[/floatr]Asahi: Japan to sign international parental abduction treatyJapan will sign a treaty obliging the government to return to the rightful parent children of broken international marriages who are wrongfully taken and kept in Japan, sources said Friday. The Justice Ministry will begin work to review current laws with an eye on meeting requirements under the 1980 Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, the sources said. The government plans to sign the treaty as early as in 2010. The decision was reached amid criticism against Japan over unauthorized transfer and retention cases involving children. The governments of Canada and the United States have raised the issue with Japan and cited a number of incidents involving their nationals, blasting such acts as tantamount to abductions... Under the convention, signatory parties are obliged to set up a "central authority" within their government. The authority works two ways. It can demand other governments return children unlawfully transferred and retained. But it is also obliged to find the location within its own country of children unlawfully taken and retained, take measures to prevent the child from being moved out of the country, and support legal procedures to obtain the return of the child to the rightful parent. A court, in principle, must hand down an order for the return of the child to the place of habitual residence within six weeks of the claim. Sources said the Japanese government will likely set up a central authority within the Justice Ministry, which oversees immigration and family registry records. The ministry has decided to work on a new law that will detail the procedures for the child's return...more...
This Chunichi article (Japanese) says that it is not only pressure from the U.S. and Canada which has caused a rethink. More Japanese men are marrying women from other Asian countries and there are increasing incidents of children being taken away by the mother to China or the Philippines. These countries are also not signatories to the convention but if Japan signs an international treaty then there may also be more room to negotiate settlements in those cases.
See also related FG Threads: Protesting Japan's Hypocrisy at the Megumi Yokota LA Premiere and Japan Parental Child Abduction- U.S. State Dept. Warning. And here is the Japan Children's Rights Network website
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