Every year, 150,000 children are kidnapped in Japan with the full support of the Japanese authorities. That means one parent decides to take the children without the consent of his/her spouse, and to leave.
However surprising this may sound, in the Japanese Parliament politicians are discussing about this problem on a daily basis, mentioning that 1 in 4 children born every year, at one point in their lives won’t be able to meet one of their parents anymore.
This is frequent for international couples, in which one of the spouses is Japanese. Hence the “protection” from Japanese authorities. When this happens between two Japanese nationals, authorities tend to give custody automatically to the mother, or to the parent that first kidnapped the child.
The Japanese Police doesn’t act because culturally, parental abductions are not considered crimes.
“The child is with your wife/husband, this is a simple family matter” and that’s it, we’ve heard this countless times. We have met with our heads of states who spoke to Japan Prime Minister Abe to no avail.
We have filed a complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council against the State of Japan exposing a pattern of gross violations of the rights of the child. We have presented the issue in front of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament. We have organized press conferences in Japan and have raised awareness through major international medias.
Despite all this, Japan has done absolutely nothing to improve the situation. Child kidnappings in Japan must stop. We must take our fight to the next level.
We need your help as soon as possible. Please donate so we can keep the fight alive. We are raising money to legally challenge every possible institutions that has failed to protect the rights children in Japan. We are going to raise awareness further to avoid more children being the victim of such hideous crime.
To stay up-to-date with our latest actions please check our website. https://www.japanchildrenrights.org/
On behalf of all children in Japan, thank you.
Vincent and Tommaso
