‘It’s damaging children’: Japan’s abducted kids call for help at the G7

Tokyo: Atsuki was seven when he lost contact with his dad. By nine, he was writing a letter to his grandma telling her he and his sister could not cope with the abuse he was getting from his mother at home. “[My sister] had bruises all over her face,” he says.

By 10, his mother had tried to suicide, but Japan’s sole-custody system meant he had no way of contacting his father. Atsuki said his mother beat him up for calling an ambulance. “It was shocking,” he says.

Atsuki, 16, says Japan’s sole custody laws put him in danger.Credit: Eryk Bagshaw

In school, like the hundreds of thousands of other children separated from one of their parents each year, Atsuki was alienated. “I wanted to play baseball, but they said I couldn’t because I didn’t have a responsible parent,” he says.

In Japan, one parent has control over their child’s future after separation, including their education, healthcare and housing. The other Japanese or foreign parent has no legal right to access their kids, drawing criticism from some of the country’s closest diplomatic partners, including several of those attending the G7 summit in Hiroshima this week.

Despite the clear emotional impacts of the policy, the debate about the issue in Japan remains muted because it is seen as a private family matter. Advocates of sole custody argue it protects some women from domestic violence, but opponents say it is fuelling a race to abduct children that has destroyed thousands of families across the country.

Atsuki says the money sent by his father never made it to their kitchen table. His teenage sister had to work to support them while his mother went out late at night. The 16-year-old blames the government for putting him and his sister in danger and blocking him from seeing his father.

“Even if I couldn’t tell him what was happening to us, he would have seen the bruises on our bodies,” he says.

In Toyama, 420 kilometres west of Tokyo, Susumu Wataya was 12 when his parents separated. He says he was beaten when he asked about his father. Then his last name was secretly changed, cutting him off from all future contact. It took him 17 years to find his father again. When he did, his father told him he had been kicked out of the family home because he had been blamed for Wataya’s younger brother’s Down syndrome.

“We can’t seem to understand this problem in Japan,” he says.“I lost my identity. The pain that this Japanese system causes children is beyond description.”

Wataya has published a collection of 12 abducted and alienated children’s stories. “Some children said they are still suffering from the pain for 50 years,” he says, fuelling issues with trust, abandonment, and mental health.

Susuma Wataya says international pressure is needed for Japan to make reforms to its laws. Credit: Eryk Bagshaw

Wataya and Atsuki’s experiences are not unique to Japanese children. Hundreds of children born to a foreign-born parent have been alienated or abducted in Japan, drawing condemnation from the United Nations and the United States Congress.

Their lives are now part of a diplomatic tussle that is damaging Japan’s carefully crafted international image as it looks to expand its influence abroad. The leaders of the world’s seven largest economies and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will fly into Hiroshima for the G7 on Friday. Their focus will be on the war in Ukraine and China, but there will also be an opportunity for leaders to raise the fate of hundreds of missing kids from France, the US, the United Kingdom and Australia with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

In March, an investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes revealed that Japanese police had ignored Interpol missing persons notices and courts had failed to enforce visitation orders for dozens of missing Australian kids.

“Of course, they should be raising it at the G7,” says Australian father Matt Wyman. “There are 82 kids from Australia. They know what is going on.”

Wyman lost his kids in 2009. “My marriage was a normal marriage. My wife just wanted to go to Japan for a holiday,” he says. They disappeared instead. When he found his kids and tried to give his son a birthday card in 2012, he was surrounded by six police officers. “I was a wreck, but I never gave up,” he says.

In 2015, his eldest son refused to go to school. Desperate, Wyman’s ex-wife agreed to send him back to Australia where he has been ever since. “He doesn’t like to talk about it now. It has affected him since. Even to this day, he has anxiety about it.”

Keiko Jalili’s daughter was taken when she was four years old. “This system doesn’t think of children,” she says. “The children are abandoned.”

Matt Wyman’s says the abduction of his kids his caused them long term damage. Credit: Paul Harris

Jalili is one of the few Japanese parents who have since reconnected with their son or daughter. It took 14 years.

“The Japanese system is very good at kidnapping,” she says. “My daughter doesn’t want to talk about the past. She is still damaged.”

The mental health impacts of being abducted and then feeling abandoned by the other parent are profound in a country that is grappling with a mental health and fertility crisis.

“It’s a lifelong pain,” says Wataya. “It ruined my relationship with my father and my mother.”

Keiko Jalili’s daughter was taken when she was four. Credit: Eryk Bagshaw

A 2016 study by the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health found children with access to only one parent had higher levels of psychological complaints and were at risk of worse mental health.

Japanese government figures show 200,000 couples separate in Japan each year, and a third of children lose all contact with one of their parents.

“Japan is a world champion in suicide. And we know that for 65 per cent of them, it is because of family issues,” said French father Phillipe Cocatrix. “The government is crying we don’t have enough kids. But they can’t protect the kids who are already born.”

Japanese government officials are reluctant to talk publicly about the issue despite some MPs labelling the decades of child abductions an international embarrassment.

French father Phillipe Cocatrix (centre) marches in Tokyo with other victims of parental abduction in May. Credit: Christopher Jue

“There has been some discussion regarding possible legal reform,” says Kishida’s cabinet secretary for public affairs Noriyuki Shikata. “But I don’t think any conclusions have been reached.”

One of the key focal points proposed by Japan at the G7 apart from the war in Ukraine, China’s economic coercion and the role of artificial intelligence will be on gender and empowering women. Mothers who have had their kids taken from them have accused the Japanese government of breaching their human rights.

“There are mothers who can’t see their kids because of this current law,” says 40-year-old Izumi Uchiyama, whose kids were taken suddenly by her husband in 2017. She has not seen them since.

“We hope they actually understand this is our situation and the government has to revise the laws to protect the rights of women like us.”

James Cook with his wife and four children before they left for Japan.

American father James Cook was one of the first cases raised between the US and Japan after it signed The Hague Convention for international child abductions in 2014. His last photo of him and all of his kids is at the airport before they left for Japan for a holiday. They did not come back.

“My kids have been so mentally done over that there is no hope for them,” he says.

Cook has testified before US Congress three times. He won his first case under The Hague convention in an Osaka court in 2016. Still, his children were not returned. That decision was then rolled back by the Japanese courts. Cook says the only way to get Japan to change its ways is for its partners, particularly the US, to take a public stand.

“Japan has basically mastered the diplomatic rope-a-dope. They will withstand any amount of conversational ‘Oh yes, yes, yes, we’ll do that. Oh, yes we will look into that, but it’s difficult. OK, we’ll put in a committee yeah we’re working on it’. And then they just won’t do a thing,” he says.

Izumi Uchiyama’s children were abducted by her husband in 2017. Credit: Christopher Jue

“The international community basically has to tell Japan: Cut this shit out and return these f--- kids. No excuses.”

Wataya says because Japan is reluctant to openly discuss the treatment of abducted children, “we need international voices”.

Atsuki says he will do it himself. The 16-year-old is due to meet the Japanese prime minister at a citizen’s meeting in Tokyo next week. “It’s damaging children,” he says.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732)

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