By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News Producer

TOKYO, Japan -- On a recent Saturday afternoon, about a dozen men and women, all divorcees, gathered at a small classroom in Tokyo's central Bunkyo district. They were there to participate in a study group on the psychological effects of custody cases.

Because Japanese law does not legally recognize joint custody of minors and the court must select a sole guardian, it is an especially fraught topic.

One of the participants, Natsumi Kobayashi (she requested that her real name not be used), said she had not seen her daughter for five years.

Making things worse was the fact that her ex-husband had disappeared with their child – and that the courts then ruled that her daughter had established a sense of stability with her father during the years in which Kobayashi fought her case, and that removal her from his care would interfere with the child's welfare.

What's more, she said, her daughter had been told by the father that Kobayashi had died and each year was being taken to the ancestral grave to show where “her mother was resting.”

"In my daughter's mind, I didn't exist. It felt as though my entire existence was completely erased," said Kobayashi, her voice shaking.

Mail exchanges
After repeated pleas urging her ex-husband to explain the truth to her child, and through court intervention, the father finally started to correspond with Kobayashi and report on her daughter's upbringing by mail.

Kobayashi recently received her first letter, but the correspondence is limited to twice a year and she has yet to see her daughter, who is now in second grade. According to Kobayashi, her daughter still doesn't know she is alive.

The government reports that roughly 25,000 divorces are filed in Japan each year. Of that number, close to 60 percent include children who end up establishing a life with only a single parent. Nongovernmental organizations estimate that 300,000 children are in this situation.

Complicating matters is that although courts sometimes grant visitation privileges to the non-custodial parent, implementation is often left to the discretion of the parent responsible for the child, which can leave the other parent with little or no access.

“If a parent wielded his or her utmost strength to claim the custody of the child, he or she will use the same amount of energy to limit contact of the former spouse. The only thing to break this cycle is by fixing the law,” said attorney Takao Tanase, a professor at Tokyo's Chuo University Law School and one of the leading authorities on the issue.

Limited visits
Only half of the appeals for visitation rights by the non-custodial parent are approved, experts say, and of that number, 75 percent of the applicants are granted a mere two hours of the child's time a month.

"It’s not enough to just see each other. What is really crucial is for the non-custodial parent to be involved in the parenting; to share quality time, and to share the various stages and moments of the child's life," Tanase said.

Tanase, who has been preparing a constitutional amendment on joint-parenting, believes that the current Japanese constitution, created immediately after World War II, has become outdated.

"Considering the transformation of Japanese society during the last 60 years, it is impossible for a legal system from 60 years ago to address these issues of today," said Tanase, pointing out that during the 1950s there may have been just under 100 divorce cases per year compared to tens of thousands today.

Hakubun Shimomura, a politician from the Liberal Democratic Party, has been spearheading a nonpartisan study group on this issue for lawmakers. He explained that although the ultimate goal would be to somehow change the constitution to drop the concept of single guardianship, "the first and more realistic target” would be to revise the current law to guarantee more visitation privileges.
 
Meanwhile, left -behind parents are desperately waiting for a change to the system.

"It'll be another six months before the next letter arrives," said Kobayashi, fighting back tears. "Even though this manner of bonding with my daughter feels like grasping a thin thread of spider's yarn, I have to believe that I've somehow been able to connect with her."

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/01/2215438.aspx

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