Kitakitsune, I think you are either confused about what the Hague Convention is, what vix is saying, or you are bad at admitting when you are wrong. The Hague Convention is not about imposing another custody system onto Japan. It's about countries respecting the custody laws of other countries.

Sorry, but I don't think the Hague Convention is the true core of the argument. Or else the documentary would not bring up the foreign fathers who lost custody of children (in Japan).

kitakitsune Wrote:

vix86 Wrote:

kitakitsune Wrote:And when I say "Japan" - I really mean the plurality of world population who agree with the basic concept of sole motherly custody.

Nevermind. Its impossible to argue this point really if you don't see anything wrong with the father being kept out of their child's life.

As an American I do have a problem with it but I don't feel that I have some inherent right to go around Asia telling people the "correct" way to raise children.

Even if one of that child's parents is not Asian? It sounds like what you're saying is that an international couple can create and raise a child on American soil, but as soon as the marriage goes sour and the mother (in defiance of US law) whisks the kid off to Japan, Japanese customs and laws are all that matter. Does that make any sense?

[s0apgun]

kitakitsune Wrote:

s0apgun Wrote:The husband would have no case in Japan if he presented the matter even if the woman was a straight nut.

This is not true. 20% of the time the husband is granted sole custody. Probably for the reasons you bring up.

After the divorce... until then the police won't recognize it as an issue and consider it a "family matter" so for a year or two you could be shut out of your children's lives.

JimmySeal Wrote:Even if one of that child's parents is not Asian? It sounds like what you're saying is that an international couple can create and raise a child on American soil, but as soon as the marriage goes sour and the mother (in defiance of US law) whisks the kid off to Japan, Japanese customs and laws are all that matter. Does that make any sense?

Not exactly - The actions of the mother are not considered illegal in Japan and it is in fact considered normal social practice.

Why should Japan be obligated as a nation to ignore the wishes of the Japanese mother, Japanese law, and Japanese social norms in order to comply with western concepts of joint custody?

And just by looking at the state of international marriage between Japanese and Americans - it is plainly obvious that the convention would unilaterally put the American father into a favorable position regarding his custody rights and would in fact (de-facto) deprive the mother of any parental rights and access.

How exactly is a divorced Japanese wife supposed to support herself in the United States where she can gain easy access to her children? Seriously...

kitakitsune Wrote:

JimmySeal Wrote:Even if one of that child's parents is not Asian? It sounds like what you're saying is that an international couple can create and raise a child on American soil, but as soon as the marriage goes sour and the mother (in defiance of US law) whisks the kid off to Japan, Japanese customs and laws are all that matter. Does that make any sense?

Not exactly - The actions of the mother are not considered illegal in Japan and it is in fact considered normal social practice.

Why should Japan be obligated as a nation to ignore the wishes of the Japanese mother, Japanese law, and Japanese social norms in order to comply with western concepts of joint custody?

Regardless of what the country of Japan's obligations are, Japanese women's actions in this context makes them 卑怯者 and they deserve to be criticized for it. You seem to be suggesting that it's fine that it turns out that way because it's Japanese custom.

JimmySeal Wrote:Regardless of what the country of Japan's obligations are, Japanese women's actions in this context makes them 卑怯者 and they deserve to be criticized for it. You seem to be suggesting that it's fine that it turns out that way because it's Japanese custom.

I'd like to see your opinion of my last post. The more I think about the convention, the more I realize that it in fact deprives the mother of access.

kitakitsune Wrote:How exactly is a divorced Japanese wife supposed to support herself in the United States where she can gain easy access to her children? Seriously...

Ok, so because having the child remain in the US would put obstacles in the way of the mother seeing her child all the time, we should let her whisk the child away to Japan so that the father will never see the child again for the rest of eternity? Absurd.

Plus, the concept of a Japanese woman, living in the US and previously married to an American, finding gainful employment in the US isn't quite as absurd as you make it out to be.

Even if the mother leaves the child in the US and goes back to Japan, that doesn't preclude her from ever seeing the child again, but the alternative can easily make it so that the father would never be able to see his child, even if he went to Japan. I just don't see any way to side with these child-abducting mothers.

Let's be real

Because of the language barrier, lack of human and financial resources, and lack of familiarity with the US legal system - a Japanese woman would be at a disadvantage at US divorce court, every time.

No wonder so many feel their only option is to go to Japan.

Edit: You put way too much faith in the ability of Japanese wives to get gainful employment in the US after divorce. I'm not saying that a few cannot pull this off, but it's clear that the vast majority of Japanese women would be forced to return to Japan after divorce simply because they cannot find jobs.

kitakitsune Wrote:Let's be real

Because of the language barrier, lack of human and financial resources, and lack of familiarity with the US legal system - a Japanese woman would be at a disadvantage at US divorce court, every time.

No wonder so many feel their only option is to go to Japan.

They may have understandable motivations for kidnapping their children, but once they've done it, they seem perfectly content to cut of the father's access to their child forever. So no, I can't agree with what they do.

Only a small percentage of Japanese mothers "cut off" their fathers from their children's lives.

On the flip - the Hague Convention would in fact "cut off" most Japanese mothers from their American children.

The parent who gets the child no matter which one, effectively cuts off the other from the children's lives.
In a nutshell, shit sucks.

edit: Assuming they leave the country

Haha yea, shit sucks

But lets be honest, the American husband with a career has a far better chance of traveling to Japan on a regular basis to see his children compared to a Japanese housewife without a career trying to travel to America....

A comprise I see is that the American husband could be forced to pay for the Japanese mother's ability to visit her children.

The fact is, abduction should be illegal regardless of whether you think you have some self-ordained right (obviously child abuse issues not withstanding).

Japan should pass the Hague convention and subsequently add to their code of law the concept of joint custody.

You don't run around saying "Well, if you're poor then stealing is fine. After all that business has TONS of money so it can afford a shortfall here and there; you're poor after all!!" No, that's bullshit.

And as to the "man has a career, wife doesn't, so he can travel." Whats the ***** point of that if the father can be arrested and deported for trying to see his kid. After all that's what FULL CUSTODY allows, which Japanese courts grant practically unanimously to the mother.

EDIT: Also, again, if Japanese women followed typical legal procedure they'd get money from a proper divorce, child support (which might even include money for sending the child back and forth between parents at a time), and legal custody rights. Of course for any of this to really hold any water, Japan would have to pull its head out of its ass and actually join the international community.

It seems clear to me kitakitsune that this doesn't come off as a major issue to you. Either you are either female and don't see this as an issue because of that or you just don't see a Japanese woman in your future ever. Me, and probably many, many other males out there living in Japan, look at the current status and see something where if you get in a relationship with any woman in Japan and move out of Japan. You are basically always having to look over your shoulder because you never know when "that trip to Japan to see the grandparents." Might be her trying to whisk the kids away to never be seen again because she was slightly dissatisfied over something.

The Japanese woman could stay in the U.S. and continue living there. If you chose to have a child in one country, then you have to be prepared to live there forever, unless you get the approval of the other spouse or the children are old enough.

The same thing applies to a guy having a child with a girl in Japan. You can't just expect that your wife will follow you if you move out of the country.

people who punish their kids for their own relationship breakdowns are just, really scummy. If you have kids, you need to work out a compromise between you that makes both of you and the children reasonably happy. That might not be easy, and may mean speaking like an adult to somebody you now hate, but imo, even long drawn out custody battles in court are a bad thing for the kids. Just get on with it. Your kids aren't objects that one or the other of you "owns". Deal with it.

The cases presented in that documentary are really sad, especially the British guy and the guy with the disabled son. Their wives are obviously just scummy. In the case of the disabled son, why doesn't the ex-wife just assure her husband that he can see his daughter whenever he can if he goes back to the states to get treatment for their son??

Most cases aren't that scummy though, i imagine. A lot of it is going to be "depressed wife takes children back to Japan" type of thing, where the husband point blank refuses to consider any compromise. Neither parent has acted any better in that case. The Hague convention forces the kids to stay in the country where they happen to be, but that's fairly arbitrary. It's also often used by an abusive partner to stop the other parent taking their kids to safety.

vix86,

You do realize that the majority of the "international community" is not on board the Hague Convention nor is it on board with the concept of "joint custody"... right?

IceCream Wrote:It's also often used by an abusive partner to stop the other parent taking their kids to safety.

The Hauge convention has stipulations on child abuse and situations where the health of the child is at risk. Its no different than if a parent tried to kidnap their kid to another part of the same country.

I like to think that these kind of sad situations are really really rare, but while the possibility still stands, this will always remain something that any male with a Japanese wife is going to be fearing. I imagine even the rarer foreign wife to a Japanese man might fear it, though I'm not sure if there have been any cases where courts sided with the father in that case.

kitakitsune Wrote:vix86,

You do realize that the majority of the "international community" is not on board the Hague Convention nor is it on board with the concept of "joint custody"... right?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...ention.svg
Looks like half the world too me. Save for Africa and Asia. The rest of the world seems to be on board (with the Hague).

I actually can't find any lists of custody types by country. So I'll give ground that it may not exist in most countries around the world. But really its visitation rights which I think are at the heart of this; the ability of one parent to see their children.

Eikyu Wrote:The Japanese woman could stay in the U.S. and continue living there. If you chose to have a child in one country, then you have to be prepared to live there forever, unless you get the approval of the other spouse or the children are old enough.

The same thing applies to a guy having a child with a girl in Japan. You can't just expect that your wife will follow you if you move out of the country.

That made me think of another aspect -

In the Japanese Constitution, all citizens (not excluding children) have freedom of movement and choice of residence. The US Constitution does not mention this freedom, although it seems implicit. But it is still commonplace for US courts to determine where parents and children may live after a split. Passports can even be taken away by court order.

Although the Hague Convention apparently gives children the right to choose residency, the age limits of such children is not defined and US courts have a long history of ruling against accepting the preferences of children.

The US, Somalia, and South Sudan (talk about joining the international community here) are the only states in the world that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees children younger than 18 the right to express their preferences in matters that affect their life. Japan ratified this treaty in 1994.

That might be a reason why Japan isn't getting on board this treaty right now.

@vix: that comment about the Hague Convention and abusive parents came from this article, is it wrong then? http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/...46,00.html

Personally, i think every case needs to be decided on it's own merits, with a fair court hearing if necessary. International cases probably need an impartial international court.

The right of the child to decide is all very well and good, but it sucks in practise. It's really stressful and horrible to be put in that position as a child. Because you know you're going to hurt at least one parent, and neither of them will be happy no matter what you decide anyway. That's assuming that one parent hasn't turned the kids against the other parent already, like those little girls in the video who ran away from their dad. What do you think they would say if asked whether they wanted to see him? Of course they'd just parrot whatever the mother had told them.

kitakitsune Wrote:That might be a reason why Japan isn't getting on board this treaty right now.

If it was the real reason for not getting on board with the convention then they'd state and have done with it; because it would be good bargaining chips. But no, they've dragged their feet and grumbled at summits about "ya we need to do something, we'll look into it" and then just forget about it. Family issues are not the issues of a largely conservative parliament, least of all custody issues involved with international's. There were actually bills put on the table in the parliament but they went no where and may have completely expired by now. It's a lot like Japan trying to get other countries to care about the North Korean abductions.

vix86 Wrote:

kitakitsune Wrote:vix86,

You do realize that the majority of the "international community" is not on board the Hague Convention nor is it on board with the concept of "joint custody"... right?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...ention.svg
Looks like half the world too me. Save for Africa and Asia. The rest of the world seems to be on board (with the Hague).

I actually can't find any lists of custody types by country. So I'll give ground that it may not exist in most countries around the world. But really its visitation rights which I think are at the heart of this; the ability of one parent to see their children.

86 of 195 countries. Just by glancing over things visually, you can see that over 75% of world population is not covered by this treaty.

IceCream Wrote:@vix: that comment about the Hague Convention and abusive parents came from this article, is it wrong then? http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/...46,00.html

Personally, i think every case needs to be decided on it's own merits, with a fair court hearing if necessary. International cases probably need an impartial international court.

The right of the child to decide is all very well and good, but it sucks in practise. It's really stressful and horrible to be put in that position as a child. Because you know you're going to hurt at least one parent, and neither of them will be happy no matter what you decide anyway. That's assuming that one parent hasn't turned the kids against the other parent already, like those little girls in the video who ran away from their dad. What do you think they would say if asked whether they wanted to see him? Of course they'd just parrot whatever the mother had told them.

Interesting. If its the case that the treaty in its current state isn't well suited to take into account protecting children then it needs to be revised. But its still not grounds for completely throwing it out or even ignoring it.

And I can't see the video because its, amusingly enough, blocked from being viewed in Japan, lol.