Japan’s Child Kidnapping Problem. Japan has a child-kidnapping problem. It’s not strangers snatching the kids on the playground or at the bus-stop; the problem is that when a Japanese national divorces a foreigner overseas, he or she can abduct their children, bring them back to Japan and the law ensures that the parent left behind has no rights to see the children or take them back home.
The U.S. State Department reports that there have been over a hundred such kidnappings since 1994—according to a source, the number is closer to 400. Within Japan itself, divorce often means that one parent may have little or no access to the child. Japan’s inability to deal with child abduction partly stems from archaic family law in Japan that does not recognize joint custody.
“Once the child is on Japanese soil, if the foreign parent tries to take them back to their home country, we have to treat him or her as a kidnapper—unless the Japanese courts have clearly given them custody,” a police officer from Tokyo told us. The U.S. Japan earthquake and tsunami: See how the country has rebuilt in 11 months.
Photos compiled by Zoran Bozicevic and words by Michael Higgins Japan’s Reconstruction Agency will be inaugurated Friday, almost 11 months after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the country.
The agency will streamline the process to help municipalities, set up special reconstruction zones and provide subsidies for disaster-hit local governments. YASUYOSHI CHIBA/TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty ImagesThis combination of pictures shows a catamaran sightseeing boat washed by the tsunami onto a two-storey tourist home in Otsuchi, Iwate prefecture on April 16, 2011 (top) and the same area on January 16, 2012 (bottom). 245 — Cost in billions of dollars of the post disaster reconstruction package. 15,846 — Number of dead. 3,320 — People still missing. 2 — Number of missing people found dead this year. 240 — Number of orphans in the three most severely affected prefectures, Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima. 16 — Million tons of disaster waste in Miyagi Prefecture, one of the hardest hit areas of Japan.
Japan's immigration control: Gulag for gaijin. Japan's population faces dramatic decline. By Kyung Lah, CNN updated 10:10 AM EST, Mon January 30, 2012 Japan's population will continue to drop as the graying nation's aging accelerates and the birthrate stays low.
A new study predicts Japan's population will be at about 86.7 million by 2060That's down dramatically from Japan's current 128 million peoplePeople 65 and up will total nearly 40% of Japan's population in 2060, the study says Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan's population will shrink by a staggering 30% by 2060, according to a new estimate by the country's government. The current population will shrink from the current level of 128 million to 86.74 million, as the graying nation's aging accelerates and the birthrate continues to stay low. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's research organization released the data on Monday.
The institute also projects that people age 65 and older will account for 39.9% of the total population in 2060.