EXCLUSIVE: Campbell Urges Japan to Address Cross-Border Child Custody

Washington, Sept. 4 (Jiji Press)--Senior U.S. official Kurt Campbell has raised serious concern about the lack of recognition in Japan of cross-border parental custody of children after breakups in international marriage.
The issue "has not received enough attention in Japan," Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said in a recent interview with Jiji Press. "I don't think there is as much recognition widely," he said.
Campbell said that "the longer this goes on, the greater the likelihood that this becomes an issue in which it is perceived that Japan is not addressing a central issue associated with the well-being of American children."
Washington is concerned about many cases in which Japanese parents took their children with American nationality from the United States to Japan without the consent of their non-Japanese spouses.
The U.S. government has been pressing Japan to join the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and address existing such cases. It is frustrated with Japan's failure to make progress on the issue although Tokyo has decided to join the treaty.
When U.S. Vice President Joe Biden held talks in Tokyo in August with then Prime Minister Naoto Kan, Biden pointed to the need for urgent attention on the part of the Japanese government, Campbell said.
"It'll be one of the issues that we raise at high levels," said Campbell who noted the U.S. government will discuss a whole range of issues shortly with Japan's new government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
Regarding the child custody issue, he referred to U.S. support of Japan in addressing the issue of abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents.
These are very different circumstances, but "what they have in common is "a beloved person, sort of, wrenched from a family into a situation where you can't see them or interact with them any longer," Campbell said.
"For me, it's a human issue," he said.
Campbell said "a strong U.S.-Japan alliance is in the best possible interest of our two countries," warning of U.S. congressional moves to increase pressures on Japan. In the absence of progress, the U.S. government "would be prepared to look at other legal devices," he said.
In Japan, there is strong opposition to Tokyo joining the treaty for such reasons as to protect Japanese women who have returned home from other countries with their children to avoid domestic violence.
Japanese legislation being drawn up for the ratification of the treaty is thus to state domestic violence as a reason for refusal to return children.
Campbell said those allegations are used without any foundation and that the United States "would not want to see implementing domestic legislation that undercuts or impede, or, frankly, in opposition to the main tenets associated with the overarching set of foundations that are laid out in the Hague convention."