The bizarre Japanese law that makes kidnapping legal | 60 Minutes Australia

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* Japanese subtitles available *

It sounds completely crazy, but in Japan it is actually legal to kidnap children. Yes, legal. In that country a bizarre law allows a parent in a failed marriage to literally abduct the kids and run off into the night. It’s possible because co-parenting is not an option for disgruntled couples who are divorcing. Sole custody is automatically awarded to the mother or father who was last living with the children. That parent is also given the power to block the other parent’s access. While Japan is entitled to make any strange rules it wants, 82 Australian kids have been innocently caught up in this mess. On assignment for 60 MINUTES, North Asia correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Eryk Bagshaw, investigates how the seemingly sensible idea of shared custody has become as alien to the Japanese as a ban on whaling.

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