Look what I found and don't piss your BYJW off:

Divorce your Japanese wife - and lose your kids
IT'S 'Bye bye, children' if you are a foreigner going through a divorce in
Japan.
Forget shared custody or visitation rights. In many cases, the foreign
spouse - especially fathers - can even forget about ever seeing their
children again.
For when an international marriage collapses there, child custody would go
to their former Japanese partners, reported The Washington Post.
Even if the wife whisks the children away, there is no legal remedy as it is
not a crime there to kidnap your own child.
Linguistics professor Sean Reedy is one foreigner who has been through it
all.
One Saturday 18 months ago, his wife just upped and left - with their three
sons.
He came home one day, and their clothes were gone.
His Japanese wife took his sons into hiding that day, preempting custody of
the boys by simple possession.
She did so, confident that Japan's customs and laws would help her keep the
children from their father.
It stunned Mr Reedy, 44, who had been in Japan for 16 years.
But in the Land of the Rising Sun, the wife gets the children in 80 to 90
per cent of the cases, according to divorce lawyers. Fathers are expected to
drop out of sight.
The school refused to tell him where they had been transferred, although
there was no allegation of abuse.
Through her attorney, his wife has let him see them three times in 18
months, but he doesn't know where they live and cannot contact them.
She sued for divorce, and he demanded frequent visitation rights.
Said Mr Reedy: 'In court, when I said I wanted to see my kids every weekend,
they laughed at me.'
Family experts say divorce carries a stigma in Japan, so ex-spouses avoid
each other. The workaholic hallmark of post-World War II Japan resulted in a
clear division of responsibility in which husbands belong to their job and
the children, to their mothers.
Mothers take total responsibility for children - they're blamed, for
instance, if their children get bad marks in school - and are expected to
retain that role after divorce.
Some experts also argue that children's loyalties are less divided if the
father is not around. It is rare for Japanese fathers, or mothers, to fight
that tradition.
When one parent in a failed marriage is a Westerner who wants continued
contact with the children, there is little legal help.
Japan ranks second, behind Mexico, in the frequency of parental abduction
cases handled by the US State Department, according to a spokesman.
NO ASSISTANCE
Even as a tenured professor and taxpayer, Mr Reedy could get no assistance
from the Japanese courts in getting his children back - or even seeing them
regularly.
Said lawyer Kensuke Onuki, who handles international divorces: 'It's a big
problem, especially for foreign men. The situation is totally different from
the US.
'There are hardly any cases where my clients are able to see their
children.'
And it's a growing problem, as international marriages increase in Japan and
the stigma of divorce declines.
In 2001, the Health Ministry recorded nearly 40,000 marriages between a
Japanese and foreigner, more than triple the number in 1980. It also counted
more than 13,000 divorces of mixed-nationality couples, nearly double that
of a decade ago.
In Japan, 'it has nothing to do with whether the kids would benefit by being
with another parent'.
Once there is a divorce, the line is cut.
That's it.


CASE #1:
Can't enforce law
THE court overturned the divorce on grounds that Mr David Brian Thomas's
wife doctored papers and forged his seal.
But Mr Thomas has been unable to see his son, Graham Hajime, since his
Japanese wife and her parents locked him out of their house in 1992.
He said: 'There's no method in Japan of enforcement. Technically, I have
won, but I have lost.


CASE #2:
Wanted by FBI
SALT Lake City lawyer Michael Gulbraa, 39, has a Utah court order for
custody of his two sons, now 12 and 13.
But his Japanese ex-wife took them to Japan in 2001.
The Japanese police know where they are, he said, but won't arrest them.
He said: 'They are wanted by the FBI and Interpol, but the (police) say
abduction by a parent is not a crime in Japan.'


CASE #3:
Caught by old law
MR ENGLE Nieman, 46, was arrested at the Osaka port and spent four months in
jail for trying to return to Holland with his 1-year-old daughter after his
wife moved in with her parents.
He was arrested under an old law against trafficking of girls for
prostitution.
He complained: 'My wife is now hiding somewhere with my daughter. She
doesn't show up for court.'

tinyurl is being bitch so I cut and paste full  text. If interested it can
be read here:
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/top/story/0,4136,30759-1058630340,00.html