International child abduction in Japan

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article uses bare URLs, which are uninformative and vulnerable to link rot. Please consider converting them to full citations to ensure the article remains verifiable and maintains a consistent citation style. Several templates and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as reFill (documentation) and Citation bot (documentation). (August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article has an unclear citation style. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation and footnoting. (May 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

International child abduction in Japan refers to the illegal international abduction or removal of children from their country of habitual residence by an acquaintance or family member to Japan or their retention in Japan in contravention to the law of another country. Most cases involve a Japanese parent taking their children to Japan in defiance of visitation or joint custody orders issued by Western courts. The issue is a growing problem as the number of international marriages increases.^[1] Parental abduction often has a particularly devastating effect on parents who may never see their children again.

Japan is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which obliges signatories to promptly return abducted children to their country of habitual residence. The convention entered into force for Japan on 1 April 2014.^[2] The issue had become a cause for significant concern to other parties, the majority of which are Western countries.^[3][4][5] The National Diet approved ratification to the convention in 2013.^[6]

The main impediment to Japan's becoming a party to the convention was that it would require a change in attitude of the legal system towards child custody rights. Japanese family law considers issues of divorce custody, child support or alimony as predominantly private matters. Consequently, Japan has no enforcement mechanism to enforce foreign custody rulings or recommendations made by its own domestic courts. Furthermore, Japan does not recognise joint parental authority or shared "residence" after divorce. As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, however, Japan is supposed to recognize the right of a child to obtain non-custodial parent visitation.