Japan should work to solve problems in international custody cases so that children of broken marriages have access to both parents, AP quoted a senior U.S. official as saying today, hinting the issue could hurt bilateral relations. Visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said that Japan's position has «raised very real concerns among senior and prominent Americans in Congress, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.» Japan has not signed an international convention on child abductions and its domestic family law permits only one parent to have custody of children in cases of divorce _ nearly always the mother. That leaves many fathers, including foreigners, unable to see their children in Japan until they are grown up. There are about 70 cases of American parents who are kept from seeing their children in Japan, and Campbell met with several of them in a group earlier Tuesday. He called their situations «heart-breaking.» Steve Christie, an American university instructor who lives in Japan and met with Campbell, said he has only rarely been able to see his son the last four years ever since his wife, whom he has since divorced, suddenly left him with the boy. «This is our life and blood, this is our offspring, and we're being denied a chance to see them,» said Christie, 50. «It's not right, it's immoral, it's unethical. What amazes me is for how long it's been going on in this country.» In some cases, Japanese mothers living overseas have fled to Japan with their children and kept the fathers from having any contact with the kids, even if court rulings abroad ordered joint custody. «This situation has to be resolved in order to ensure that U.S.-Japan relations continue on such a positive course,» Campbell told reporters in Tokyo. «The United States government strongly believes that these children have a right to enjoy the love of both parents and the benefits of both cultures.» Campbell's comments are the strongest to date on this issue, with Tokyo coming under increased international pressure to sign on to the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, which is designed to address such international custody disputes. Japan is the only Group of Seven nation who has not joined the convention, signed by 80 nations, with Tokyo arguing that it could endanger Japanese women and their children trying to flee abusive foreign husbands. -- SPA
