A10 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, AUGUST 23 , 2019
uled for late September, was
forced to cancel elaborate plans to
celebrate the country’s independ-
ence from Britain in 1919. Instead,
he gave an emotional speech Sun-
day, vowing to wipe out the Islamic
State and avenge the wedding
deaths.
Two weeks earlier, hours after
Ghani kicked off his campaign, the
office of his top running mate was
bombed and assaulted by gun-
men, leaving 20 people dead. Offi-
cials blamed the Taliban, who have
also vowed to attack the polls.
Many Afghans believe the elec-
tions are likely to be postponed.
[email protected]gested that there is support within
the Afghan government for the
Islamic State, a separate Sunni
extremist militia that has been
fighting both the Taliban and joint
U.S. and Afghan forces. He
claimed that such support is “an
open secret” but gave no evidence.
The Islamic State claimed a sui-
cide bombing at a large Kabul
wedding Friday night that killed
80 people and left more than 160
wounded. The blast left the capital
in shock. The militia has claimed
dozens of other deadly bombings
in Kabul and other cities.
President Ashraf Ghani, who is
seeking reelection in a vote sched-spokesman Sohail Shaheen told
CBS News that he thought the
most recent U.S. troop deaths
would have a “positive impact” on
the talks. He said the killings dem-
onstrated that “it is very necessary
to put an end to the war.”
U.S. officials have said the two
sides are nearing agreement on
the issue of troop withdrawals and
on a Taliban pledge to cut ties with
al-Qaeda. But disagreements re-
portedly remain about two other
U.S. demands — that the Taliban
agree to honor a comprehensive
cease-fire and to meet with Afghan
officials in follow-up talks.
Shaheen, in the interview, sug-presented to President Trump last
week, would begin bringing home
about 5,000 of the 14,000 troops
now in Afghanistan once the Tali-
ban leaders formally agree.
The insurgents have demanded
that all American forces leave be-
fore they consider meeting with
the Afghan government about the
country’s future. They have un-
leashed a wave of violence in re-
cent months in an effort to gain an
advantage in negotiations, includ-
ing several deadly bombings and
ground assaults in Kabul that left
scores dead.
In an interview Thursday in
Doha, the Qatari capital, Talibanof Chicopee, Mass., and Master
Sgt. Jose J. Gonzalez, 35, of La
Puente, Calif.
The deaths bring to 14 the num-
ber of U.S. service members killed
by hostile forces this year, surpass-
ing the total of 13 killed in 2018.
About 2,400 have died in Afghani-
stan since the war began in 2001.
In July, two U.S. soldiers were shot
dead by an Afghan army soldier
who opened fire at a rural military
base.
The Trump administration is
intent on bringing home the bulk
of U.S. forces here by next year. The
current peace proposal, which top
U.S. negotiator Zalmay KhalilzadBY PAMELA CONSTABLEkabul — Two American service
members were killed in combat in
Afghanistan on Wednesday, U.S.
military officials said, as U.S. nego-
tiators returned to Qatar to re-
sume peace talks with Taliban in-
surgents and reaching a final
agreement on the withdrawal of
thousands of U.S. troops.
The Army Special Forces sol-
diers died of wounds suffered in
small-arms fire in Faryab prov-
ince, the Department of Defense
said in a news release Thursday.
They were identified as Master
Sgt. Luis F. DeLeon-Figueroa, 31,
and photographs to show that his
wife was shopping and eating out
during a two-week period when
she claimed she was locked in the
home, and a court ruled that the
charges against Perina were false.
Still, in July, a court denied
Fichot’s claim for custody. The
judge ruled that his wife, having
had sole care of the children for
more than a year, was more in-
volved in their education and had
more of their affection.
Kushida said momentum for
change is building. In February, in
a response to Kushida in parlia-
ment, Abe finally acknowledged
that “children would want to see
their father and their mother” and
asked the Justice Ministry to look
into the issue.
Japan signed the Hague Con-
vention in 2014, a move that
should have allowed for repatria-
tion of children found to have
been kidnapped overseas, but it
did not enforce its provisions until
recently.
The State Department says
progress is being made, with new
legislation being drawn up to im-
prove enforcement, and 32 kid-
napped children have been re-
turned to the United States since- Still, it remains “highly con-
cerned” about enforcement and
about the fact that Japan declined
to apply the convention to the
“sizable number of cases” that pre-
date 2014. Abductions are also still
happening, with eight new cases,
involving 16 American children,
recorded last year.
None of that helps Morehouse,
whose son was kidnapped before
2014, or Fichot and Perina, whose
children were taken in Japan and
to whom the convention doesn’t
apply. Nor does it help any of the
hundreds of thousands of Japa-
nese parents and children whom
the system has forced apart.
Morehouse is frustrated that
President Trump has, at Abe’s in-
sistence, advocated for Japanese
citizens who were abducted by
North Korea in the 1970s and
1980s, meeting their families and
raising the issue with North Ko-
rean leader Kim Jong Un, but has
not done so for hundreds of
stranded American children.
The president “ran on a state-
ment and policy of ‘America
First,’ ” he said. “He ought to put
American kidnapped children
first, and bring them home from
Japan and other countries.”
[email protected]
Akiko Kashiwagi contributed to this
report.Japanese parents who are de-
prived of their children suffer in
silence, Ueno said, while politi-
cians who defend fathers face crit-
icism from an unlikely coalition of
conservatives, who believe wom-
en’s place is in the home,
and women’s groups defending
victims of domestic violence.
Japan, unlike the United States,
has no system for evaluating do-
mestic violence accusations, ac-
cording to Ueno and Odagiri. As a
result, such accusations are rou-
tine in divorce cases, and although
they seldom stick, they buy the
accuser vital time to deny their
spouse access and establish effec-
tive custody, experts say.
Seiichi Kushida, an opposition
lawmaker, says anyone accused of
domestic violence is in practice
treated as a perpetrator. The fear
of stigma, including trouble with
employers, is a big reason men
don’t fight for joint custody and
don’t speak up, he said.
Fichot and Perina were both
accused of violence and were able
to disprove the claims. Fichot pro-
duced receipts, bank statementsrooted in Japanese culture. Tradi-
tionally, children are not viewed as
individuals with rights, or as be-
longing to their parents, but as the
“property of the household” where
they live. As soon as children move
to a new household, the estranged
parent becomes an outsider, with
no right to disturb the new one.
Japan’s Justice Ministry says its
rules are designed to work in the
best interests of children, and that
when marriages end badly, it is
more practical to give one parent
the sole authority to raise their
children. But studies show that
depriving children of access to one
of their parents can be traumatic
and psychologically damaging,
says Noriko Odagiri, a professor of
clinical psychology at Tokyo Inter-
national University.
“Children feel like their father
abandoned them, that he doesn’t
love them anymore,” she said.
Young children suffer behavior-
al problems and from a feeling of
hopelessness, she said. Teenagers
often drop out of school, and
many have low self-esteem.
An “uncountable number” ofRights Council arguing that Japan
was grossly violating the Conven-
tion on the Rights of the Child, as
well as the Hague Convention on
International Child Abduction.
But it is not only, or even mainly,
foreigners who suffer: Lawyer
Akira Ueno says tens of thousands
of Japanese children a year are
effectively kidnapped by one par-
ent, who then cuts off contact with
the other parent. The second par-
ent — often but not always the
father — has no recourse to the
authorities for help seeing their
children, he says.
Japan is unusual among devel-
oped nations in not recognizing
the concept of joint custody. In-
stead, courts give custody to one
parent, applying what is known as
the “continuity principle” — if the
child is settled in one household,
don’t disturb him or her. Not only
does the law not punish a parent
who absconds with a child, it re-
wards them: Once the new house-
hold is established, the court un-
failingly awards custody to the
“kidnapper.”
Ueno says the problem is deeplychildren were abducted here, have
helped raise awareness in Europe.
Last year, 26 E.U. ambassadors
wrote a letter pleading with Japan
to respect the right of children to
see their parents.
In June, French President Em-
manuel Macron met with Fichot
and other French fathers and
raised their cases with Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, de-
scribing their situation as “unac-
ceptable.”
Italian Prime Minister
Giuseppe Conte also spoke with
Abe about Italian parents’ rights
at the Group of 20 meeting in the
Japanese city of Osaka in June.
Now, with French and Italian me-
dia outlets taking up the issue, the
two European leaders are under
pressure to speak up again when
Group of Seven leaders meet in
Biarritz, France, starting Aug. 24.
Last week, Fichot and Perina,
along with seven other fathers and
one mother, and on behalf of 14
children from the United States,
Canada, France, Italy and Ja-
pan, filed a formal complaint to
the United Nations’ HumanBY SIMON DENYERtokyo — A year ago, Vincent
Fichot came home to an empty
house in the Tokyo suburb of Seta-
gaya. The Frenchman’s wife, 3-
year-old son and 11-month-old
daughter had vanished. All he had
done, he said, was suggest that he
might want a divorce.
He hasn’t seen or heard from
his family since, and every effort to
contact his children has
been blocked by his wife, the
courts and Japanese police.
“Abduction is child abuse,” he
said in the course of several inter-
views about his case.
Tommaso Perina, an Italian
resident of Tokyo, said his wife
took their two children for a break
at her parents’ house and a few
days later decided she wanted a
divorce.
Perina hasn’t seen his son and
daughter since August 2017. Al-
though a Japanese court granted
him visitation rights, his wife has
refused to accept the order, and
has moved. The police will not tell
him where she now lives, he said,
or even talk to Italian Embassy
officials.
“It’s not that I’m fighting for my
rights. I’m fighting for my chil-
dren’s rights, because they have
every right to be with both of their
parents,” he said.
Jeffery Morehouse was living in
Washington state, where he had
won permanent custody of his
son, Mochi. In June 2010, he
dropped the 6-year-old off with his
Japanese mother for a visit; she
promptly took him to Tokyo.
Japan’s government refuses to
help, even though its consulate in
Portland, Ore., played a key role in
the kidnapping by issuing the boy
a passport in just one day. The last
words Morehouse heard from his
son, more than nine years ago,
were, “I love you, Daddy.”
The three men are among hun-
dreds of foreigners and hundreds
of thousands of Japanese parents
who have been kept apart from
their children by Japan’s distinc-
tive child custody laws, and they
are leading campaigns, one in the
United States and two here in Ja-
pan, to push for change.
Morehouse has briefed mem-
bers of Congress six times, most
recently in May, and has set
up Bring Abducted Children
Home, a group representing what
he says are more than 400 Ameri-
can children who have been ab-
ducted by a Japanese parent.
Fichot and Perina, who contin-
ue to live in Japan and whose
The World
BANGLADESH
Rohingya refugees
shun repatriation
No Rohingya Muslims staying
in crowded refugee camps in
Bangladesh turned up for a
planned repatriation to Myanmar
on Thursday because they want
to be guaranteed safety and
citizenship first, officials said.
Bangladesh refugee
commissioner Abul Kalam said
none of the 295 families
interviewed since Tuesday by the
Bangladeshi government and the
U.N. refugee agency had agreed
to return to Myanmar, also
known as Burma.
Rohingya Muslims — who
have long faced state-sanctioned
discrimination in Buddhist-
majority Myanmar — have
demanded that Myanmar give
them citizenship and safety and
return seized land.
Myanmar earlier said the
repatriation would start
Thursday. It has certified more
than 3,000 refugees from more
than 1,000 families as eligible for
repatriation.
More than 700,000 Rohingya
fled across the border to
Bangladesh after Myanmar’s
military launched a crackdown
against them in August 2017 in
response to an insurgent attack.
The army-led campaign involved
mass rapes, killings and the
burning of homes.
A U.N. report charged
Thursday that the sexual violence
carried out by the security forces
against the Rohingya was so
widespread and severe that it
demonstrates intent to commit
genocide and warrants
prosecution for war crimes and
crimes against humanity.
Myanmar’s government and
military have denied carrying out
human rights violations.
— Associated PressIRAQHead of militias walks
back claim against U.S.The head of Iraq’s Iranian-
backed paramilitary forces on
Thursday walked back a
statement by his deputy the day
before in which he blamed Israeli
drones and held the United
States responsible for recent
attacks on bases run by the
militias.
Faleh al-Fayyadh said the
statement by his deputy, AbuMahdi al-Muhandis, did not
represent the view of the mainly
Shiite militias, known as the
Popular Mobilization Forces — or
the view of the Iraqi government.
Fayyadh’s statement alleged that
the attacks “were the result of an
act organized by a foreign side,”
but it did not name that side.
The statements followed at
least three mysterious blasts at
militia bases and munitions
depots in Iraq in the past month.
The explosions have given rise
to a host of theories, including
that Israel may have been behind
the attacks.
On Wednesday, the statement
signed by Muhandis blamed the
attacks, which it said were
carried out by Israeli drones, on
the United States. The statement
appeared to have been issued
without consultation with Iraqi
security forces.
U.S. officials have denied any
American role in the explosions.
— Associated PressSyrian convicted in stabbing
that led to protests in Germany:
A German court convicted a
Syrian man in a fatal stabbing in
the city of Chemnitz last year
that touched off far-right
protests. Judges convictedasylum seeker Alaa S. of
manslaughter and dangerous
bodily harm in the killing last
August of 35-year-old Daniel
Hillig. The 24-year-old
defendant, whose last name was
not released in line with German
privacy laws, was sentenced to
almost 10 years in prison. After
the killing, thousands of neo-
Nazis, members of the far-right
Alternative for Germany party
and others assembled in
Chemnitz to protest migration.
An Iraqi suspect in the case is
still being sought.Slovenia expands border fence
to curb migrant inflow:
Slovenia has started erecting an
additional 25 miles of fencing on
its southern border with Croatia
to keep migrants out of the small
Alpine state. Slovenian border
officials said July registered the
highest number of migrant
crossings in a month since the
migration wave peaked a few
years ago, when thousands
fleeing wars and poverty in their
home countries tried to cross
into European Union nations
daily. Slovenia has constructed
119 miles of mostly barbed-wire
fence with Croatia since 2016.
— From news servicesDIGESTISABEL INFANTES/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Perhaps weight isn’t a prickly subject for Nancy the porcupine, who
stood on the scales in public Thursday for London Zoo employee
Chelsea Reid-Johnson. Nancy weighed in at about 32 pounds at the
photo op, held to publicize the zoo’s annual weigh-in for its animals.Japan faces new pressure on child abductions ahead of G-7 summit
ALESSANDRO DI CIOMMO/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Tommaso Perina, an Italian resident of Tokyo, said his wife took their son and daughter for a break at her parents’ house in 2016 and a few
days later said she wanted a divorce. He hasn’t seen the children since August 2017 even though a court granted him visitation rights.2 U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan as talks with Taliban continue