2012年05月31日 Kyodo News 『「駆け込み連れ去り」に苦しむ日本の母親達』
（日本語訳）
「駆け込み連れ去り」に苦しむ日本の母親達 ５月３１日共同通信
日本が批准することにより、国際的な親権争いを解決する糸口となる条約の承認を待つ一方で、条約是認の前に外国人配偶者によって子どもを外国へ連れ去られて悩んでいる日本の母親たちがいる。
親による日本への子の拉致問題は、多くの注目を集める傾向にあるが、連れ去られた母親たちは幅広いサポートを受けられずにいる。日本が未だ国際的な子の奪取の民事面に関する条約（ハーグ条約）に批准していないため、日本は拉致天国と象徴される。
彼女らのケースは、拉致されて日本にいる子ども達に全く会えない親たちのケースに比べて、重要度が低いと考えられている。彼女らの子ども達が連れ去られた国では日本のような単独親権ではなく、共同親権が普通とされていて、彼女らにも子どもへのアクセスが与えられるチャンスが大きいからである。
言語の壁や国境をこえる親権争いのための高額な訴訟費用に加え、国際的条約締結に向けてのプロセスが遅々として進まない事も、母親たちには重くのしかかる。日本が条約に加盟することが、今後の養育プランに大きく関わってくる。
２歳と４歳の子どもと離れて暮らす埼玉県の女性は、２０１０年１２月にフロリダ州に里帰りした際、夫に日本へ帰ることを拒否された。夫は、子ども達と夫の母親と新しい生活を始めた。
彼女も遅れてフロリダ州へ移住する予定でいたが、夫はもう一緒に住む気はないと彼女に告げ、ビザのサポートをすることを拒否した。彼女の子育てに問題があるということを引き合いに出したという。
「彼は日本で離婚した場合、親権が取れず子どもにも会えなくなるかもしれないという事を知っていたと思います」と女性は言う。日本では離婚後、母親に単独親権が与えられる傾向にあり、子どもが父親に会えなくなるという事は、稀ではない。「日本がハーグ条約に批准する日が近いということを夫は知っていたでしょう」と彼女は言う。
批准すれば、１６歳未満の子どもの奪取があった場合、すみやかに子どもを常居国へ返さなければならない。昨年５月、この条約に加盟することを日本は決定した。条約に加盟しても過去のケースについては遡及されず、加盟後に起こったケースにのみ適用される。協定は批准後、第三暦月の初日に発効される。
女性は４歳の息子と２歳の娘と一日おきにスカイプを通してコミュニケーションをはかっている。彼女が子ども達に会ったのは昨年１１月が最後だ。彼女は子ども達が日本語も日本での生活も忘れてしまうことを懸念している。
子ども達が一方の親と６ヶ月以上滞在した場所が親権を決める際の管轄であると指定されるというアメリカの法律にもとづき、夫婦は今フロリダ州裁判所で離婚の手続きを進めている。アメリカに一度も住んだことのない女性にとって、アメリカでの裁判手続きは大変重荷で、フェアではないと女性は言う。彼女がグリーンカードを手にすることもできず、他のビザを得ることも難しい状況で、彼女の夫は単独親権を求めている。「日本が条約未加盟のままでは、アメリカの裁判所は子どもが戻されなくなることを恐れ、休暇中も日本へ行くことを許さないでしょう。日本の条約加盟は重要な問題で、加盟すれば様々な可能性が広がります」。
静岡県に住む女性は、７歳と５歳の息子を昨年３月にアメリカへ連れさられた。３月１１日の地震と津波による福島原発問題への懸念から、アメリカ人の夫は子どもを日本に連れて戻る事を拒否した。彼女の夫は昨年５月にイリノイ州シャンペーンで仕事を見つけ、子どもを連れて引っ越したが、原発の冷却停止が確認されれば、日本に戻ると言い続けていた。（共同通信は以前プライバシーの懸念により彼女を特定することは控えていた。）
１２月日本政府が冷却停止宣言したあとも夫と子どもは戻ってこなかった。昨年１１月夫はイリノイ州で離婚裁判を起こした。女性は「夫は初めから計画していたんです。日本を襲った災害を言い訳にしていたにすぎませんでした」と話す。「夫は子どもが６ヶ月間イリノイ州に住んで、自分が有利に離婚を進められるのを待っていたんです。彼がいずれ子どもを日本に返してくれると信じていた私が甘かった。でも放射能汚染により子ども達の命を危険にさらすことが心配だったんです」。
女性もまたスカイプで子ども達と交流をしているが、子ども達が日本語も文化も忘れてしまっていると心配している。子ども達はまだ日本の市民だとして、彼女は日本で法的措置を開始したが、外交ルートを通じて訴状を送るというプロセスは長い年月を要する。
原子力事故とハーグ条約に起因する困難に直面し、「個人では何も変えることができない」と女性は憤りを感じている。
女性は子どもたちを無理矢理日本に連れてくる気はない、一方的な拉致は「負の連鎖」を産むだけで片親へのアクセスを制限してしまう、極端な行動は何の解決にもならず子どもにとっても利益にならない、と言う。
日本弁護士会の集計によると、日本から他国への連れ去りに関する相談は２０００年〜２０１１年の間に１５０件に昇るという。外務省によると、日本の外務省も米国務省も拉致事件を認識しているが、条約に加盟していない日本では、弁護士を紹介するなど情報提供しかできないという。
（原文）
Child Custody (Feature)
FEATURE: Japanese mothers tormented by “last-minute” child abductions
By Maya Kaneko
TOKYO, May 31 Kyodo – As Japan’s ratification of an international treaty that helps settle international child custody disputes awaits Diet approval, some Japanese mothers are dealing with the distress of having had their children taken abroad by their non-Japanese spouses shortly before the nation’s endorsement of the treaty.
Those mothers face difficulties in enlisting wide support, as the issue of parental child abductions to Japan tends to grab more attention. Tokyo is not yet a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, with Japan often portrayed as a safe haven for parents taking their children to the country.
Their cases can also be considered less serious than those of parents who are totally denied access to their children in Japan, because many of the countries where their children were taken could award joint custody to them — unlike their homeland, which has a sole-custody system — increasing chances of regular access to their kids.
In addition to language barriers and expensive legal costs that often pose a headache to parents involved in cross-border child custody disputes, slow progress in Japan’s process of joining the international treaty weighs on the mothers’ shoulders, as Tokyo’s accession to the convention holds the key to future parenting arrangements.
A Japanese woman in her 30s living in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, has been separated from her two children, in Florida since December 2010, as her American husband refused to return to Japan and started a new life there with the kids and their grandmother.
The couple and their Japan-born kids had originally been scheduled to move to Florida together, but the husband, a former English teacher in Japan, later refused to sponsor his wife for visa arrangement, saying he no longer wanted to live with her, citing her problems with child-rearing, the woman said.
“I think my husband knew that in Japan it would be difficult for him to gain custody of the kids and that if we got divorced, he could not easily see them,” the woman said. In Japan, mothers tend to be given sole custody after divorce and it is not unusual for children to stop seeing their fathers after their parents break up.
She also said her husband had probably been aware of Japan’s imminent accession to the Hague Convention, which sets out the rules and procedures for promptly returning children under 16 to the country of their habitual residence in cases of international divorce among member countries. Japan decided to join the pact in May last year.
The treaty is not retroactive and only deals with cases occurring after its entry into force in the country newly joining it. The pact will come into effect on the first day of the third calendar month after being ratified by the nation.
The woman, who communicates with her 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter every other day via Skype Internet telephone service and met them when she visited Florida last November, is worried that they can no longer understand Japanese and will forget about their life in Japan.
The couple is now seeking divorce settlements in a Florida court, in line with a U.S. law that designates a state where children stayed with a parent for six months in a row as a place for litigation. For the woman, who has never lived abroad, U.S. court procedures mean a great deal of trouble and “unfair” situations, she said.
With the woman left with no chance of getting a green card and difficulties in acquiring other types of visa to live in the United States, the husband seeks to gain sole custody of the kids, she said.
“As long as Japan remains nonparty to the Hague Convention, the U.S. court would not allow my children to go to Japan during vacations out of fear that they would not be returned,” she said. “Japan’s accession is an important matter to me because it opens up various possibilities.”
Another Japanese woman in central Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture also has her two sons, aged 7 and 5, retained in the United States since March last year, as her American husband refused to go back with the kids due to safety concerns triggered by the Fukushima nuclear crisis following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The woman said her husband, who moved with the children in May last year to Champaign in Illinois, where he had found a job, had repeatedly assured her that the children would return to Japan once cold shutdown had been achieved at the troubled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Kyodo News refrained from identifying the woman due to privacy concerns.
But as he filed for divorce at an Illinois court in November last year and the children did not return, even after the Japanese government declared in December that the plant had been brought to a stable state of cold shutdown, she learned that her husband “had planned everything in advance and conveniently used the disaster that hit Japan as an excuse.”
“My husband waited until the kids spent six months with him in Illinois so that he could start a divorce suit there to alter the situation to his advantage,” the woman said.
“I was naive to believe his promise to eventually return the children to Japan but couldn’t force him to do so, as I was concerned about radiation contamination that could jeopardize the children’s lives,” said the mother.
The woman, who tries to maintain Skype communications with the children, is also concerned that their memories of Japanese language and culture are fading. As the children are still registered as citizens in Japan, she launched a legal action in her home country. However, the process, involving notification through diplomatic channels, would take a long time.
She said it was frustrating to face difficulties caused by the nuclear accident and Japan’s position on the Hague Convention that “an individual cannot change.”
The woman said, however, she would not forcibly take back her children to Japan because unilateral abduction would only produce a “negative chain reaction” and limit the children’s access to one parent. She believes that kind of drastic action will “not solve the problem and never be in the interest of the children.”
According to a tally by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, its member lawyers have accepted about 150 consultations on parental child abductions from Japan to other countries between 2000 and 2011.
Both the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department recognize such abduction cases to the United States, but they can only provide relevant information and introduce lawyers as Tokyo is yet to join the Hague Convention, according to the Foreign Ministry.
==Kyodo
