Fighting for justice in the court of public opinion

Julian Satterthwaite / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
Daily Yomiuri (print and online)
December 3, 2005
Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/scene/20051203TDY12002.htm

If the Japanese government and legal system can't or won't help tackle the problem of parental abductions, it's down to individuals to take action. In the past, that would have been difficult--with cases scattered all over the globe, victims had no way of finding one another, let alone banding together. But campaigners today have a new weapon with which to collate information, publicize cases and apply pressure: the Web.

"I pretty much immediately saw that, sure, I could go to court, but I would probably spend years and years in court, and would probably spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and I would get nothing. Nobody ever, ever, gets anything" said left-behind dad and campaigner Mark Smith in a telephone interview from his home in Beijing.

Instead, Smith decided to play to his strengths. "I'm a software engineer by trade and I did what I was familiar with. I created a Web site to talk about the problem and hopefully to try to raise awareness of people around the world, and help people who might have these problems not to go through what I did," he says.

The Children's Rights Network of Japan Web site (www.crnjapan.com) is now one of the most prominent English-language voices campaigning on the issue of child abductions, both to and within Japan. Along with the more broad-ranging Children's Rights Council (www.crcjapan.com), one of the functions of such sites is to prove that these abductions are not isolated cases, but part of a systemic problem.

Smith says he has around 125 left-behind parents on his mailing list, nearly all of them male. Other sources confirm the existence of numerous cases. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Virginia--a U.S. nonprofit organization that works to retrieve abducted children--has 22 active cases on its books involving abductions to Japan, according to International Division Director Julia Alanen.

What's clear is that most of the abductors are female. Few women are on Smith's list of parents seeking abducted children. Worldwide, the NCMEC says that women outnumber men as perpetrators by a factor of more than two to one.

The CRN Japan Web site also functions as a one-stop shop for information and advice on the problem of parental abductions, though like many men in his situation, Smith says it's difficult to know what advice to give.

"That's really hard, because it's really hard not to sound depressing. There's only one case I've heard of where somebody got their children out," he says.

All he can do is help fathers to make sure that they have all the paperwork needed to prove their parenthood, and then point them in the direction of a friendly lawyer. After that, it's a question of persuading the errant partner to at least talk about the situation--but here too, the Web can help.

Smith's own partner recently contacted him to complain about the fact that her case was featured on the site. Not too promising perhaps, but at least the pressure of the publicity has forced her to reopen a channel of communication that Smith says had been silent for three years.

Without governmental help, the odds are still stacked against individual parents and campaigners. But at least the power of the Web means it might not be a totally lost cause.