I couldn't bear to part from my son who was then only 10 months old,'' she explained. So, she stayed on. Japanese divorce laws ignore the rights of children to have access to both parents,'' explained Mizuho Fukushima, who works with women and foreign labourers here. This is why in many cases women who want to leave their Japanese husbands do not do so, and their predicament is complicated by the fact that they often face economic difficulties coping with child rearing. Fukushima says the situation is particularly difficult for foreign women because they have the added problem of getting legal visas to stay on in the country after a divorce.
Asian women are especially vulnerable as a result of lingering discrimination, activists here say.
The problems experienced by foreign men and women with Japanese spouses with gaining access to children after separation or divorce, was highlighted at a recent press conference by the Japanese chapter of the Children's Rights Council, a Washington- based organisation. Saying the inability to maintain ties with their children was akin to child abduction, several foreign nationals spoke out against a system that they said denied their children the right to see them and the opportunity to develop closer ties with their biological parents. I have no news about her even while living a few hours away from her home. I call this a violation of my daughter's rights to have access to her father,'' he told the press. They have prohibited him from seeing me.'' In both cases the foreign spouses had signed divorce papers that had, without their knowledge, included the awarding of custody of their children to their estranged husbands or wives.