American arrested in Japan for kidnapping own kids

By Shino Yuasa, Associated Press Writer

September 30, 2009

TOKYO --An American father on a mission to reclaim his young children in Japan was arrested over their alleged abduction while they were walking to school with his ex-wife, officials said Wednesday.

Christopher John Savoie snatched his two children -- an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl -- by force Monday in the southern city of Fukuoka, shoved them into a car and drove away, said Akira Naraki, a police spokesman in the city.

He was arrested by Japanese police as he tried to enter the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka with the children, said Tracy Taylor, a spokeswoman at the consulate.

The number of such cases is growing in Japan -- mostly with Japanese mothers bringing their children back to the country and refusing to let their foreign ex-husbands visit them. The United States, Canada, Britain and France issued a joint statement in May urging Japan to address the problem.

Savoie, a 38-year-old from Franklin, Tennessee, was arrested after his ex-wife, Noriko, alerted the police. The children were returned to her, Taylor said. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.

Local police said they received permission from the court to keep Savoie in custody for 10 days.

The divorced couple and the two children were living in Tennessee, but Noriko Savoie came to Japan with the two children in August without telling her ex-husband, Taylor said.

In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent often gets sole custody of their children -- almost always the mother. Divorced fathers typically don't get much access to their children.

Japan has yet to sign the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, which seeks to standardize laws among participating countries to ensure that custody decisions can be made by appropriate courts and protect the rights of access of both parents. Japan has argued that refusing to sign the Hague Convention helped shield Japanese women and their children fleeing from abusive foreign husbands.

The United States, Canada, Britain and France in May urged Japan to sign the Hague Convention. At least 70 dispute cases exist between Japan and the U.S., but Tokyo does not have the exact number.

Japanese tend to prioritize the mother's role over the rights of the father or children, said Hideki Tani, a lawyer who is an expert on the issue.

"In Japan, it's not considered a serious problem if a mother takes her children with her without telling her ex-husband when they get separated or divorced," Tani said. "But for many people outside Japan, that's outrageous."

Japan and the U.S. have very different approaches to divorce and raising children, said David Marks, U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tokyo. "Japanese privacy laws can create frustrations for 'left-behind' parents."

Japan is aware of the need to address the issue and that it is seriously considering joining the Hague convention, said Kosei Nomura, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of international law.

"The problem is growing, and it has become a diplomatic issue," Nomura said. "The question is if we should insist on the Japanese traditional standard to resolve disputes over children as a result of broken international marriages."

The couple was divorced in January and the mother was given primary custody of the children, according to records from the Chancery Court for Williamson County in Tennessee that were posted on the Web site of Nashville television station WTVF.

Savoie grew up in Rhode Island and graduated from the University of Rhode Island, then moved to Japan and got his doctorate, The Providence Journal reported Wednesday.

Savoie has since remarried. His wife, Amy, told CBS that Noriko was not letting the children talk to him on the telephone after she took them to Japan. Amy said she doesn't know if she and her husband will ever see the children again.

"We hope if she is granted custody over there, that they will come and find us when they are in their 20s maybe and come see that we still love them," she said.

American Consulate officials have twice visited Savoie, who now has American and Japanese lawyers, Taylor said.

A lawyer for Savoie, Jeremy Morley, told NBC he had about 100 clients with difficulty seeing their children after ex-spouses took them to Japan.

"This is an untold story," he said.

U.S. Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, told The Associated Press he has introduced a bill called the International Child Abduction Prevention Act of 2009, which would penalize countries that show a pattern of not cooperating to resolve such cases. Penalties could include being denied military aid and certain loans, he said.

"It is abominable what has happened here," Smith said early Wednesday.

He also said he had "guarded hope" that Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, would use the situation as a chance to take another look at the country's policy.

Associated Press Writers Mari Yamaguchi and Malcolm Foster in Tokyo and Bernard McGhee in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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