@samuelszuchan: In Japan, some divorce lawyers explicitly advise their clients to take the children and leave before divorce talks even begin. The practice has a Japanese name: tsuresari, literally "taking away." And it works because of how Japanese family courts decide custody. The courts apply the continuity principle. It instructs judges to weigh, above almost every other factor, who has been physically caring for the child at the moment the dispute reaches court. Not who should have the child. Who has the child. Whoever answers that question first wins. The Asano Sogo Law Office's published guide for clients considering separation reads like an instruction manual. It advises: once you've moved out with the children, contact your spouse and confirm the children's safety. If the remaining spouse calls it abduction, the firm recommends having a lawyer pre-emptively contact the spouse, citing domestic violence if applicable. And here's the asymmetry. If the wife moves out with the children, she's presumed to be fleeing. Her lawyer frames the departure as protection. If the husband attempts to retrieve them through any means other than mediation, he's presumed to be the abductor. Police will warn him off and may arrest him if he persists. The Verybest Law Firm's guidance notes that prosecutors in such cases almost never indict the parent who leaves. One lawyer named Kensuke Onuki told reporters that in over 90 percent of cases where Japanese women return to Japan with children, the man is at fault. In the same interview, he added that domestic violence is difficult to prove. Those two statements have a logical relationship. If abuse is difficult to prove but is the assumed explanation, then the act of taking the children becomes self-justifying, retroactively.

Sam Szuchan

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Region: US

Tuesday 07 July 2026 19:00:00 GMT