Behind every case is a parent living with the loss of their child. These are their words, in their own voice. Every testimony is published anonymously: we remove names, dates, locations, and any detail that could identify the family or the child before anything goes online.
Testimony of a left-behind parent
My company sent me to the United States on an overseas assignment. My wife and our baby daughter came with me. We built a life there — a home, playdates for our daughter, a daily routine.
One day, without my knowledge or consent, my daughter's mother took her from the United States back to Japan. I later learned it had been planned in secret: she knew I had refused, and she left while I was unaware. Our daughter was still only a small child.
I did everything the law allows. I filed for my daughter's return under the Hague Convention — in Japan. The court dismissed my petition, and my appeal was rejected. The courts ruled that my daughter's “habitual residence” was Japan — not the home where she had actually been living — and so she would not be returned.
In all the time since, I have seen my daughter only once: supervised, for a short while, in a lawyers' building in Japan, because the other side required a lawyer to be present. Since that single visit, I have had no contact with her at all.
Japan is a party to the Hague Convention, yet return orders are rarely enforced, and there is still no penalty for the act of taking a child. The other side once promised, in writing, that I would be allowed to see her. That promise was never kept.
My daughter is growing up without knowing her father. I am not telling this story for revenge. I am telling it so people understand this is not a private tragedy, but a systemic one.
— A left-behind parent