![]() ![]() He speaks about another parent, John Gomez, who was instrumental in getting Japan to sign the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. Rowat, now based in Tokyo, believes his best chance is leaving markers for his children as they get older. It’s very, very difficult to imagine deliberately sabotaging a loving relationship,” he says. “People who don’t understand parental alienation, don’t get it. Rowat saw his kids in time for the holidays, but he fears it won’t be enough to stay in their lives. “We implemented the plan and the plan worked.” “The plan was to gun it for Fukuoka and then stop short of the Japanese waters and wait,” says Rowat. The crew of three set out in June 2021, hugging the coast of North Korea before making their way south towards Busan - just far enough outside of both countries’ borders to ensure they remained in international waters but just close enough to find shelter if a typhoon rolled across the Sea of Japan. Unlike many other parents, Rowat, who was then based in London, had a handful of visitation dates with his 15-year-old and 12-year-old kids in Tokyo but feared contact would be cut off if he did not make it to Japan. Canadian Colin Rowat travelled 12,000 kilometres by air through a gauntlet of pandemic border closures and then 1000 kilometres by sea in the middle of typhoon season to try to see his kids in Tokyo.Ĭanadian father Colin Rowat (second from left) sailed from Vladivostok to Fukuoka to see his children in Japan.ĬOVID-19 had largely sealed Japan’s borders and its visa system. Hundreds of other parents are fighting, too. Hopefully one day Catherine’s kids can look at her and say, ‘look at what mum did, she really fought for me’.” A father’s journey across rough seas I probably would have curled up and died. “I don’t know how Catherine has done the things she has done. ![]() “When I spoke to Catherine for the first time on the phone she told me: ‘I don’t want you to be in the same position that I am.’ The divorce would have allowed her husband to apply for sole custody. Henderson told Sarah to sign a document at the district court that meant she could not be divorced without her knowledge. “It’s devastating, frustrating and upsetting. “What have I done wrong to deserve not being able to have what everybody else takes for granted?” asks Henderson. She has not been able to talk to them since. Her two children, then aged 10 and 14, were suddenly abducted in April 2019 by her husband. Henderson, 51, a Melbourne mother of two, has spent the past four years campaigning for changes to Japan’s century-old system, joining class actions and pulling together hundreds of parents from across the world grappling with similar situations. Melbourne mother Catherine Henderson has been fighting to get access to her two children since 2019. “It was only because Catherine Henderson went through what she went through that I turned out OK.” Sarah says she had no idea about Japan’s sole custody system until she found the divorce papers inside the couch. “They can see him whenever they like, but I don’t think it would have been the same if it was reversed.” “I’m giving him access to the children,” says Sarah. The Japanese government defends the system by arguing it protects women in vulnerable situations like Sarah, but she says she is burdened by the “massive guilt” of being forced into a race to take her kids. “I had an apartment straight away and had to change the kids’ schools while hiding our address,” she says. Within hours, she had told police she was removing the children and taking them to a secret location. Sarah sent her children to school in Tokyo and then went back to pick up as many clothes as she could in baskets while her husband slept. Illustration: Credit:Matthew Absalom-Wong “It was either that or have that done to me and I could never see the kids again,” she says. The final clue set off a chain of events that would lead the Australian mother to abduct her own children. Sarah - who asked to be identified by a pseudonym to protect her children’s welfare - was already alarmed after her husband set up separate bank accounts. ![]() They contained details of grounds for divorce in Japan’s legal system, which gives one divorced parent sole custody of the couple’s children. Sarah found a bundle of documents between pillows on a couch. The whiteboard in the kitchen had a message scrawled across it: “here’s your breakfast for the morning”. Tokyo: The first time Australian mum Sarah realised something was amiss was when her Japanese husband suddenly started making food for the kids. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size
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