Child Abduction Issue Explodes

[Greji]

The police in Japan are sadistic. Why does this country put up with this, even against its own citizens?

The J-fuzz individually may do things, but Grannny Kay's rant seems a bit over the top for what may not even be a crime under J-law. The J-keystoners may be weird and crazy, but they ain't stupid enough that in front of a group of their peers, they will do things to endanger their job and career for a deadend case like that...

But of course if she was doing something serious like riding a mamachari, it would be entirely different...

[Behan]

The J-fuzz individually may do things, but Grannny Kay's rant seems a bit over the top for what may not even be a crime under J-law. The J-keystoners may be weird and crazy, but they ain't stupid enough that in front of a group of their peers, they will do things to endanger their job and career for a deadend case like that...

But of course if she was doing something serious like riding a mamachari, it would be entirely different...

They'd probably take her out behind the police station and use rubber hoses on her if she had been riding a mamchari.

But I can imagine that they would scream at you, blow smoke in your face, keep you awake, etc. for the 23 days they can hold you with hardly any access to a lawyer. You don't have the right to have a lawyer present during questioning, either, do you?

[nottu]

[Bucky]

Protests in D.C. for the "hero"

A handful of people rallied outside the Japanese Embassy on Saturday to show support for an American man who is jailed in Japan, accused of trying to kidnap his own children.

During the demonstration, Christopher Savoie's wife, Amy, along with others from the Children's Rights Council of Japan -- a group that advocates visitation for both parents in divorce cases, and which organized Saturday's event -- called for Savoie's release.

"It makes me feel wonderful to know that these people are calling him a hero, saying he's brave, and I just hope he can come home and say thank you to all these people who've supported him," Amy Savoie told CNN.

Christopher Savoie, 38, a Tennessee native and naturalized Japanese citizen, allegedly abducted his two children -- 8-year-old Isaac and 6-year-old Rebecca -- as his ex-wife walked them to school Monday in a rural town in southern Japan, police in Japan said.

With the children, Savoie headed for the nearest U.S. consulate in the city of Fukuoka to try to obtain passports for them, screaming at guards to let him in the compound. Savoie was steps away from the front gate but still standing on Japanese soil when Japanese police arrested him.

Amy Savoie said the separation is taking a toll on her.

"I just wish I could talk to him, but I am forced to live with the fact that I can't talk to him. So I have to soothe myself and comfort myself with what he would say right now, and I just hope he's doing well," she said.

Christopher Savoie and his first wife, Noriko Savoie, were married for 14 years before their divorce in January. The couple, both citizens of the United States and Japan, had lived in Japan but moved to the United States before the divorce.

Noriko Savoie was given custody of the children and agreed to remain in the United States. Christopher Savoie had visitation rights. During the summer, she fled with the children to Japan, according to court documents. A U.S. court than granted Christopher Savoie sole custody.

Japanese law, however, recognizes Noriko Savoie as the primary custodian. The law there also follows a tradition of sole-custody divorces. When the couple splits, one parent typically makes a complete and lifelong break from the children.

Complicating the matter further is the fact that the couple still are considered married in Japan because they never divorced there, police said Wednesday. And, police said, the children are Japanese and have Japanese passports.

A 1980 Hague Convention standardized laws on international child abduction, but Japan is not a party to that agreement.

If a child in Japan is taken against the wishes of the recognized Japanese parent, Japanese law considers the person who took the child an abductor.

Christopher Savoie will be jailed for at least 10 days while Japanese prosecutors sort out details of the case.

[Number11]

This article says that Noriko has US citizenship also? That isn't possible if the other articles are correct that she was only in the US a month before the divorce. You just cannot trust any reported news to be correct.

I thought that Japanese citizenship excludes dual citizenship. He has two wives and may have some additional legal trouble unless he filed a tax return from the US.

I don't have any sympathy for him at all. In the end, I'm more sympathetic for her and the kids since he was has having an affair, conned her into moving to the US to file for divorce there and she and the kids were left in a strange land with a strange ex-husband and no other reason for remaining there.

I wish the press would stop referring to him as an American.

[Mulboyne]

WSJ: Custody Case Tinged by Politics

A child-custody dispute that landed a U.S. businessman in Japanese police custody offers a glimpse into a longstanding diplomatic sore point between the two countries. Christopher Savoie is being held in the Japanese city of Fukuoka while police investigate his alleged abduction of his two children. According to police, the eight-year-old boy and six-year-old girl were on their way to school in Fukuoka with their mother -- Mr. Savoie's ex-wife, Noriko Savoie -- when Mr. Savoie forcefully grabbed them, put them in his car and drove away.

Mr. Savoie argues he has legal custody of the children. In August, after Ms. Savoie had left the U.S. for Japan, a Franklin, Tenn., state court found Ms. Savoie had taken the children abroad in violation of a previous court order and awarded him custody. "His actions came out of his feelings of love as a father," said Tadashi Yoshino, Mr. Savoie's Japanese lawyer. Since he has parental rights in the U.S., Mr. Yoshino added, "he doesn't necessarily view this as something he's done wrong." Representatives for Ms. Savoie couldn't be reached Friday.

The situation is raising concerns among U.S. officials who have long complained about Japan's failure to sign a 1980 international agreement governing child abductions. The U.S., China, the U.K., major European countries and Australia all adhere to the agreement. The 1980 agreement, known formally as the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, says that cases must be sorted out in the country that is the children's place of "habitual residence." Some in Japan have balked at the agreement because Japanese divorce courts typically assign custody to only one parent.

U.S. officials say one parent too often absconds with a child or children to Japan, leaving the other parent no legal route to regain custody or visitation rights. U.S. authorities count 82 current cases, involving about 123 children, in which American parents have been denied access to children taken to Japan by the other parent. "Any close relationship has disagreements. This is an important disagreement between our two countries," said John Roos, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, in a meeting with reporters on Friday. He declined to discuss specifics of the case.

Japanese officials have been considering whether they want to sign the agreement, said Takeshi Akamatsu, a spokesman for Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "We are seriously studying signing it," he said. "We think there are some aspects we have to think about first. There are some cultural issues, and social structures are different" between nations, he said. For example, Mr. Akamatsu cited a preference in Japanese culture that child custody usually be given to the mother. "We can't generalize, but often the child is better off being taken care of by a mother," he said. He also cited the complexity of custody issues, which each case depending on the details.

The dispute comes at a sensitive time in U.S.-Japanese relations. Japan's new government said it would like to reconsider some aspects of its longtime alliance with the U.S. The two sides have since emphasized that the two countries remain committed to keeping a close relationship. Mr. Savoie is chief executive of Tazzle Inc., a closely held wireless-technology company headquartered in Franklin and with operations in Tokyo. Formerly he was president of a Japan-based biotechnology company.

Mr. Yoshino, his lawyer, said his client will be detained until Wednesday. At that point, the prosecutors can decide whether to indict him or extend the investigation by another 10 days. If found guilty in a trial, Mr. Savoie faces three months to seven years in prison. Prosecutors will be concerned only with the forced-abduction issue and Mr. Savoie's custody claims, Mr. Yoshino said. "That's where he might have been a bit naive," Mr. Yoshino said of his client. "No matter if it's Japan or the United States, even if you are in the right, you can't use force to get your way. That's the same everywhere in the world."

[Mike Oxlong]

Even if Mr. Yoshino, putative advocate for Mr. Savoie is right, it seems rather ill-advised to speak ill of his client...

[GomiGirl]

If nothing else, this case is bringing the discussion to the fore. This must be a good chance for the many foreign parents with abducted kids who have been trying to get noticed.

This is a big problem that is too often brushed under the carpet by people on this side of the pond.

I hope some of the other parents who are suffering can get some sort of progress on their cases.

[Cyka UchuuJin]

This article says that Noriko has US citizenship also? That isn't possible if the other articles are correct that she was only in the US a month before the divorce. You just cannot trust any reported news to be correct.

I thought that Japanese citizenship excludes dual citizenship. He has two wives and may have some additional legal trouble unless he filed a tax return from the US.

I don't have any sympathy for him at all. In the end, I'm more sympathetic for her and the kids since he was has having an affair, conned her into moving to the US to file for divorce there and she and the kids were left in a strange land with a strange ex-husband and no other reason for remaining there.

I wish the press would stop referring to him as an American.

she probably has a green card.

How the hell can you feel sorry for her? Like many other j-wives, she probably considered her wifely duties fulfilled long ago after she had the second child and he took on a mistress just like 99% of all men married to Japanese women. and I'm quite sure she was not dragged to the states kicking and screaming.

If you get a divorce and you can't be civil about custody then you get lawyers in involved. Is anyone did any conning, it's her. She convinced an American court to give her custody, all the while plotting to abscond with them to japan at first chance. Obviously this all took some planning since they were enroled in Japanese school, which I don't think can be done overnight.

Sadly this evil, conniving bitch will probably never be brought to justice, but as GG said, hopefully it will bring the issue to the fore.

[wuchan]

she probably has a green card.

How the hell can you feel sorry for her? Like many other j-wives, she probably considered her wifely duties fulfilled long ago after she had the second child and he took on a mistress just like 99% of all men married to Japanese women. and I'm quite sure she was not dragged to the states kicking and screaming.

If you get a divorce and you can't be civil about custody then you get lawyers in involved. Is anyone did any conning, it's her. She convinced an American court to give her custody, all the while plotting to abscond with them to japan at first chance. Obviously this all took some planning since they were enroled in Japanese school, which I don't think can be done overnight.

Sadly this evil, conniving bitch will probably never be brought to justice, but as GG said, hopefully it will bring the issue to the fore.

you and I think so much alike it's fucking creepy.

[Mock Cockpit]

Any Japanese fathers groups out there advocating for a more modern view of custody arrangements?

[Mulboyne]

The transcript of the hearing where the judge lifted the restraining order on Noriko Savoie and allowed her to travel to Japan makes for fascinating reading:

Part One

Part Two

[Bucky]

Debito weighs in on this issue:

Savoie case shines spotlight on Japan's 'disappeared dads'

By DEBITO ARUDOU

M aking international (and to a lesser extent, national) news recently has been the Savoie child abduction case. Briefly: After a couple divorced in America, ex-wife Noriko Savoie absconded with their children to Japan. Then ex-husband Christopher, who had been awarded custody in the U.S., came to Japan to take the kids back. On Sept. 28 he tried to get the children into the American Consulate in Fukuoka, but was barred entry and arrested by the Japanese police for kidnapping.

The case is messy (few divorces aren't), and I haven't space here to deal with the minutia (e.g. Christopher's quick remarriage, Noriko's $800,000 divorce award and ban on international travel, both parents' dual U.S.-Japan citizenship , etc.). Please read up online.

So let's go beyond that and focus on how this case highlights why Japan must make fundamental promises and reforms.

In Japan, divorce means that one side (usually the father) can lose all contact with the kids. Thanks to the koseki family registry system, Japan has no joint custody (because you can't put a child on two people's koseki). Meanwhile, visitation rights, even if mandated by family court, are unenforceable. This happens in Japan regardless of nationality. (I speak from personal experience: I too am divorced, and have zero contact with my children. I've seen one of my daughters only once over the past five years.)

Standard operating procedure is the three Ds: Divorced Daddy Disappears. Add an international dimension to the marriage and it's stunningly difficult for a non-Japanese parent of either gender to gain child custody (as foreigners, by definition, don't have a koseki). Add a transnational dimension and the kids are gone: Many left-behind parents overseas receive no communication whatsoever until the children become adults.

There is no recourse. Although Japan has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), it has not signed the Hague Convention on Child Abductions (the only holdout among the G7 developed countries). If brought to trial in Japan, our judges do not honor overseas court orders granting custody to the non-Japanese parent. In fact, according to the documentary "From the Shadows," an estimated 300 such children are abducted to or within Japan each year, and none has ever been returned by Japanese authorities to a foreign parent.

Until now this issue received scant media attention. However, with the Savoie case, Japan has earned a worldwide reputation as a safe haven for abductions. This is, given the inhuman North Korean kidnappings of Japanese, an ironic position to be in.

Before we get relativistic, be advised there is no comity here. Although few (I know of none) foreigners have ever won repatriation rights or even custody in Japanese courts, the converse is not true in, for example, American courts. The U.S. recognizes the Hague-mandated concept of "habitual residence," even if that doesn't mean America. The most famous abduction-then-repatriation case involved Elian Gonzalez from Cuba.

According to court transcripts, Noriko Savoie did have a fair hearing abroad. The judge heard her out, believed her sworn testimony that she would not abduct the kids, and lifted the restraining order against her. She and the kids could travel to Japan briefly to explore their Japanese heritage.

Then Noriko broke her oath. And Christopher boarded a plane.

The point: Regardless of any extenuating circumstances in this messy affair, the lack of a post-divorce legal framework to prevent abductions, secure joint custody and guarantee visitation rights forced Christopher to take the law into his own hands.

Needless to say it's the children that get hurt the most in this tug of war. If Japan's policymakers would secure the right of the child to know both their parents and heritages, this nonsense would cease.

more

[nottu]

[Ketou]

Debito makes some good points except that the following is totally incongruous and deceptive:

These are the types of Debito items that reduce his value, and he seems to do it all the time.

You don't find it ironic that Japan complains on the world stage about it abducted citizens whilst ignoring abductions committed by it's own citizens?

[nottu]

[Ketou]

[Cyka UchuuJin]

Debito weighs in on this issue:


more

not that moron again.

my neighbour's newborn son's cock has more weight than debito.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I can where where both nottu and Ketou are coming from and see merits in both sides.
I think the problem with child abductions and the Hague Convention -- as with many issues related to international marriages -- is that the bureaucrats who really run Japan figure that anybody stupid enough to marry and breed with gaijin shit (of which I am one) basically deserves whatever troubles they have in the end. It's one of the penalties a Japanese must pay for diffusing the gene pool.
The upshot being that I don't think any amount of bleating from victims or their supporters (on both sides of the case) will change much until the Japanese pen-pushers decide it's time to change.
And in the meantime, the kids suffer...but that hasn't worried Japanese bureaucrats much in the past, either.

[Mike Oxlong]

Over at MFT, there is a post very sympathetic to Noriko...

[American Oyaji]

Over at MFT, there is a post very sympathetic to Noriko...

I wouldn't say it's very sympathetic, but a lot more balanced and realistic than a lot of other reports we here. Sounds like "the rest of the story" as that she was set up from jump street in coming back to the U.S.

[Mike Oxlong]

I wouldn't say it's very sympathetic, but a lot more balanced and realistic than a lot of other reports we here. Sounds like "the rest of the story" as that she was set up from jump street in coming back to the U.S.

I guess I was misled by the title...

[SIZE="4"]Sympathizing with Noriko Savoie[/SIZE]
October 6th, 2009 by Curzon

[Number11]

I'm still in the camp that he manipulated her into moving to the US. "Force" is strong word, but people can be forced into actions not in their best interest in ways other than physical force.

She does not have dual citizenship, as Debito and many news organizations have wrongly reported. The children are Japanese and do not have dual citizenship.

The culture of fairness to men in divorce, custody and divorce litigation in the US is not much better than Japan. Women hold all the cards and children and visitation are used as ransom by ex-wives.

If he was so concerned about his (Japanese) children, why didn't he agree to a divorce when they were in Japan? Why did he dangle the monetary carrot of splitting the marital assets of the marriage in the US and not offer it in Japan? I'm still inclined to see him as a selfish manipulator.

[Mike Oxlong]

Check out page 121 in the link of court proceedings that Mulboyne posted earlier...

http://wtvf.images.worldnow.com/images/incoming/Investigates/savoie2.pdf

It would seems she went there with her eyes wide open to the situation.

[Mike Oxlong]

[SIZE="5"]Recordings Reveal Kids, Mom Who Abducted Them
[/SIZE]
During a hearing back in March, Williamson County Judge Jim Martin noted that Noriko came to the U.S. knowing that her husband wanted a divorce and that she agreed to live in Tennessee with the children.

Under oath, she testified, "I have never thought about taking [the] children away from their father, never."

But, in a call with Christopher's new wife after the abduction, Noriko spoke of her reasons for taking the children.

Noriko: "U.S. is, it isn't a very nice country. Being here is much more healthier for children than being there."
Amy: "No, because Isaac and Rebecca miss playing the guitar with Christopher. They miss swimming in the pool."
Noriko: "How do you know? They want to remain here. They're always saying they want to go back to Fukuoka."
Amy: "That's a lie and everyone knows it."
Noriko: "It's not lie."

[nottu]

[nottu]

[Mike Oxlong]

She could be a moiyle...

[Iraira]

not that moron again.

my neighbour's newborn son's cock has more weight than debito.

May I suggest some

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to help patients gain weight after a severe illness, injury, or continuing infection. They also are used when patients fail to gain or maintain normal weight because of unexplained medical reasons.
to treat certain types of anemia.
to treat certain kinds of breast cancer in some women.
to treat hereditary angioedema, which causes swelling of the face, arms, legs, throat, windpipe, bowels, or sexual organs

http://www.drugs.com/cons/anabolic-steroids.html

[nottu]