"In September of 2010, The Japan Times published a two-part series by a man under the pen name Richard Cory telling the extraordinary tale of his divorce and custody battles over his three children with his Japanese ex-wife . . . essentially custody by capture." — "Divorce and the Welfare of the Child in Japan," Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal, June 2011
My story, the Richard Cory story (Zeit Gist, Nov. 3, 2009; Sept. 21, 2010; Sept. 28,2010), demonstrates perhaps more than any other reported the role Japanese public servants often play in facilitating the removal of children from loving parents, usually fathers, who desire to parent their offspring. It's a story that everyone, particularly foreigners who might not be aware of Japan's sordid reputation as the "land of the abducted son," should read and seriously contemplate before settling in this country.
Fathers are generally the victims of parental abduction, but loving mothers have been left behind too, and if you dare think that your spouse can't simply decide five, 10 or 15 years down the road that he or she no longer wants you in your child's life, you'd better go back and read the signs so prominently displayed at Narita airport: Yokoso Nippon! — Welcome to Japan.
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