Mother and child, abused during pregnancy and after by Japanese father, avoid Japanese family law

Documented: November 2005

Click on link at upper right of page to see Japanese translation courtesy of Naomi.

I married my former Japanese husband in Tokyo in May 2001 which was followed by a church wedding in the UK in October of the same year. I had known him for five years prior to this including living together in the UK for two of them. Yet, the majority of our married life was in Japan.

In September 2003 following an emergency caesarean I gave birth one month early to our son. There were complications and he spent the first six weeks of his life in a neonatal intensive care unit in a different hospital to the one I gave birth in. It was four days before I saw him for the first time!

One of the reasons for this dramatic start to his life was because my ex had been abusing me both physically and mentally. Although the Japanese doctors did not raise this at the time several European doctors have confirmed to me that a mother’s stress can affect a foetus’ growth rate.

Although my ex had pushed me around occasionally even before we were married and indeed threatened me with scissors I had always put his behaviour down to stress or something I might have provoked by my own actions e.g. not calling him if I was out with friends in the evening to let him know what time I would be back.

After getting married the abuse became progressively worse and particularly bad in the 5th month of pregnancy and onwards peaking at about 6 weeks after I had given birth. This included things like waking me up at 3.00 AM, dragging me out of bed and thumping me because his computer wasn’t working, locking me out on the balcony despite being 7 months pregnant in the middle of a Tokyo summer, denying me more than one visit to my family back home in Europe and giving me a hard time whenever I tried to invite friends to our home! After all, as he reminded me daily it was his flat, not mine. However, despite the physical abuse it was the verbal abuse that really got me down. Being called “b!tch”, “you stink, all foreigners stink“ and “you are stupid, did you even go to primary school” on a daily basis is degrading.

A logical question is why did I marry him in the first place and why did I put up with his behaviour for so long? The answers are complex. I used to think maybe it was my fault, maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough and maybe I should give him some lee way because of stress at work. Partly because for the one day a week he was nasty the reaming six he was incredibly charming and told me he loved me and his life would be over if I ever left. He was often fun to be with and humorous. We enjoyed doing things together like watching movies and he was (I naively though) sincere. For every bad memory there was a good one to negate it. Furthermore, I had a made a vow in church that this marriage was for life and it was my choice – no one had forced me! (However, our son had not made this choice!!!!)

Crunch time came when he started showing violent tendencies towards our son. It was on a holiday to visit family in May 2004 (after a particularly abusive occasion at night in my parents home) that I decided my only option was to tell my parents what was happening. They immediately advised that we have a period of separation and my ex returned to Japan whilst I stayed in Europe. My ex agreed to domestic violence counseling and I had a long hard think about my future. I desperately wanted my marriage to succeed. I did not want to be a single Mum!!! I was anxious to find literature that told me abusive husbands could change and see the errors of their way. I bought a couple of excellent books and came to the ultimate hard conclusion that he would never change! I could not risk returning to Japan and finding myself a virtual prisoner there because I could not bear the thought of leaving our son behind.

During our separation my ex threatened divorce on the phone which made alarm bells ring regarding custody so I took advice from a Women’s Group and they told me that I should go for the divorce first as this would mean the case would be heard in a UK court and not a Japanese one so long as he acknowledged receipt of the UK papers before I acknowledged receipt of any that he would send from Japan. Having the case heard in the UK would give me a greater chance of success than having it heard in Japan. I spoke to a lawyer friend of the family who immediately took on my case, was an absolute star and even found me legal aid. My ex had frozen the bank cards so I couldn’t get any money out of his account (even before he received the divorce papers). In order to get hold of my own limited finances I had to send my own bank account card to a Japanese friend with the pin number who then emptied my account from the cash machine put it into her account and then electronically transferred it from her account into mine in the UK. It was impossible for me to request the bank to do this by email/post as there are new anti-terrorism laws preventing it – I would have had to be there in person, in Japan to do the transfer! I might add that the total amount I had in savings would have lasted me approximately two months if I had not had the support of my family who were putting me up and feeding both my son and me. Without the love and support of all my friends and family I may well have caved in and returned to Japan and the abusive relationship.

As for the actual legal issues – these were quite complicated because of residency. I forget exactly what the loop hole was regarding residency but the English courts accepted jurisprudence and agreed that the case could be heard in the UK despite our marriage having been conducted in Japan. From memory it was because I was now habitually resident in the UK.

After an English court hearing in September 2004, to which my ex did not turn up, I was granted a full residence order and a prohibited steps order. This means I have custody of our son and if he is kidnapped all UK port authorities will be alerted. I was also granted a divorce.

Then three months later I received through the post court papers from the Tokyo Family Relations Court requesting my presence for a hearing in May 2005. My ex wanted to divorce me, have custody of our son and 1 million yen in compensation. The grounds for this were abandonment, our son may have developmental issues and needed treatment in Japan (adequate medical facilities were not available in Europe!), I had been the abusive one not him, mental incapacity on my part and my/my family’s inability to raise our son. He didn’t even give me the credit of thinking that maybe I had now set up on my own, found a childminder and a good job with enough income to support us both comfortably! He presumed that my parents were raising our son and said they were unfit on the grounds that they had only ever raised girls and never boys!

I had a real dilemma - should I contest my ex in the Japanese courts or should I just ignore it!? After all, I already had a decision in the UK and that is where I was living. I tried to get legal advice in the UK but there were no British lawyers with Japanese family law competence (only commercial law). So I went to the British Embassy in Tokyo website and found a list of Japanese lawyers there whom I contacted by email. I also got a contact via a lawyer friend in Tokyo. 

What I gathered from the various lawyers was that the UK ruling was invalid in the eyes of the Japanese courts as my former husband, the defendant, was resident in Japan at the time the UK divorce went through. The Japanese courts consider the defendant’s place of residence and therefore in this instance believe the Japanese courts to have jurisdiction on this international divorce case. Equally in the case of my ex bringing me to court in Japan I was the defendant living abroad and therefore the case should be heard in the UK courts, however, the Catch 22 here was that he said I had abandoned him and this was grounds for having the case heard in Japan.

In the end I wrote a translated letter to the Japanese courts explaining the prior decision in England (regardless as to whether the Japanese courts considered it binding or not). I told them that I already had a UK court decision, I left because of domestic violence and I would not be attending the hearing. However, I would allow access to our son provided a third independent party supervised.

I took this decision on the following grounds:

For six months I heard nothing and then in November 2005 I received further Japanese court papers stating they had made a judgment, that I was divorced under Japanese law, that I was granted parental authority of our son and that I was to pay the legal costs!

What GREAT news! (Who cares about the costs because I am NOT paying them!) I wonder how many cases there are where the foreign mother is granted custody. From all that I had read on the Internet this was going to be very unlikely!!!! The grounds the court put down were that they could not prove that our son was sick and needed treatment in Japan, I had had sole care of our son since May 2005 and they could not prove that I was an unfit mother.

As an aside - visitation rights – the UK courts do not look favourably on one parent preventing access to the child for the other parent. In my situation, my former husband would be allowed supervised access at special contact centres but he hasn’t actually requested any yet. On the one hand I am sad that our son will miss out on knowing his father but on the other hugely relieved as it reduces the chances of him being kidnapped. Some have advised that I should actively encourage my ex to build a relationship with our son but the violence and kidnap factor terrify me and I really do not want to take the risk.

As for money – there are no reciprocal maintenance agreements between the UK and Japan and I did not chase my ex for money through the Japanese courts as I just wanted it all behind me. I did not want the emotional hassle of dragging the case on and on just to get his money to support our son. I knew that in the end I could financially look after our boy on my own and I have and I am!!!

I am posting my story here because I want to let people know that it is possible to leave an abusive relationship and come out the other side with a better, brighter life. And, also, to show that in some instance the Japanese family courts do make judgments without prejudice to the foreign partner.

[Webmaster's note: In case of a non-Japanese getting custody in Japan, make sure you have both Shinken and Kangoken types of child custody.  Also, you should break your child off of the Japanese parent's Family Registration and onto his or her own.  This is not a complete solution to a future abduction by the Japanese parent, but it will make it more difficult, since it will be clearly obvious s/he does not have custody.  It will take an additional legal procedure to move the child back.  So it is one more obstacle and therefore a good precautionary and preventative measure.]