“These fathers don’t live, they survive.” The drama of parents deprived of their children by an outrageous law in Japan.

Immediate deportation to France or ten years in a Japanese prison. That’s what a terrible deal the prosecutor offers Romain Duris’ character Missing partGuillaume Senez’s new film. His “crime”. spent a few hours with her teenage daughter, whom her ex-Japanese partner kidnapped nine years ago, and whom she had never seen before, an almost mainstream drama in Japan, where more than 70% of divorces result in one-parent divorce, according to government figures. with the complete severance of ties.

According to the NGO Kizuna Child-Parent Reunion, this situation affects more than 150,000 children every year. Incredibly, Japanese justice does not recognize joint custody or visitation rights In this case, the parent who does not have custody of their children will not see them again until they reach the age of majority taking it from a former spouse is neither a crime nor a misdemeanor.

Worse, abduction is often recommended by lawyers because judges systematically award custody to the parent who has children under their roof at the time of divorce. Even worse, if the abducting parent remarries after this declaration, the biological parent’s name simply disappears. . General, legal and final parental death.

Go to hell

“With Romain Duris, we were in Japan in 2018 for promotion Our battlesthe first film we shot together, explains director Guillaume Senez. During the evening, the expats talked to us about these family abductions. These stories of parents who fell into hell shocked me, and I decided to tell their story.” These abductions are not only about foreigners, but also about many Japanese people.
“Children born to two Japanese still represent the majority of kidnapping cases,” explains Francois Roussel, the representative of the French living abroad in Japan.

While children are sometimes alienated from their mothers, the vast majority of cases involve the severing of paternal ties. According to the latest figures presented by the government, 86% of abductors are women. According to Francois Roussel, who has lived in Japan for more than thirty years, the traditional understanding of the distribution of roles between men and women is one of the main reasons for these tragedies.

A child is considered household furniture

Jessica Finnell, attorney

“Public opinion considers that the child is not a subject in itself, but an extension of the mother,” he continues. And strangely enough, most Japanese feminists oppose joint custody and actively support women who kidnap their children. gage, as foreigners living in Japan are sometimes derogatorily called.

Fathers can lose everything

To write his film, Guillaume Senez met several French people who live this drama every day with their bodies, such as Emmanuel de Furnas, Vincent Fishot or Stéphane Lambert, who have been trying to reunite with their children for many years. Without any convincing results. “We have to be sensible, the parent whose child has been abducted is not in vain,” explains Jessica Finnell, their lawyer were detained…”.

French entrepreneur Emmanuel de Furnas, for example, spent twenty-three days in police custody (the maximum legal length in Japan), in a six-square-meter cell, with no shower and no care, for trying to see his baby. daughter again. When misfortune happens to them, these fathers lose everything, their children, but also their house, their job, being exhausted in long procedures and excessive expenses. Because if they do not have visitation rights, they still have to pay very expensive alimony. A grotesque situation that prompts many to give up and give up the fight, with some, like Arnaud Simon and Christophe Guillermin, committing suicide in devastation.

“These fathers don’t live, they survive,” explains director Guillaume Senez. They fight for their children to understand one day what really happened and that they did everything to find them, never giving up. This situation is hard to believe from our Western point of view, but in Japan, even today, the welfare of the child is not taken into account, justice makes a complete abstraction of it, and society, in its almost globality, does not see. the child as a being with rights. “It’s actually considered a piece of household furniture that, once separated, cannot be shared between two different households,” complains Jessica Finnell.

Faced with international pressure, the situation is beginning to change. On May 17, Japan’s parliament voted in favor of an amendment to the Civil Code that could lead to the establishment of joint parental authority in a divorce decree, with a choice between sole custody and joint custody. “The new law is incredibly hypocritical because it allows for shared parental authority if accepted by both parents. However, in essence, a parent who removes their child and cuts them off from all contact with the other parent is not agreeing to shared parenting. powers with them.”

70 percent of citizens are against this development

Waiting for things to finally change, resistance is being organized. Expat associations and the consulate website have written pamphlets to explain Japanese divorce laws, and support groups have been set up to help fathers overcome isolation. But everyone knows the road is long it will be painful. Especially since Japanese public opinion remains very reluctant, as according to a survey conducted on the government’s website, more than 70% of citizens are against this development.

“I think it will be difficult to find a distributor in the country,” regrets director Guillaume Senez, an observation shared by lawyer Jessica Finnel, who sees the release anyway.Missing part a real possibility. “It would be great to have it released in Japan because it would help raise awareness,” he explains help them understand what they’ve been through.” Like Ariadne’s fragile thread that will finally allow us to reconnect with these children doomed to grow up without them…

missing part By Guillaume Senez, with Romain Duris, Judith Chemla, Yumi Narita… In theaters.