The Mantle Blog: Watching Over Our Children

by Erica Klein
Posted on 03-11-2010	Translate this page

Japan has been urged by the United States and 7 other countries to address its international child welfare provisions for family law cases involving custody disputes. Japan has also not signed on to a global treaty on child abduction. Ambassadors from the US, together with envoys from Australia, France, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada and Spain, met with the Japanese Foreign Minister to discuss the issue.

The envoys of eight different countries have advocated for Japan to sign a treaty to prevent international parental child abductions. Japan is the only country of the Group of Seven that has not yet signed the Hague Convention. Activists say that foreign parents are denied access and custody of their children, and that even grandparents and relatives are chosen over the biological and foreign parent in custody matters. It is a common practice amongst the courts: a societal norm that wreaks havoc when international marriages and unions with children break down. Read the full blog here.