In a hand delivered-letter to Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio following his address to the US Congress late last week, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) made a direct appeal to the Japanese leader to personally intervene and help return over 500 American children who have been abducted to Japan to their left-behind parents in the United States.

            “As our two countries continue to take steps to strengthen our democratic, economic and security ties, I would like to draw your attention to an open wound that threatens to derail many ongoing efforts,” Smith wrote in his letter to Fumio. 

            “To date, more than 500 American children have been abducted to Japan by one of their respective parents and remain separated from their American parent. These abductions often occur against pre-existing court orders and, in some cases, with the passport assistance of the Japanese government,” Smith said in the letter.

            In his letter, Smith cited just a few of the parents who have been denied access to their children in Japan, including Jeffery Morehouse—who has been fighting for the return of his young son Mochi since 2010 and has testified at several congressional hearings chaired by Smith. Despite having legal custody in Washington State which was recognized by Japanese courts, Morehouse still cannot gain access to his son in Japan.

            Other parents who have testified before Smith’s committee and who were named in his letter include Retired Navy Capt. Paul Toland, Former Marine Corps Sgt. Michael Elias, and Randy Collins of California.

            “For the sake of the children who are suffering, and for the sake of U.S. and Japanese relations, I seek your public commitment to reunite these families,” Smith continued in the letter. “I respectfully request that you work with the United States to create a process by which families can be reunited and heal.”

            Smith, a renowned human rights defender who successfully fought for the return of a New Jersey child who had been abducted to Brazil in the mid-2000s and held there for five years, has chaired 16 comprehensive congressional hearings on the issue to date and authored the groundbreaking US law to combat international parental child abduction.

            Signed into law in 2014, Smith’s Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act—named after the New Jersey father and son he helped reunite in 2009—empowers the US Executive Branch with tools to prevent the terrible crime of international parental child abduction and address the problem bilaterally with countries of particular concern. The law has helped with the return of other US citizen children, but Japan has not assisted in any notable returns.

            “Mr. Prime Minister, there is no doubt that child abduction is a form of child abuse. Children who are kidnapped by one parent to live overseas and kept away from another are at grave risk of serious mental trauma, and may experience anxiety, eating disorder, nightmares, mood swings, sleep disturbances, aggressive behavior, resentment, guilt, and fearfulness,” Smith said in the letter.

            “Regrettably, the abduction of American children to your country remains an ongoing human rights crisis that cannot be sidelined or overlooked. As I have said before, ‘when a country such as Japan has failed to resolve 30 percent of abduction cases that have been pending more than 12 months, U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to take action,’” the Smith letter continued.

            “It is my sincere hope that these Japanese American children will become a source of strength between our two countries rather than a reminder of an ongoing injustice and a barrier to a robust United States-Japan relationship,” Smith said in the letter.

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