Source: http://www.asahi.com/english/lifestyle/TKY200501290127.html
Asahi Herald Tribune
Also published in Japanese in AERA magazine in December 2004.
By MARIKO SUGIYAMA, AERA
January 29, 2005
To many women, it sounds ideal-a husband who talks openly about his feelings, helps with chores and child-rearing and offers the chance of a wonderful life abroad and dual citizenship for their children. So it's hardly surprising the number of international marriages between a Japanese woman and a foreign man has doubled from 20 years ago to 8,158 couples in 2003, according to the welfare ministry.
Women's magazines are even featuring articles on ``How to snare a foreign hubby'' and ``Winning in life through international marriage.''
Saori Oguri's comic ``Darin wa Gaikokujin'' (My darling is a foreigner), about life with a foreign husband, has become a best seller, having sold a combined 1 million copies after her second volume was released last year.
But although many international marriages do work out, the number of divorces among such couples has also risen, to 3,153 in 2003.
In a survey conducted by Tokyo International Friendship, an organization that provides information on international marriage and relationships at its Web site, < www.tokyointernationalfriendship.com >, more than 30 percent of respondents in international marriages cited differences in values and customs as sources of marital problems.
Saki, 35, who divorced her American husband last summer, says the rift in her marriage deepened over how to raise their two sons, who turned 7 and 10 last year. When Saki became pregnant six months after their wedding, her former husband was far from thrilled and said he wanted them to enjoy life as a couple for a while longer.
Saki persuaded him to let her go ahead with the pregnancy, but then the couple began fighting over child-rearing. When her husband suggested they hire a baby-sitter-a common practice in many countries-Saki refused to let anyone else care for her child.
Saki's former husband, who works at a brokerage, was also so career-driven that he changed jobs four times within a decade, taking the family to different cities-London, New York and Tokyo-each time. The drastic changes in environment made it difficult for her elder son to adjust to school, she said.
Meanwhile, her former husband continued to come home from work at 4 a.m., shower while the cab driver waited outside and then return to the office.
``To him, a wealthy, comfortable life was more important than time with his family. Our values were just too different,'' Saki says.
Religion can also be a major obstacle. Chika, 31, has filed for divorce from her Pakistani husband, who is more than a decade older than her. From the outset, her husband, a Muslim, had a wife and four children in his home country, where polygamy is accepted. But Chika gave in to his aggressive courting.
``It felt more like I was marrying a man who was divorced,'' she recalls.
Chika gave birth to a boy soon after they married, but the husband hopped from one job to another, working as a used-car salesman and as a clerk at a food store. He increasingly failed to contribute to the family income, saying he needed to send money home to his family there. He urged Chika to attend a mosque and read the Koran, and to shop at a Pakistani food store. He once yelled at her for not teaching their son, now 5 years old, the proper Muslim greeting. Furthermore, he said that if he died, it was Chika's job to provide money to his family in Pakistan.
``It made me shiver,'' she says. ``These marriages may not work unless you are completely comfortable with Islam and are willing to live by its rules.''
Satomi, who is in her mid-30s, says she regrets not having studied Muslim law before marrying a Muslim and moving to a Muslim country. Satomi met and married a Canadian of Middle Eastern origin while studying in Canada, and the couple then moved to a Muslim oil-producing country.
Soon afterward, her husband changed completely and turned violent. Satomi tried to leave the country with her now 5-year-old daughter, but Muslim law forbids women and children from leaving the country without the husband's permission.
When she called a locksmith to get her and her daughter's passports from her husband's room, the police interrogated her for allowing a man into the house without her husband's permission. After she was released from police custody, Satomi sought help from the Japanese Embassy, saying she wanted to return to Japan with her daughter for fear her husband would kill her. But embassy officials were indifferent, saying they could not intervene in someone's marriage.
Satomi's husband soon picked up on her intention to leave and took their daughter to his home country-another Muslim nation-where he sought a divorce. Under Muslim law, it is difficult for a woman to file for divorce, but a man can divorce his wife simply by chanting tarik (divorce) three times.
Satomi went to court locally to fight for custody of their daughter, but paternal rights are given priority in Muslim states. Not only did she fail to get her daughter back, she was deported to Japan alone because the divorce nullified her visa.
Child custody cases are difficult enough when those involved are from the same country. But the problems are multiplied with international marriages. If one parent takes a child out of the country by force, it can involve a long and arduous court process in a foreign country to win the child back. And the chances of success are slim.
Nana Sugimoto, 38, has not seen her two daughters in six years since her Chinese husband took the girls to China. Sugimoto was living in a shelter to escape her husband's physical abuse and was seeking a divorce when her children went missing on their way to school. Her husband, 11 years her senior, took the girls and flew with them to Shanghai the same day.
The scheme was well planned. The husband had already obtained passports for the girls under a fake address. Sugimoto went to the Japanese police but they did nothing to help. ``You aren't divorced. So your children were merely taken by their father,'' she was told.
A year later, a local court awarded Sugimoto custody of their children. But the court decision changed nothing. Her children were still in Shanghai. Sugimoto repeatedly contacted the Foreign Ministry and had the Japanese consulate in Shanghai locate and contact her husband. But the only response she received from the consulate was the message, ``Your husband says he will return the children in the new academic year.''
Sugimoto even went to China in search of her children, but by then, her husband had changed addresses. The distraught mother also wrote to the Chinese prime minister. But his response, via the Japanese Foreign Ministry, was, ``The Chinese government will not intervene in this matter.'' Sugimoto had exhausted her resources.
Her children are now in the sixth and eighth grades, respectively. A pink bicycle with training wheels sits at her home, waiting for its former owners. ``Time has stopped since my children left,'' she says.
If a Japanese mother living abroad takes her children to Japan without her foreign husband's permission, some countries-including Canada and the United States-could charge her with international kidnapping. There are about 25 such cases a year in the United States, according to Children's Rights Network of Japan, a group consisting of Western husbands whose Japanese wives took their children to Japan without their consent. There are currently at least 22 arrest warrants issued against Japanese mothers who ``kidnapped'' their children. Some of these women are wanted by the FBI.
To combat the lack of information on the risks involved in international marriages, Satomi has set up a Web site ``Kokusai-Kekkon no Ketsumatsu'' (The end of an international marriage) at < http://arabia.np.infoseek.co.jp >. To avoid messy breakups, she urges Japanese women to draw up premarital agreements with lawyers standing by and clearly state what both parties will do with their children in the case of a divorce. Based on her own miserable experience, she also advises women about to enter into an international marriage to be prepared for the worst.
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All names except Nana Sugimoto's and Saori Oguri's have been changed.(IHT/Asahi: January 29,2005)
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