Activists say Japan will try to bend rules of child abduction convention

Japan's commitment to the Hague Convention on child abduction went into effect this week, but children's rights activists warn that authorities are already looking for ways to avoid complying with the treaty.

Before Tuesday, Japan was the only G8 nation not to have ratified the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which generally stipulates that a child should be returned to his or her country of habitual residence when they have been taken out of that country by a parent without the consent of the other parent.

Pressure had been growing on Tokyo to adopt the legislation as a growing number of international marriages - estimated at 40,000 a year - are also ending in separation and divorce.

Embassies in Tokyo are handling about 400 cases in which the Japanese parent has violated the terms of the convention by taking a child back to Japan, but international authorities have been powerless to act once they get there.

"We have been pressing for this for many years now and we are pleased that it has finally been ratified," said Brian Thomas, joint founder of the Japanese arm of the US-based Children's Rights Council.

"But we do have reservations," he admitted, pointing to cases in Japan in which judges have invariably sided with a Japanese woman who claims she has been hit by a partner.