The inspiration behind parental child abductions in Japan story

I was casually scrolling through TikTok and stumbled across a video that showed an American father and his daughter somewhere in Japan surrounded by a few police officers who were trying to take his daughter away to his ex-wife because his ex-wife called the police allegedly saying that he has his daughter illegally. The video showed the father filming his daughter asking her questions if she was being held against her will by her father or if she was unhappy to be here with her father, she replied no to all and she also expressed that she didn't want to go with the policemen.

I was shocked by the multiple human rights violations the child and the father in the video faced. So, I went researching the issue and came across multiple parents from all over the world who were facing the same issue - parental child abduction in Japan. After I found various articles by Reuters, The Guardian, Japan Times and other outlets about foreign and Japanese parents who experienced their child taken away by their spouse, due to the sole custody system after divorce in Japan, these left-behind parents don't have the chance to see their children ever again if their spouse doesn't allow it. I found out more about the sole custody system after couples divorce and found the GOV.uk website that states: "The abduction of a child by a parent is not in itself a criminal offence in Japan. When parents decide to divorce, they must agree on who will take sole custody of any children.” Seeing this indicated that the UK government and possibly other first-world countries were aware of the issue but aren't doing anything about it.

The more I dug the more I was disgusted there wasn't much media coverage about the issue at all, and even more so mad about the governments who just chose to ignore these parents who are suffering every day not being able to see their children. I then came across an article by the Telegraph about Douglas Galbraith, a historical novelist from the UK, who had his children stolen from him by his ex-wife in 2003. He sadly took his own life in 2018 due to not being able to see his children for over nine years. This is the reality for these left-behind parents no one seemed to notice or care about them. After reading Douglas's story I wanted to highlight the issue through my major project.

Later, I came across a Stop Parental Child Abductions in Japan Organisation which led me to contact Bjoern Echternacht founder of the organisation for an interview with him. Bjoern then told me to contact Adam Perry as Bjoern said he doesn't converse well in English. After contacting Adam, he got the ball rolling for me.

I also asked advice from Mike Sunderland (my MMP lecturer) on my idea as I know it poses multiple risks regarding children's identity and it's just a very sensitive subject matter, to begin with. He said I'm very ambitious to be doing my MMP on such a huge international issue that has many risks but advised me to talk to David Mascord about the potential child identification issues I might face and the issue of not having the abducting parent's point of view which might make the piece more biased.

Later, I went to David Mascord for some legal advice on child identification and other potential risks I need to consider before going through with this project. He said as long as I don't put any information that could potentially identify any children I would be fine. I won't be including any names and all images with the children's faces will be blurred.

I found that the governments from various first-world countries were aware of the issue but weren't doing anything. Moreover, there isn't enough media coverage of the issue. This is why I chose to do my major project on parental child abductions as I'm sure we can all empathise with these parents.