Can Foreigners kidnap their own children?

22 comments

1. I think it’s *japan* that has no problem with kidnapping children while the rest of the civilized world *does*. So taking your kids to your “home country” is probably a bad idea here.

2. Japan doesn’t care about non-custodial kidnapping, but your country might. Take it into account and consider whether that is a risk you’re willing to take.

3. This is one of the wildest posts I’ve ever seen on this sub.

4. >can foreigners kidnap their own children?

   Not to a country that has signed agreement to The Hague Convention, no.

5. Because you’ll end up in jail?

6. Unlike Japan, other countries enforce The Hague convention, even for demands by Japanese parents, so the police will be at your door in your home country to forcefully take your kid and return him to Japan.

   Real life case:

   https://www.leparisien.fr/amp/faits-divers/son-pere-a-obtenu-sa-garde-louis-4-ans-partira-pour-le-japon-le-lendemain-de-noel-24-12-2019-8223651.php

7. Japanese spouse kidnaps children

   Japan: Looks okay to me.

   Your country: Custodial rights exist! Respect The Hague Convention! But we can’t actually do nor enforce anything, sorry.

   Foreign spouse kidnaps children

   Japan: Contacts your country’s embassy and request to have you arrested via national manhunt and the children brought back to Japan.

   Your country: We will oblige and seek out that criminal scum.

8. Yes. I know a guy who did it. Well, Interpol got involved.

9. We hear a lot about fathers loosing access to their child, but if you dig enough, you discover they are also a lot of stories about abusing husbands.
   Also, Japanese justice system grants custody to the parent who ask for it. Sadly fathers don’t ask for it that much, but they seems to whine a lot in front of western media instead.

10. Kidnapping is Kidnapping. If you do it, it doesn’t make you any better than all those Japanese spouses who kidnapped kids.

11. If your wife bothers to ask for them back through official legal channels, there’s a higher risk the fuzz in your home country will make you send them back.

    But if your wife has an out of sight, out of mind “shoganai” attitude and having the kids out of the way will mean more time for dates at Aeon Town, she may just roll with it.

    INB4 some overzealous mod locks the thread because discussing things that might break the law might get people’s visas revoked/the subreddit shut down/sued under Japanese libel law

12. Kind of related question. Anyone have experience taking kids out of the country without the Japanese wife? As in, would immigration stop someone if they were a foreigner leaving the country with their Japanese kids?

13. Honestly none of this makes much sense.

    *Why come you don’t just kidnap the kids first? It’s legal right?*

    If its kidnapping then no, its not legal.

    *Isn’t there some secret divorce thing that you can do at City Hall if they don’t sign a paper to prevent it?*

    There is no such thing as a secret divorce. If you want to divorce both of you have to consent to it and go to city hall. If one of you resists the divorce, the other has to take you to court to get one.

    *Hell why don’t you just run away with your kids to your home country that’s what they do right?*

    I’m not in a broken marriage, but even if I was there are about a milllion reasons I would never just grab my kids and leave the country with them. Just because a few people have decided to do that and, to varying degrees, gotten away with it due to the Japanese system doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

14. I know a guy that did that to Ireland… legally couldn’t do much but a mutual acquaintance of the husband/ wife took the wife to the husbands home in Ireland… they decided to let the child decide which parent to live with

15. If the kids have dual citizenship, with passports and all, it’s an option. Otherwise, I`m assuming international law kicks in.

16. ULPT: Buy a round-trip ticket, visit the grandparents in the home country, decide to extend the trip for a bit/cancel the tickets, oh whoops money issues, need to work for a few months, well maybe a year tops, OK just one more year…

17. It’s not doable if your country respects Hague convention.
    There was a broadcast on French channels about a woman who took her kid back to France and she was sued for kidnapping.
    In the end she had to send back her kid to her Japanese husband in Japan….
    It broke my heart back then, I can’t imagine how desperate she was to run back to France with her son who was still a toddler… if japan was respecting laws too she could have just stayed in Japan with her son without all those fears.

18. That’s exactly what my sister did and it didn’t end up well.

    She was living in Tokyo with her Japanese husband and their son. One day she decided to go back to France on holidays with the kid. Once there she told the husband that she was not coming back and wanted a divorce.

    The husband went to court. It was a court battle between France and Japan. After many lost trials she had to give the kid back to him. Police came up to my parents’ house where she was living to pick up the kid. Someone has posted the link below.

    Anyway, not recommended. You need to fix the situation in Japan first.

19. I think it probably doesn’t cross the mind of the foreign spouse to kidnap the kids until it’s too late…

    Disregarding kidnapping them out of the country because that won’t turn out well lol. But kidnapping within the country, the foreigner probably doesn’t have much of a support system or the resources to pull it off. The Japanese spouse has their family to help plan things and to provide them a place to kidnap the kids to.

    The foreign spouse would need to set up a place to live to kidnap the kids to without their partner knowing. Of course it’s possible, but it’s much harder if you’re on your own.

20. Legalities aside, OP sounds extremely self-centered. Narcissistic, if not full-blown psychopath.

    A responsible parent would first and foremost consider the interests of the children, rather than talking about them like possessions that can be dragged to wherever based on some sense of entitlement as a parent.

    These children presumably grew up in Japan, went to school in Japan, most likely speak Japanese more easily than their secondary language, have friends here, and are overall more familiar with a Japanese way of life than any country elsewhere.

    You’d just abruptly rip them away from all that, and place them in a foreign country mostly alien to them, with most likely a completely different culture and education system — all without even considering their feelings and opinions about that, all because you feel you somehow have the “right” to do so?

21. I don’t think kidnap is the best word.

    The best word here is “they divorced and the law told you to give them kiddies to the mommy.”

    You can try to do it beforehand, but you will just be in prison.

    Because at the end of the day, while they are your kids, you are still kidnapping *someone else’s kids.*

22. I understand the question. In the current Japanese system, it really seems like dibs work in terms of kidnapping before divorce.

    I have no idea if a foreigner would be more likely to be arrested for it. But first that foreigner would need PR anyway otherwise he might be booted out of Japan into their home country which would not take such actions kindly.

    What I heard, the way it works is you have to hide with your kids while keeping contact with the spouse. Brainwash the kids so that when child services come to see if the kids agree to see their other parent, they say “no I want to stay with parent 1”. Then child services will wash their hands saying kids get to stay in place for their own psychological well being.

    Again the big question is would the JP system work the same for a foreign parent and I have never read of any case with a foreign parent kidnapping kids while staying in Japan.