Isaac and Rebecca Savoie, children born of the marriage between Christopher Savoie and his now ex-wife, Norika, were kidnapped by their mother and hurried off to Japan last August. After the abduction, police issued an arrest warrant for Norika and court authorities gave sole custody of the children to Christopher.
In an effort to reclaim the children, Christopher went to Japan and picked up the two children up as they walked to school in the morning. Instead of heading to the airport, the proceeded to the closest U.S. Consulate, where Japanese authorities were waiting for them with a roadblock after being tipped-off by Norika. Though they managed to get to the gates of the consulate, they were refused entry.
From this article:
“So there was that first barricade — and then, once they got to the gate, the U.S. Consulate did not open the gate,” he recalled.
Like a scene from a movie, Higgins said, Isaac froze in the streets as his Dad raced toward the consulate with Rebecca in his arms.
Much like several high-profile international parental kidnapping cases in recent months, this one stands to play out on the world stage.
Things don’t look very good for Mr. Savoie as Japan is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on international child abduction. Further, there are no known cases where Japanese authorities have ever returned children, kidnapped by a parent, to the parent in the United States.
As an aside, Williamson County Judge Jim Martin ordered that Isaac and Rebecca’s passports be released to their mother so they could go “on vacation.” Christopher expressed fear over the repeated threats by Norika to take the children back to Japan and her unhappiness with life in the United States. Judge Jim Martin was unpersuaded, allegedly stating to Christopher that he “…needed to accept that life was full of risks…” Shame on Judge Jim Martin for giving Norika the tools and the opportunity to make this tragic event a reality for everyone involved.
For the full story, click here: Father Follows Abducted Children to Japan, Gets Arrested
Read here about questions surrounding Judge Jim Martin’s involvement in the case as he previously served as mediator on their divorce and custody agreement. Ethical questions abound regarding his stepping in to make a ruling on Christopher’s concerns about potential parental kidnapping: Dad Questions Judge’s Role In Child Abduction Case
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Read more about parental abduction here: Parental Kidnapping (Child Abduction)
Whoever wrote this garbage should have tried harder…. it clearly says that Japan does not consider parental abduction to be a crime. Lo and behold, we hear a story of a parent who abducted his own children in Japan, who sits in jail – charged with a crime.
So what’s it going to be? Pick one.
You know, It’s not entirely out of the question that this story is completely fabricated. And poorly, I might add…
This is a catch 22 situation. I don’t know the mother’s situation, but it sounds like primary custody was given to the father. Now if there is one thing I know from experience, the father usually won’t get sole custody of their kids unless, the mother is in a really bad situation where she can’t properly care for the kids, or the father has very good lawyers. Bottom line, I don’t know the situation of their divorce. He seems like a nice guy, but so was a friend of mine. But in reality, he was a cheater and abusive to his wife. He played the courts and got custody of his kids just to spite his ex wife. I’m not going to go into detail, but we’re no longer friends because what he did was wrong. I also have another friend, who truly loves his daughter. He wanted custody of her because the mother just wasn’t a very good mother. Partying, drinking, always having strange guys at the house. My friend didn’t like that. His strike against him though is that he had criminal history. Drugs, weapon posession, gang affiliation, you name it, and served four years in jail. It took a while, but he turned his life around just for that girl, and he eventually got full custody of her. This case here though, I don’t know because we’re only hearing the side of the husband and not the side of his wife. I would like to say I feel sorry for him, but as far as I know he could be putting on a show for us.
men are always scr-e-wed in the court’s
courts are gender biased and MEN SHOULD HAVE A CLASS ACTION SUIT AGAINST THE COURT’S
If as the Japanese maintain, “Our two nations approach divorce and child-rearing differently. Parental child abduction is not considered a crime in Japan,” Then by their own definition, this fellow has committed no crime. He has not abducted minors, he has taken his own children.
BOYCOTT JAPAN!!!! Don’t buy anything made in Japan. If these children are US citizen and SHE abducted them to another country and he sits in jail for trying to reclaim his own children that the courts gave him full custody of, doesn’t this show absolute disrespect by the Japanese government towards Americans and our legal system?
Shame on the Japanese and SHAME on this mother, she is a criminal and gives all mothers a bad name!
Rich – I’m going to guess that the difference is that Christopher Savoie is not a Japanese national and therefore might as well be treated like a complete stranger. If his defense was that easy, he wouldn’t be sitting in a Japanese prison right now.
Terrell – Your skepticism is alarming. He managed an emergency hearing with evidence of her intentions to flee the country. He wanted the passports withheld by the court. One doesn’t bear the expense to travel to Japan and sit in a Japanese prison to “put on a show.”
SIM – See my above comment to Rich.
Susan – It’s a nice gesture, but I doubt it will have any impact on the Savoie situation.
Whatever, let the courts decide. I don’t think anyone did anything wrong here. I personally think the problem was not giving the sole custody of the children to either the mother or the father in the first place. May be if they really love their children, they should’ve reconsidered divorce. What she did was wrong, but so is what the guy did. Just because you have sole custody of the children under US law doesn’t mean you have sole custody of the children in Japan. You can’t just go to another country and abduct your children and blame the country when they stop you, just as Noriko can’t blame US for putting her in jail if the cops got to her before she left for Japan. Difference is that her abduction succeeded and his failed. Doesn’t mean either one is good or bad, or that we should be upset at the Japanese or Japanese at us. Tough break for the guy, but that’s life. I’m sure he’ll deal with it.
Where’s Harry S. Truman when you need him?
Dan – with all due respect to your opinion, STEALING children from a parent with whom you initially have shared custody is what was wrong here. In the court’s infinite wisdom, Chris was apparently granted sole custody after she kidnapped the children and fled the country.
Dan’s intention was not to interfere with Norika’s custodial time. It was absolutely Norika’s intention to sweep the children completely out of Chris’ life (and Chris out of the children’s lives).
The courts already decided. Norika apparently didn’t care.
In response to everyone’s comments here: I know these people and this is not the whole story. The media has only covered the father’s side. This guy is not an innocent victim at all. Let’s all ask ourselves why this woman would be so desperate to return home to Japan? The divorce documents are available for all to view. So do some research. I am sick to death of seeing this biased story plastered all over the news. No one should feel sorry for this man at all. My only sympathy goes out to these children whose lives have been torn apart by a man who cannot make good life decisions. I agree with Terrell that there are many people who seem nice but in the end are just not.
Frustrated – instead of engaging in emotional discussions about one’s character, we should focus on the matter at-hand. There was an appropriate custody arrangement in place and Norika violated that. If you have some provable issue that demonstrated that Christopher Savoie was a danger to his children, then the custody arrangement should not have been unilaterally violated.
We don’t have to like people who want to be a parent to their children. We do have to respect their rights to be a parent to their children in accordance with agreements or court orders and regardless of our personal feelings.
Please, feel free to share any links you may have to information that will shed some light on why people should be persuaded to believe that having his children kidnapped from him, presumably for the rest of his life and their lives. The conjuncture you offer won’t help that.
Since custody of children is based on the character of the parent and his/her ability (seeming responsibility and stability) to parent, I am sure that my emotional response is quite appropriate. We cannot separate the law from personal responsibility when that is what the law is based on.
However, the point is simply that this man has made no attempt in the media to take responsibility for a mess he created. The media wants to demonize his ex and make him the hero. And that is not the whole story. As a parent who is supposedly so concerned for his children he should have thought more about the consequences of his actions before it got to this point. These things don’t just happen by accident. Do I think his children should be separated from him forever? No. My point is that the public should get both sides of the story.
So what is the other side of the story Frustrated? I don’t see much wiggle room here. There was a court ordered – or at least court approved – custody agreement in place. She violated it. If there was some problem with regard to his fitness to have custody of the children, then she should have addressed it through appropriate channels – not by kidnapping the children. And that is exactly what she has done, make no bones about it.
In my opinion, the judge should have never granted permission for this visit to a non-Hague convention country (Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction). In fact, I would like to see this made law – in a disputed custody case where one of the parents holds dual citizenship with a non-Hague country, the passports should absolutely be held by the court or the other parent.
I was in a similar situation once upon a time, and I made damn sure I had physical control of the kids passports and had restrictions put in place forbidding their mother from obtaining replacement or foreign passports. I would have gone to jail for contempt before I handed them over, and in fact I still hold them. But it was an uphill battle, and I had to do alot of legwork to convince the judge that 1. she was a flight risk, and 2. the chances of me ever getting my kids back again if they were taken to this non-Hague country were essentially nil. I got alot of help from the state department in making the second argument. As in the case with Japan, they had never seen an abduction case reach a favourable resolution with this country.
Rich,
I guarantee that this story is not fabricated. My own son has been abducted by his mother and taken to Greece. I am in contact with many left behind parents and their stories (and mine) are just as tragic as this one.
Terrell,
I doubt you’re right about his character but even if you were, that is for the courts, not one parent to decide. And, btw, there are studies on parental child abduction that show in more than 50% of cases the abducting parent has mental health problems.
Frustrated,
there are indeed two sides to every story — that’s why we have family courts (and I know from personal experience just how willing some people are to lie to protect their own distorted world view). Family courts may not be perfect and, in fact, as James has noted they tend to show a bias in favour of mothers, but they are the only way to resolve the matter of a child’s best interests. And to prevent nationalistic bias, it should be the courts in which the children were born and raised that should decide those interests.
Parental abduction means taking a child from all they know and denying them all access to one parent, and is incredibly damaging to a child. You should read some of the stories on http://www.takeroot.org or this UN paper: http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/unreport.htm
It’s also a felony and for good reason. Sadly though, the US does not do enough to protect it’s youngest and most vulnerable citizens from the abuse that is abduction, and countries like Japan leave people like Chris with little choice but to do what he did. I completely sympathise and, given my situation, empathise with him. I also feel for his children. I barely sleep these days worrying about my own son.
Cheers,
Phil
Anybody that has lived abroad knows that for help one DO NOT goes to the US Embassy, they will not help ,it is not like the British or Canadian Embassies where they welcome English speaking natives, and open thier doors.
Big mistake to change your nationality, he has to accept Japanese Law and they will look for a native born.
admin, i respect your opinion, and I sympathize with you emotionally, but I can’t agree with your rational. yes, what she did was illegal, but so is what he did.
What she did is illegal in this country, but legal in Japan. What he did is illegal in Japan, but legal here.
The fact is that they are all in Japan now, so sounds like Japanese should do what their law says, which may not agree with what the U.S. law says. That’s how i see it as a third person. Plus, I also heard that the father is naturalized Japanese citizen, so I don’t see why U.S. judiciary system should waste money defending parental rights of a foreigner whose only reason for trying to act American is to get the children back. We still don’t have all the story, but that’s just how i see it given what I’ve heard so far.
This father also opened his own set of legal can of worms. If he really is a naturalized Japanese citizen, he was supposed to give up his US citizenship as Japan does not allow dual/multiple citizenships for those who are over 21 years of age. There is a slim chance that he is not even an American citizen, and if he still is that creates another set of immigration issues in Japan. This is one big legal mess.
Dan,
what she did is illegal and is an abduction. The Japanese have ignored that fact. They have ignored the custody handed out in US court. If they hadn’t and obeyed international conventions, then there would not have been the need for Chris to take the law into his own hands. It’s hypocritical for the Japanese government to ignore the mother’s abduction from the US and then charge the father with abduction — the same crime committed by the mother.
What action should the father have taken given the Japanese government ignored the mother’s crime and showed no interest in recognising the custody order already established in the US? Just given up on ever seeing his children again? I can understand why he did what he did.
Michelle,
It’s the citizenship of the children, their habitual residence and the custody established in the US, not the father’s citizenship that is the issue here. You are correct though it is a legal (or illegal!) mess and it’s one created by the Japanese judiciary. Custody had already been decided in the US — the Japanese judiciary and government have chosen to ignore that fact. They’ve also ignored the crime of abduction committed by the mother.
As someone dealing with these issues myself , it is incredibly frustrating when a court in a foreign country ignores an already established custody order because someone abducted a child and is choosing to take advantage of nationalistic bias. Even more so when that child is denied all contact with a parent through the abduction and, hence, emotionally abused.
Cheers,
Phil
– Chris and Noriko were separated for 3 years in Japan.
– The children grew up in Japan and do not speak English.
– Noriko wanted to divorce in Japan but he refused.
– Chris persuaded Noriko to give their marriage another chance and she agreed to move to the States.
– when she got there with the children, he was already living with another woman and filed for divorce.
– Noriko was forced to live by herself, no job, no money – Chris did not support them – Norko’s parent send money to support them. The children begged to go back to Japan.
Where the heck is Dawg the bounty hunter when we need him…?
Phil,
I agree. Technically. But at the same time, I must admit that the more I know the less sympathy I have for this father. I read somewhere online that he left Japan first and asked the ex-wife and the kids to “come” to the US (they were living in Japan for years), provided that they could live under the same roof only if he lives close by. And he filed divorce paper the very next they the ex-wife and the kids arrived from Japan. I believe he is now married to the lady who he was living together already when the kids returned to the US. And it is reported that he physically grabbed and carried the children away while they were walking to school with their mom.
From this ex-wife’s point of view, she may be thinking…
– I married him and he got the Japanese citizenship through that marriage
– Marriage fell apart
– He decided to return to the US although the rest of the family was reluctant to do so
– He made an offer that seemed workable. For the sake of the children, I did agree
– I listened to him and was served a divorce paper instead the very next day she arrived. He was also living with another lady
– I had no point staying in the US except for the kids
– I wanted to go back to where I belong, but I wanted my kids, too
– Tried to explain things to him, but he just did not care. He wasn’t even supporting me financially although he’s the one who asked me to be close to him
– He used the US law to manipulate the whole thing to take everything away from me while we all were in the US
– I needed to go to Japan, with the kids, just like he did to me, so that I have the legal advantage there
and so on….
Michelle,
I know from my own situation that my wife is willing to lie egregiously to get what she wants and garner sympathy. If Noriko is telling the truth that is bad for her and I really do feel very sorry for her. Of course, I don’t know if she’s telling the truth — the same for me, unfortunately, nobody knows if I’m telling the truth about my situation.
All I do know in this situation, is that custody was established in the US and both parents had access to the children in the US. Fair enough that Noriko wanted to go back to Japan but as she says she wanted her kids too. Once you have kids your needs are secondary to theirs and kids need both parents in their lives. That’s the first problem for me in this situation: Noriko acted unilaterally to satisfy her own needs and abducted her children. That is against the law in the US because doing so is harmful to children. If she felt the father was unworthy of having his children in his life, she should have argued that in court.
The second and biggest problem is Japan’s hypocrisy. If they don’t consider the abduction of children from another country a crime, they are being hypocritical if they consider abducting children from their country to be a crime. This double standard has led to Japan being a haven for parental; child abductors. I also suspect it inflamed the situation here. If Noriko wanted to return to Japan, then if they were both being mature adults Chris and Noriko could have agreed to allow the children to grow up in one country with all holidays spent with the parent in the other country and visitation for the non-custodial parent. However, knowing the bias of Japanese courts, if I was the non-Japanese parent, and a father to boot, I would never agree to that arrangement because if my ex ever became bitter I would never see my children again.
So, I do sympathise with Noriko based on what you laid out being true. However, I don’t agree that she should have acted unilaterally — it just leads to custodial anarchy and damages children. But more than anything I think the Japanese government needs to take a hard look at it’s attitude towards child abduction from other countries. Japan is a terrible country for condoning child abduction — which is child abuse — by it’s nationals.
Cheers,
Phil
my wife went to japan and took my daughter. she is staying there. if i can get my daughter and get to the us embassy without being caught by the japanese police can i leave japan without being arrested?
I agree with Terrill,
We are only hearing one side of the story. Personally, I think the majority, NOT ALL American men marry Asian women because they have this idea in their head that all Asian women are submissive and they won’t even have to wipe their own behinds because it will be done for them by their Asian wife. Then when the woman stands up for herself and refuses to be used as a door mat, the man get abusive and threatens to take her kids if she doesn’t comply to his daily demands. This happens far too often to these mail order brides, or foreign women who marry military men. Again, I am not saying all American men treat their foreign wives like this. I would love to hear this woman’s side of the story. Can anyone tell me if she has told her side and if so what is the web address?
Now this is the over side of the story I said I wished I could find, and it’s not far at all from my theory of what happened. The comment was submitted by Nina September 30th, 2009
SM Krause – your completely unsupportable conjecture doesn’t make fact. It’s all a really nice pipe-dream story for you to concoct, but it has no bearing on the facts of this case as we know them. Your “theory” isn’t a theory at all – it’s a guess rooted in a deep mistrust of men and fathers. That much is plainly obvious.
Does anyone know how I can contact Christopher Savoie?
I’m afraid my ex will do the same thing….
Thanks