U.S. Consulate in Japan Gives Kidnapped Child Back To Her Captor

Aug. 31, 2011 - PRLog -- Earlier this week, 14 year-old Mary Victoria Lake, a United States citizen, who was abducted by her mother and taken to Japan in 2005, walked into the U.S. consulate in Osaka, Japan.  She asked to be rescued from her kidnapper, an act of enormous bravery by a teenager, who has been cut off from her father and held captive overseas for the past six years.  Indifferent and incompetent U.S. Consular officials refused to aid or rescue her and instead sent her back to her kidnapper.  

Her father, William Lake, was informed afterwards by caseworker, Virginia Vause from the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Children's Issues (O.C.I.) .  During the multiple conversations with Ms. Vause that day, he learned that the consular officials had made a single attempt to call him at his residence.  They chose not to leave him a voicemail nor did they attempt to contact him on his cell phone or send an email.  When Mr. Lake brought up the issue of why his daughter was turned away from the consulate, he was told that they would not help his daughter escape because they needed to have his written authorization to take her into custody. Furthermore, if Mary were taken into custody, the Consulate would have to assign a staff member to stay with her until her return to the U.S.; an inconvenience that American Citizens Services refused to accept.  They also needed him to sign an agreement, in advance, to repay any airline costs.  These documents would take at least a week to process once O.C.I. sent and received them.

None of the other parents we have checked with, who have been fighting for the return of their children for years on end, was aware of these consular requirements.  Their State Department O.C.I. caseworkers had failed to inform them either out of negligence or ignorance; which leaves their children exposed to the same risk.

According to U.S. Department of State figures, there are 123 active reported cases involving 173 children who have been abducted to Japan since they started keeping track in 1994.  Office of Children’s Issues, Division Chief, Stefanie Eye has acknowledged, “that our data is based entirely on proactive reporting and that because our database was designed primarily as a case management tool, it is difficult to provide statistical data with complete accuracy.”

Based on our statistical analysis, Bring Abducted Children Home (BACHOME.org) has estimated 4,417 American children have lost significant, meaningful access to their parent after divorce in Japan and by international abduction.  Each one of these is a human rights violation.

This is the third and latest episode of gross negligence by the Department of State toward Mr. Lake and his daughter.  Twice previously, they, the U.S. Department of State, illegally issued passports for his daughter without obtaining the father's signature; even after it had been established that the victim’s father was the lawful parent and the mother was wanted for kidnaping.

Almost all of the existing cases involve at least one parent who is Japanese.  The Lake case, however, is a clear exception.  Neither one of the victims nor the kidnapping mother are of Japanese ancestry.  There is simply no reason for Mary to be held in Japan.  No one from the White House or The U.S. Department of State is publicly demanding the return of Mary Victoria Lake or any of the other 172, or more realistically, thousands of American children held captive in Japan.

It has become starkly apparent to the parents victimized by the crime of parental child abduction that the Department of State clearly values the relations with foreign nations over the safety, well-being and life of U.S. citizen children currently held illegally by the nation state of Japan.

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BAC-Home (Bring Abducted Children Home) is an organization set up to bring awareness to Internationally abducted children, assist in the recovery of children abducted internationally, and end parental alienation.