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Police in Aomori city, Aomori Prefecture, have arrested a 23-year-old man on suspicion of kidnapping his preschool son who was visiting the Aomori Nebuta Festival with the suspect’s estranged wife.
According to police, the suspect, Hyuma Yonekura, a Hachinohe resident employed at a scaffolding assembly factory, has partially denied the charge and quoted him as saying, “I took [my son] away, but not forcibly.”
The young boy was reportedly not injured in the incident which happened at around 9 p.m. on Monday. Police said Yonekura took his son, who lives with his mother, off the street in Aomori drove him to Hachinohe.
The mother’s friend placed an emergency phone call and claimed that “the boy had been forcibly taken away while watching the Nebuta Festival.” Police located Yonekura’s vehicle in Hachinohe at around 11:25 p.m. on Monday and placed the child in protective custody.
© Japan Today
8 Comments
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shogun36
A father that wants to actually spend time with his son? Has the world gone completely mad?!?!?!
(it's called sarcasm Japan, look into it)
JJ Jetplane
He is probably just a father that has been denied time with his son.
To be honest, I don’t think joint custody will affect these situations. The same way the law doesn’t exactly enforce divorce settlements or child support.
Japan needs to find better ways to enforce laws that help children get properly taken care of as well as creates opportunities to have positive relationships with both parents.
Also, communication is one of the key reasons that these situations happen. They don’t properly communicate during their marriage so when it ends, it’s only bitterness and resentment.
Shane Sommerville
Divorce or separation is hard. Been though it. There is no winners only losers.
TigersTokyoDome
Single custody in Japan causes so many issues like this. This law is so outdated. Basically the Mother believes it is her right to keep the children and control every single aspect of whether the Father will see his children at school events or on holidays. There is no law for the Father to contest his right to share life events. Even if he has never harmed his children. I would like to see Mothers taken to court for this, but there is no law to prosecute.
Eleonora
This is probably just another case (and there are many, unfortunately) of parents that are divorced or don't live together anymore, so the mum decided that the son is her own property and took him with her, refusing to let the dad see him.
I wrote my master degree thesis on this topic, and while there are also many DV cases, the majority of children were abducted just because in Japan people suppose that after the parents split, the kid should cut the contact with one of them (90% of the times it's the father that never sees them again).
I'm not trying to justify the father, since we do not know the details and background, but I find it pretty sad that a young couple - or the mother - (who could have had more progressive views about custody) decided to refuse joint custody to the father.
This social problem is not going to end soon, especially since the government does not seem to want to address it in any way. They're applying the evergreen "deaf hear" Japanese attitude, to people who ask for changes in the custody law.