The US House of Representatives turned up pressure on close ally Japan, strongly urging Tokyo to return immediately half-Japanese children that lawmakers say have been kidnapped from their US parents.
The House voted on Wednesday overwhelmingly for a nonbinding resolution that “condemns the abduction and retention” of children held in Japan “in violation of their human rights and United States and international law.”
The resolution, which passed 416 to 1, also calls for Japan to allow Americans to visit their children and for Tokyo to join a 1980 international convention on child abduction that would allow for the quick return of the children to the US.
Representative Jim Moran told reporters that the resolution sends a strong signal to Japan that the US Congress “is watching and expecting action.”
Representative Chris Smith said: “Americans are fed up with our friend and ally Japan and their pattern of noncooperation.”
The Japanese embassy said in a statement that Japan was sympathetic to the plight of children caught in custody battles between Japanese and US citizens and it was “continuing to make sincere efforts to deal with this issue from the standpoint that the welfare of the child should be of the utmost importance.”
US lawmakers say that at least 121 US children currently are being held in Japan.
Japanese law allows only one parent to have custody in cases of divorce, usually the mother. Activists say the court system in Japan is tilted against fathers and foreigners.
US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the top US diplomat for East Asia, told lawmakers at a hearing on Wednesday that the issue is a priority, with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton raising it in meetings with her Japanese counterpart.
Campbell said that he would also raise the matter when he travels to Tokyo next week and that Japan should act urgently.
“We’re going to need to see some progress on this,” Campbell said.
Christopher Savoie, a father who was arrested last year after going to Japan in a failed attempt to reclaim his two children, joined lawmakers and other fathers at a news conference before the House vote.
Japan should be ashamed for keeping parents from seeing their children, Savoie said.
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