Applicable only in cases where children are wrongfully taken from their country of "habitual residence," the Hague Convention offers no recourse to foreigners in Japan trying to gain access to their children following a death or divorce if they are not granted custody.
Many in this predicament are puzzled by how "child abduction" is often viewed as an international dispute here even though it victimizes Japanese parents — mostly fathers — just as much as the foreigners, and they are demanding Japan change its laws and judicial system.
Paul Wong, a 44-year-old American, said he was happily married to his Japanese wife in Hong Kong but lost his daughter, Kaya, to his wife's parents when she died of cancer in a hospital in Kyoto in December 2005.