In July 2003, Paul Toland arrived to an empty home at the U.S. Navy's family housing facility in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. Gone were his Japanese wife and baby daughter. What was left was a note: "Contact my lawyers."
Since then, Toland, a navy commander, has been fighting to get his daughter back — and he's not alone. Hundreds of other fathers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and other countries are also fighting the same battle.
"Hundreds of children have been abducted and none have ever been returned (from Japan)," Toland, now based in Maryland, said in a phone interview earlier this year. "It's frustrating — you know that you are in a losing battle."