On July 15th there was a study session in Tokyo (in the House of Representatives Building) on the problems surrounding sole custody. Currently, Japan does not recognize joint custody. After divorce the child lives with one parent usually the mother. The other parent is often denied access to the child. The courts and police will not enforce any ruling so they parent with the child can ignore any and all requests if they so desire. This study session was held to raise awareness about the sole custody system. Many judges, especially in smaller cities, are not aware of this problem. One lawyer, one retired judge, and a few left behind parent spoke at this study session. Also one Diet Member (Hiroe Makiyama) spoke in support of joint custody. Ideas were discussed and courses of action were suggested but the real change is going to have to come from the people. Japan is the only G-7 nation that has not signed the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. They are also the only nation that doesn’t recognize joint custody as the norm.

Duration : 0:1:24

Technorati Tags: child rights, divorce, House of Representatives, japan, joint custody, kyoudou shinken, parental rights, rikon, Study session, Tokyo

Tags: child rights, divorce, House of Representatives, japan, joint custody, kyoudou shinken, parental rights, rikon, Study session, Tokyo

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 6:53 am and is filed under Parent Custody. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.