awarded full custody of the children in Bergen County Superior Court, and the children were ordered to be returned under the Hague Convention, which outlines policies and practices in international abduction cases.
Neither Japan nor India are signatories of the convention.
“As long as your government allows Japan to continue to disregard our children, the number of parental kidnappings will continue to rise,” Elias told lawmakers.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Jacobs, the State Department’s special advisor for children’s issues, told the committee that through the Hague Convention, hundreds of children are returned to the United States each year, many of them from Mexico.
She said reaching out to countries that have not yet joined the convention is one of the department’s top priorities and an issue that Secretary of State John Kerry raised with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida during a visit last month.
Smith said the U.S. government should do more. On Thursday, he re-introduced the Sean and David Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act, a bill named for a Tinton Falls, N.J., man who fought for five years to win the return of his son from Brazil.
The bill would empower the president and State Department with 18 actions and penalties to secure the return of abducted American children.
Goldman, who also testified at Thursday’s hearing, said a “complete culture change” is needed at the State Department.
“Nothing short of being extremely bold and principled is going to do much to change the status quo,” he said.
Amy Savoie’s letter regarding U.S. State Department
April 17, 2012
http://www.bachome.org/wordpress/2012/04/dos-and-child-abduction/
DoS and Child Abduction
Monday, April 16th, 2012
To the attention of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and all employees in the State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues:
This letter was received by Congressman Smith’s office during the week of the introduction of H.R.1940, the Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction, Prevention and Return Act.
March 26, 2012
Dear Congressman Smith:
By now you are aware that Japan has agreed to sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction (the Hague treaty). By now you are also aware that while Japan has “agreed” that it will sign the treaty, it does not seem to have any intention to actually honor it. This fact can be gleaned from Japanese press articles and Parliamentary sessions that extol the virtues of several “exceptions” the Japanese plan to implement upon their joining of the Hague.
The ambiguity of these loopholes reveals that Japan’s accession to the Hague will be, at best, a misrepresentation of the country’s true intentions and, at worst, an outright fraud.
U.S. Department of State disregards the welfare of abducted children
On May 24, 2011 while sitting as Chairman for the Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights Subcommittee, you remarked that parentally abducted children lose half of their identity and half of their culture and “are at risk of serious emotional and psychological problems [including] anxiety, nightmares, mood swings, sleep disturbances, aggressive behavior, resentment, guilt and [fear]” and that these struggles continue on into adulthood.
Despite the litany of childhood problems you detailed in your speech, I deeply fear that the U.S. Department of State (“State Department”) has failed to research, or even acknowledge, the harm that can befall a child who has been parentally abducted.
For years, several organizations, including the American Bar Association and the U.S. Department of Justice, have maintained that parents with narcissistic personality disorder and/or sociopathic personality traits are more likely to kidnap their children than those who are emotionally “healthy”. While countless researchers have examined the long-lasting consequences of being raised in these circumstances, it appears that the State Department has chosen to ignore this research in its entirety.
In 2011, the State Department Office of Children’s Issues met with parents of children who have been abducted to Japan. At this meeting there was a guest speaker—a child welfare “expert” hired by the State Department to convince a group of grieving and traumatized parents that they should not worry about their children so much because abducted children are “resilient”. Aside from the fact that this “expert” seemed to completely ignore all of the research that led to the implementation of the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act and the Hague treaty in the first place, the State Department’s flagrant disregard for the pain and emotional damage that these children suffer was unconscionable—to say nothing of the feelings of the parents who were seated in that room while having to listen to that discussion. It is reminiscent of the radiation scandal where the poisoned victims were told that the version of chromium they were exposed to was actually “good for them”. It is positively unthinkable.
Living with an emotionally unhealthy parent
Children who are raised with an emotionally unstable parent do not reach adulthood unscathed. Indeed, children who have been parentally kidnapped are often raised in an emotionally abnormal environment without the benefit of a healthy parent to counter-balance the abductor’s erratic or destructive behavior. Several researchers have examined the emotional fallout experienced by children who have been raised with parents who suffer from narcissistic or borderline personality disorder, and they have found that the impact of this damage is both deep and long-lasting.
Narcissistic personality disorder
Several publications have described that narcissism is a personality trait that increases the risk of parental abduction. Narcissists often rationalize their violation of court orders and feel no remorse if they bend the rules to benefit themselves.1
A child of a narcissist can suffer severely because narcissists have “limited or no ability” to recognize their children as separate individuals with free will and needs of their own.2 Children who are raised by a narcissistic parent often feel extremely lonely and isolated because the parent can, to the outside world, appear to be self-confident and self-controlled, but in private can unleash a battery of constant criticisms and have difficulty controlling their anger.3 Eleanor Payson, a licensed family therapist, describes this nightmare as “a private one that can only be stopped by outside validation”.4 A child raised by a narcissistic parent must grow up quickly, repressing his or her true feelings in order to serve the narcissist’s needs.5
Borderline personality disorder
Bill Eddy is an attorney, mediator and clinical social worker. He is an expert in child custody issues that arise when someone divorces a spouse with narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder. He explains that parents with borderline personality disorder often “desire the elimination of the other parent as much as possible”.6 Researchers have found that a borderline parent will often use “I’ll never speak to you again” as a primary method of solving interpersonal conflict, and the child will thereafter feel forced to agree with his parent’s opinion, even if his opinion or recollection is not the same.7 These parents “enmesh” themselves with their children8 and rather than being allowed to feel, the borderline parent convinces the children how they are supposed to feel.9
In Eddy’s experience, parents who kidnap their children are unwilling to share parenting with the other parent and “decide they were above the law”. 10 The risk of abduction is exacerbated by a borderline’s impulsivity and the fact that they feel superior to a court’s orders.11
Borderline parents hold their children captive to onslaughts of verbal abuse followed by the silent treatment. They criticize and belittle their children, causing the children to suffer great confusion, pain and silent anger.12 Life with a borderline parent can bring “constant chaos” and is typified by the borderline’s verbal abuse, unpredictability, denying the child’s perception of events, the need to dominate, threatening to get her own way, making abusive comments and setting unrealistic expectations.13 Denying the feelings and needs of others and trying to get the child to engage in illogical arguments only exacerbates the pain, loneliness and confusion.14 While it is impossible to discover exactly how many international abductions have been committed by narcissistic or borderline personality disordered individuals, this research cannot and should not be ignored.
The State Department is obstructing justice and minimizing a federal felony crime
Through their complicity, the State Department is unnecessarily prolonging the pain of these abducted children and their parents. The State Department needs to acknowledge that crimes have been committed by these Japanese nationals and that the Japanese government has done nothing to rectify the situation.
The Justice Department has acknowledged that parental abduction is damaging and that “the worst damage is imperceptible to the eye, occurring deep within the child, leaving traces that last a lifetime”.15 The State Department should be admonished for using taxpayer money to pay a child welfare “expert” to cajole left-behind parents to think that parental abduction is not such a bad thing after all because kids are “resilient”, and to offer up such fiction in front of the F.B.I, the very agency that should be assisting these bereaved and aching parents in the recovery of their children. The State Department needs to be severely questioned as to why it is devoting its efforts to obstructing justice rather than fighting for it.
Thank you for your time and attention.
Amy J. Savoie, Ph.D.
Resources
1 Payson, Eleanor D., M.S.W. 2002. The Wizard of Oz and other Narcissists.
Royal Oak, Michigan: Julian Day Publications, p. 19.
2 Payson, p. 30.
3 Payson, pp. 16, 30.
4 Payson, p. 16.
5 Payson, p. 66.
6 Eddy, Bill, LCSW, JD and Randi Kreger. 2011. Splitting: Protecting Yourself
while Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Oakland, California: New Harbinger Publications, Inc., p. 263.
7 Roth, Kimberlee and Freda B. Friedman, Ph.D., LCSW. 2003. Surviving a
Borderline Parent: How to Heal Your Childhood Wounds & Build Trust,
Boundaries, and Self-Esteem. Oakland, California: New Harbinger
Publications, p. 120.
8 Eddy, p. 249.
9 Roth, p. 121.
10 Eddy, p. 248.
11 Eddy, p. 249.
12 Lawson, Christine Ann. 2000. Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping
Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable, and Volatile Relationship.
New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., pg. 207.
13 Mason, Paul, MS and Randi Kreger. 2010. Stop Walking on Eggshells, 2nd
Edition. Oakland, California. New Harbinger Publications, Inc., pg. 61.
14 Mason, p. 109.
15 The U.S. Department of Justice, from the publication The Crime of Family
Abduction, a Child’s and Parent’s Perspective, First Edition. May 2010.
Update on “From the Shadows” documentary film
November 18, 2011
A screening of the practically finished version of the “From the Shadows” documentary film about child abduction in Japan took place on November 7 at the Capitol Visitor Center Theater in Washington, D.C. The screening was sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith’s office and invitees consisted largely of left-behind parents and their family members
“From the Shadows” is a hard hitting, superbly made documentary film that has been years in the making. It documents the heartbreaking attempts of left-behind parents to see their children in Japan and accurately exposes how the system facilitates child abductions in Japan. In addition to featuring a Japanese mother whose child was taken by her Japanese husband, the film also focuses in depth on four international cases: Canadian father Murray Wood, U.S. fathers Paul Toland and Paul Wong, and U.S. mother Regan Haight.
The film is directed and produced by Matt Antell and David Hearn. Although David Hearn was unable to attend the screening, Matt Antell was present and also participated in a panel afterwards with Paul Toland and Murray Wood, which can be viewed at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3bNNyVkH60
In his remarks, Matt Antell noted that the producers are hoping that the film will be shown at the Berlin International Film Festival and also possibly the Sundance film festival in 2012.
To learn more about the film and how you can help, please visit the following link:
Below is the link to C-Span’s video of Congressman Chris Smith’s subcommittee hearing on International Child Abduction on May 24.
At the end of the hearing, Congressman Smith mentioned that the next hearing will be a “Japan specific hearing” that will look into Japan’s Hague Convention ascension and possible duplicity that may be involved in the small print by which Japan may try to circumvent living up to the spirit of the treaty.
American children abducted to Japan listed in Congressional Record
December 12, 2010
Congressman Chris Smith has entered into the Congressional Record the names reported to him by left-behind American parents of children abducted to Japan. Here is the link and also below is a listing of the children:
E.B., abducted to Japan July 21, 1995
Ezra Lui, abducted to Japan November 13, 1999
Kaira Kelly Litwiller, abducted to Japan June 10, 2003
Takoda Tei Weed, abducted to Japan January 16, 2004
Tiana Kiku Weed, abducted to Japan January 16, 2004
Kento Didier Touboule, abducted to Japan October 15, 2005
Mary Victoria Lake, abducted to Japan August 2005
Kai Hachiya, abducted to Japan December 28, 2006
Masahiro Brown, abducted in Japan since April of 2007
David N. Gessleman, abducted to Japan May 13, 2007
Joshua K. Gessleman, abducted to Japan May 13, 2007
Kaya Summer Xiao-Lian Wong, abducted to Japan August 2007
Wayne Kosaku Sawyer, abducted to Japan December 15, 2008
Yuuki Patrick McCoy (Kojima), abducted in Japan August 17, 2008
Keisuke Christian Collins, abducted to Japan June 16, 2008
Sean Hillman, abducted to Japan July 5, 2008
Kana Sugiyama-Gomez, abducted to Japan April 10, 2008
Joe Yamada, abducted to Japan September 1, 2008
Grace Danielle Starr, abducted to Japan January or February 2009
Brian Senna Starr, abducted to Japan January or February 2009
‘‘Mochi’’ Atomu Imoto Morehouse, abducted to Japan June 23, 2010
Rep. Chris Smith calls on Obama to address child abduction issue
November 14, 2010
Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey has called upon President Obama to address the international child abduction issue with Japanese Prime Minister Kan during his trip to Japan.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/107407973_Obama__urged_to__address__child_issue.html
HR1326 passes House 416 to 1!
September 29, 2010
A major victory for left-behind American parents with children abducted to or retained in Japan!
The only dissenting vote was from Representative Ron Paul of Texas.
Here is the THOMAS link with the bill summary/status:
Children's Rights Council of Japan (Japan child abduction) 