Caitlin Adams
10/15/09 5:45 pm
Japan frees U.S. dad accused of snatching kids
This article is about an American man, Christopher Savoie, who was freed from a Japanese jail this week. He had been accused of kidnapping his son and daughter from his ex-wife while she was walking them to school. He was jailed for 18 days. Apparently the couple married and moved to Japan years ago where the business man obtained citizenship. Years later they moved their family to Tennessee where the marriage went south and they got a divorce. Soon after, Savoie’s wife took the children and disappeared. Christopher did not have custody of his children in Japan as he did in the US so clearly it was a problem when he tried to take them. Sources say the two children loved their father and he is having a hard time dealing without them.
This kind of thing is something Japan as struggled with. They have a law that states when parents divorce, only one gets custody. In most cases, it is the woman who gets custody. I just do not see how this resolves anything. In cases where parents split up but both parents want and deserve to be about of their children’s lives, it is not fair to just pick one. How do you decide? This issue is so foreign to most of us because often times in America, we hear of parents splitting time with their children after divorcing.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33323487/ns/today-today_people/
1 comment:
It amazed me that the officials in Japan did not at least take it into consideration that the father had custody here in the United States. It said in the article that Japan had never signed a Hague Treaty, which would guarantee custody rights to parents in international divorces, and I think that after this, they should really consider it.
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