Dad held in failed bid to snatch kids (Fukuoka, Japan)

Since this story has been all over CNN and other major news sources, I wasn't sure what to add. But Dastardly readers may find this account from the Japan Times interesting in illuminating the Japanese point of view on this case. Obviously, we're talking about the case of custodial dad CHRISTOPHER JOHN SAVOIE (he was given full custody by our good ol' boy friends in Tennessee after Mom left with the kids for Japan. She had custody before then.) I have highlighted some of the important points in bold. I'm sure the Fathers Rights people are just furious that there are still a few countries left in this world that honor mothers and haven't caved in to the FR agenda.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20091001a2.html

Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009

American held in failed bid to snatch own kids
The Associated Press

An American father on a mission to reclaim his young children in Japan was arrested for allegedly abducting them 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 6-year-old girl — by force early Monday in Fukuoka, said Akira Naraki, a police spokesman in the city.

"He shoved them into a car and drove away," Naraki said.

Savoie, 38, was arrested by police as he tried to enter the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka with the kids, said Tracy Taylor, a spokeswoman at the consulate.

He was arrested after his ex-wife, Noriko, alerted the police.

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

Custody battles between Japanese mothers and foreign husbands are not uncommon in Japan, which has not yet signed the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. The aim of the convention is to standardize laws to ensure custody decisions can be made by the appropriate courts and to preserve access rights for both parents.

Japan has argued that refusing to sign the Hague Convention has helped shield Japanese women and their children from abusive foreign husbands.

In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent — normally the mother — often wins sole custody of the children.

Taylor said officials at the U.S. Consulate have made two visits to Savoie, who now has American and Japanese lawyers. His Japanese lawyer could not be contacted immediately.