‘My ex took my children’: Hope for divorced parents as Japan to allow joint child custody

A decades-old law that allows divorced people to share custody of their children starting in 2026 has been approved by the Chinese congress.

Usually, custody is granted to a single family who is then able to completely cut off the other parent’s access to their children.

Japan was the only G7 member that did not acknowledge the constitutional principle of joint captivity up until Friday.

Most marriage in Japan occur through” notice marriage,” in which both parties sign a document and agree to finish a union.

In this situation, lawyers say, the pair is free to decide custody and visit plans. However, the judge grants one family custody if the two functions are separated in court.

This approach has drawn criticism from divorced families who claim that as a result, they have been separated from their kids.

Minako Sato* is one of them.

When Ms. Sato and her ex-husband agreed to bring her therefore 10-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter to visit on weekends when she moved to her old mother’s house to volunteer for a few months.

This design lasted for about a quarter and a half. However, Ms. Sato claimed she noticed a change in her ex-husband: he was slower and more remote.

” He stopped talking to me when he brought the kids to my family’s house”, she said.

” At first I thought he was tired from driving. I did n’t understand what was happening”.

Finally he informed her that he would no longer go see her every trip, claiming that his mother had criticized her for being a negative effect.

” He said if I got any closer to the ( family ) home he’d call the police. I was afraid to go near it… ( in case ) he was violent or told lies to the police ( about me )”.

She attempted to call the property in-laws her husband and children shared with her mother, but her names were stymied. But in a desperate charge to see her child, she decided to show up anyway.

I went to see my mother-in-law, and I thought maybe she could speak to him to bring me home.

Her mom- in- law called the police otherwise.

” Five or six police came. They alleged that they would n’t let me leave unless I traveled to the station with them. Ms Sato said.

She and her daughter, who had entered the police vehicle with her, stayed there for three days.

Before her estranged father and his lawyer arrived to pick the baby away, she would spend the longest with her daughter.

The police agent ultimately expressed his regret, but he was unable to assist me.

After being separated from her children for two years, Ms. Sato learned that her ex-husband had been given the ultimate guardianship of the kids.

” I knew by then that whoever takes the baby gets custody”, she said. ” I knew it was coming”.

Akira Ueno, a lawyer with a focus on parental abduction situations, told the BBC that this system, which was based on the notion that babies were” the property of the home,” with the household’s mind being a man, dates back to before the second world war.

” So if the woman gets divorced, she ends up being kicked out of the house while the baby is kept with the daddy”, Mr Ueno explains.

Eventually, this changed as people tended to be their primary caregivers, with the majority of cases now granting the family sole custody.

When Asian table tennis superstar Ai Fukuhara was accused by her ex-husband of abducting their son, the laws were once more brought into focus last year.

Chiang Hung- Chieh, a Chinese table tennis player, claimed they had filed for divorce several years ago and that they both officially agreed to joint custody while they were visiting Taiwan.

However, she stopped communicating with Chiang after she returned from Japan with their child and refused to return their child to Taiwan. The couple announced earlier this year that they had reached a settlement about two years later.

However, not everyone is pleased with the new mutual prison law.

Some pro-feminism activists claim that the new law will require women who have accused their husbands of domestic abuse to keep relationships with them.

” If you implement the joint guardianship system, the perpetrator will have complete control over the children and victims of domestic assault.” They ca n’t escape”, said lawyer Harumi Okamura.

Ms. Okamura has extensive experience with women who have fled domestic violence and aggressive relationships. She adds that those people believe they are dependent on their abusive partners to raise their children.

However, another attorneys have cautioned against conflating home abuse and joint custody.

After two and a half decades in the divorce process, Ms. Sato learned that her two children had left their family home.

She looked online and discovered that the property had been for sale.

” One evening, I passed by and there was nothing. No automobile, no bicycles, everything. I did n’t know what to think. I did n’t know where they went,” she said.

Ms. Sato claimed she called the police to report that her children had been kidnapped, but all they returned with was confirmation that her children were safe and with their father and that her ex-husband did n’t want her to know where they were, so they could n’t tell her.

I do n’t have a restraining order in place against me. Legally, I should be able to view my kids. I should be able to understand where they’re living. ” She said.

According to Mr. Ueno, if a parent-child custody dispute persists for more than a year and the baby constantly resides with one parent, it becomes a significant factor in the jury’s determination of who gets custody.

” There’s an benefits to whoever takes the child second,” Mr Ueno said.

While the criminal law of Japan clearly defines the term “abduction of a slight,” the interpretation becomes much less clear when a parent abducts their own child. Essentially, lawyers say, the authorities do n’t treat it as abduction.

This is known as “going estranged with kids” or “living individually with children” in Japan, and it is tolerated. ” Mr Ueno said.

” The police do n’t take action, saying it’s a matter between spouses. They do n’t intervene. It’s a historical rule in Japan.”

Visit privileges are discretionary and not a legitimate right in Japan, and are discretionary.

For Ms. Sato, her second attempt to obtain child support failed after a judge turned down her request on the grounds that there was a contentious debate between her and her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

According to Ms. Okamura, judges will only give trip in the majority of cases where it is in the child’s best interest. And when and if these sessions are granted, they happen under control.

After three and a half decades of being entirely cut off from her children, Ms. Sato was finally granted visitation with her kids in August of last year.

” I’d been trying to see my kids for three times,” she said, while in grief”. I was thus tired by next.”

For the first time in a long time, Ms. Sato, her brother, and daughter were in the same place, but they were both under court supervision. The second meeting was a test visitation.

She was given 30 minutes to talk to them, but she was informed that she could n’t inquire into their lives, where they lived, where they went to school, or who their friends were friends.

She claims that she was told related issues by another divorced parents and that she was never given a specific reason why she was required to continue with the “limited questions.”

” My girl was very silent. It’d been three- and- a- third times so I think she was nervous. But she claimed to have loved and had been wanting to discover me.

Her daughter even showed her a text, which read: Dear Mom, How are you? I’ve been missing for four to three times, so I’m worried. I’ve moved on to the fourth grade, and I have a lot of friends. I want to view you immediately because I love you.

Ms Sato smiles when she talks about her brother, then a teenager.

” I asked him’ Is that you?’ three or four times. Because he’d grown therefore much”, she said. ” He’s much taller than me now”.

If there had been a mutual prison system in Japan, “none of this would’ve happened”, she adds.

Mr. Ueno’s optimism is less cheerful, but she claims she is optimistic that the costs will eventually stop familial abduction cases.

He questions whether the authorities will basically pursue those who kidnap their children, not to mention how the shared custody system will really be enforced.

” Simply speaking, I think it’s’ plain vertebrae’- a bill without substance”, he says. When there is no infrastructure, how you shared custody be enforced?

Up in Tokyo, Ms Sato has suddenly been granted regular appointments with her kids. She presently meets them once per quarter.

She claims she does n’t know much about their lives, but she wants to make up for it.

” At least I’m getting the chance to view my children”, she says, smiling through tears.

Yumi Herman and Chie Kobayashi provided extra monitoring.

*Names have been altered to better reflect who they are.