House Passes Resolution Calling on Japan to Address Child Abduction

On September 29, the House passed, 416-1, a resolution calling on Japan to address the issue of child abduction and to adopt the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), includes a number of findings, including:

• Since 1994, the Office of Children’s Issues (OCI) at the Department of State had opened 194 cases involving 269 United States citizen minor children abducted to, or wrongfully retained in Japan, and as of March 25, 2010, OCI had 85 open cases involving 121 United States citizen minor children abducted to, or wrongfully retained in, Japan;
• Since the signing of the Treaty of Peace with Japan between the Allied Powers and the Government of Japan in 1951, the Japanese Government has never issued and enforced a legal decision to return a single abducted child to the United States;
• Japan has not acceded to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (the Hague Convention), resulting in the continued absence of an immediate civil remedy that as a matter of urgency would enable the expedited return of abducted children to their custodial parent in the United States where appropriate, or otherwise immediately allow access to their United States parent;
• The Hague Convention provides enumerated defenses designed to provide protection to children alleged to be subjected to physical or psychological abuse in the left-behind country;
• United States laws against domestic violence extend protection and redress to Japanese spouses;
• Japan’s existing family law system does not recognize joint custody or actively enforce parental access agreements for either its own nationals or foreigners; there is little hope for minor children to have contact with the noncustodial parent in violation of internationally recognized and protected rights;
• There exists no due process within the Japanese family court system for the redress of such disputes, and the existing system has no recognized process to enforce a custody or parental access order from outside of Japan or within it, without the voluntary cooperation of the abducting parent or guardian; and
• The Government of Japan has refused to prosecute an abducting parent or relative criminally when that parent or relative abducts the child into Japan.

The resolution “condemns the abduction and retention of all minor children being held in Japan away from their United States parents in violation of their human rights and United States and international law” and expresses the sense of the House that the United States should “call upon the secretary of Defense to include the issues of child abduction and the protection of members of the United States Armed Forces and their families stationed abroad in any current or future status of forces agreement; call upon the secretary of State to enact immediately a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Japan to establish a bilateral protocol with procedures to address immediately any parental child abduction or access issue reported to the United States Department of State; and urge the Department of State to include international child abduction and Japan’s actions regarding abductions as a human rights violation under its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.”