日本における子奪取条約と子どもたちの声

Abstract

バブル経済の崩壊後、海外における日本人女性の国際結婚は増加した。その後外国人配偶者の合意なく、子を日本へ連れ帰る日本人女性が問題となった。西洋社会ではそのような行為は親による子の誘拐として犯罪とされる。2000年代西洋諸国は、母親が子の親権をもつことは日本の文化であることを理由に日本政府がいわゆるハーグ（子奪取）条約に締結しようとしない姿勢を批難し始めた。「1980年の国際的な子の奪取の民事上の側面に関する条約」は、国際的に連れ去られた子を常居所地国に返還し、返還後、親権や監護権、面会交流について取り決めることが「子の利益」となるという原則に基づいた国際私法の枠組みである。2014年に子奪取条約の実施法が日本で施行された。『家庭の法と裁判』に公刊された子奪取条約の子の返還事案のうち、〈重大な危険〉が争われた13ケースを抽出し、〈子の意見〉を中心に分析した。Since 1991 when the bubble economy had burst out in Japan, the number of Japanese women who find their foreign spouses overseas has increased. Some of them had returned to Japan with their children without consent of their spouses. In Western countries this behavior is a crime as parental kid napping. After the Millennium Western countries started to claim that Japanese government had indulged Japanese mothers who should have taken sole custody for her children. The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is the principal tool for a parent seeking the return of a child abducted across international borders. The Hague Convention provides a legal framework for securing the return of an abducted child so that judicial authorities can make decisions on issues of custody and the best interests of the child. It was in 2014 that this Convention came to effect in Japan. Some cases of seeking the return of child have appealed to the higher courts after family court decisions. More than a dozen cases have been published in the Family Court Journal. Filing these cases, this paper will focus on two aspects; what kind of situation has been taken as “a grave risk” by Japanese Courts and how the voices of children have been taken into considerations.