[ozkai]

I thought parents of dual nationalities may find this interesting.

I recently ended a nine year marriage to my wife who was Japanese.

We had a son born in Australia.

All she wanted to do was to remove our son out of Australia and return with him to Japan, constantly failing to understand that I am his loving father and not only is this important to me, but also our son.

She refused to tell me if she had obtained a Japanese passport for our son, as she did register him in Japan in her maiden name only. Please note, only her siganture is required to register and also a Japanese passport.

Having huge concerns, not only in regrds to her mental stability and failure to faciliate in regards to our son upon seperation, but also knowing she may very well dissapear with our son back to Japan who are not a party to the agreement on child abduction from the Hague Convention.

Please also note, the Japanese Emabassy in Australia was not able to tell me if indeed my son had a Japanese passport.

To cut a long story short, I started family court proceedings against her a week ago.

The first order imposed on her was to hand in our sons Japanese passport to the court as she admitted in the court that she had indeed ohtained one without my knowledge. The second was a restraining order to stop her applying for another, and other orders in my favour in regards to our child.

The case will continue for some while as I will be wanting my son to live with me the majority of the time and also myself being the main decision maker due to past disturbing events.

Please keep in mind that my American colleague in Japan also had huge problems with her Japanese husband, and she basically abducted him without her husbands knowledge back to the US, knowing full well upon divorce that she would lose evrything against him including the child and would have been kicked out of the country..

Just a good word of caution for anyone who may end up in the same or similar situation.