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Dad goes on hunger strike after kids ‘abducted’ by wife

Move is ‘last resort’ by Frenchman to spotlight the lack of laws that allow joint custody in Japan

Mr Vincent Fichot, a 39-year-old French banker, has not eaten a single bite for two weeks.

Camped on a yoga mat outside the Tokyo Olympic Stadium, the permanent resident of Japan has been surviving only on sips of water since July 10, while a brutal heatwave engulfs Tokyo.

His hunger strike is a desperate “last resort” attempt to call attention to the traumatic predicament of parents whose children have been “abducted” by their Japanese spouses.

Mr Fichot has not seen or heard from his two children – Tsubasa, now six, and Kaede, now three – since his wife, whom he married in 2009, disappeared in August 2018.

His campaign has made headlines in Japan and abroad, coinciding with the Olympics as well as the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron, whose officials met Mr Fichot on Thursday.

Mr Macron, the only Group of Seven leader to be in Tokyo for the Games, raised the issue with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga yesterday during an 80-minute lunch meeting. Their joint statement said: “The two countries are committed to strengthening dialogue that places the interests of children first.”

Mr Fichot is now the cause celebre for an issue that is pertinently unique to Japan, where there are no laws that allow joint custody.

What this means is that upon separation or divorce, children are taken care of by only one parent, who has every right to bar the former spouse from any face time with their children.

Complicating matters is how the police usually do not wade into family disputes, while custody is typically granted to the parent who has regularly been taking care of the children – ironically giving incentive for these “abductions”.

While the issue has primarily come to light due to the breakdown of an international marriage, it takes on different forms and afflicts both fathers and mothers, and both Japanese and foreign nationals.

For one thing, it is not uncommon for a Japanese spouse, based abroad, to abscond to Japan with the children in secret, where they can be protected by Japanese laws.Mr Fichot is now the cause celebre for an issue that is pertinently unique to Japan, where there are no laws that allow joint custody. What this means is that upon separation or divorce, children are taken care of by only one parent, who has every right to bar the former spouse from any face time with their children.

The breakdown of domestic Japanese marriages has also received attention. Famous professional shogi player Takanori Hashimoto called it quits this year to focus on the fight for access to his child, who was “abducted” by his wife in 2019.

Mr Scott McIntyre, an Australian who has not seen his two children since 2019, told Nikkei Asia: “Japan complains internationally about the 13 children abducted by North Korea, but over 100,000 children are missing in Japan.”

Estimates show that as many as seven in 10 Japanese children whose parents are separated or divorced are entirely cut off from one parent.

Mr Fichot has already taken up the issue globally – including at the United Nations and European Parliament – noting that Japan is violating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child despite being a signatory.

Describing Japan as a “child abduction black hole”, he told a recent news conference: “This is a huge violation of any global treaties and basic human rights, and unfortunately only in Japan do we see this sort of behaviour from the government.”

He added that he wanted to “defend the rights and best interests” of his children, who have been deprived of the love and attention of one parent.

Besides the issue of “child abduction”, Mr Macron and Mr Suga also discussed the need to “actively” maintain their defence regionally to realise their Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision.

Paris will host the next Summer Games in three years, with Mr Macron supporting Mr Suga’s push to realise the Tokyo Games. The French leader said: “It demonstrates something: That whatever happens, we have to adapt, to organise and do the best we can.”

Enrique has a message for Vincent.

Macron has personally met with Vincent Fichot over 2 years ago… and now that Macron is in Tokyo for the Olympics… you would expect Macron to have the “decency” to at least shake Vincent’s hand, and wish him well.

NOPE, Macron has no decency or humanity. He avoided Vincent, and instead when shook the hands of other strangers and media events.

Macron’s deep character has been exposed. He calls other people egoists for not wearing a mask… but who is the real egoist? promoting his image over the children.

TOKYO — When French President Emmanuel Macron arrives in Japan on Friday, he will be the only leader of a developed nation to attend the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics.

In Tokyo, the French president is expected to meet Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and have an audience with Emperor Naruhito, as well as promote the 2024 summer Games in Paris. But Macron’s most consequential meeting in Japan may be with his own countryman.

Two years have passed since Macron’s last meeting with Vincent Fichot, a 15-year resident of Japan and former Nomura Securities trader whose children were taken by his wife from their Tokyo home in 2018.

Unable to see his son and daughter after three years of lobbying Japanese legislators, four lawyers, a resolution in the European Parliament and a U.N. complaint, Fichot began a hunger strike on July 8, sitting on a yoga mat outside Japan’s National Stadium. The 39-year-old is taking the action to persuade both the French and Japanese governments to act.

Gaps in Japan’s legal system on custody and divorce are laid bare in Fichot’s case, which Macron broached with former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2019. Even worse, Fichot and his supporters argue, the ordinariness of child abductions in Japan is a human rights violation. When children of foreign parents are taken, it creates a rare point of contention between Japan and the developed nations it counts as allies.

“Japan is very good at signing treaties and passing laws to give the impression that they’re changing things,” Fichot told Nikkei Asia. “The existing law is enough. It’s the implementation.”

Japan is a signatory to both the U.N. convention on the rights of the child, which names abduction as a violation, and the Hague convention on child abductions. The former obligates countries to prevent the abduction of children, and codifies a child’s right to maintain relations and contact with both parents.

“The matter is completely a domestic matter since the children did not move beyond the border. It is not a case where the Hague Convention can apply,” a spokesperson for Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

According to Fichot, local police dismissed his efforts to file missing persons reports for his children, as well as a criminal complaint against his wife. As Japanese law has no concept of joint custody, a family court judge awarded custody to his wife as the primary caregiver, as both children were then under the age of three.

Repeated attempts by France’s mission in Tokyo to gain Japanese law enforcement’s cooperation have been fruitless. “No information was transmitted to us concerning the location of Mr. Fichot’s children and despite our efforts, we were unable to obtain that Mr. Fichot could meet his children or that this embassy be authorized to carry out a consular visit,” a spokesperson told Nikkei Asia.

The children are dual citizens of Japan and France. “Even my government doesn’t know where my kids are or whether they’re alive,” Fichot said.

Left-behind parents in Japan refer to themselves with the acronym LBP. Each year, over 150,000 minors in Japan are separated from one of their parents, according to the nonprofit organization Kizuna Child-Parent Reunion.

“Japan complains internationally about the 13 children abducted by North Korea, but over 100,000 children are missing in Japan,” said Scott McIntyre, an Australian who has been separated from his two children since 2019.

Indeed, the Japanese government has an office dedicated to the return of children taken by North Korea four decades ago, often a political rallying cry for nationalist groups. Meanwhile, McIntyre says local police have not acted on Interpol missing persons reports for his children.

For the past 14 days, Fichot has received a diverse group of left-behind mothers and fathers, foreign and Japanese, showing that the problem of single custody is not limited to gender or nationality.

Last week, a Japanese father traveled 18 hours back and to from Osaka, just to speak with Fichot about his missing children for a half hour. Kumiko Oosugi, a 65-year-old mother who was separated from her children 35 years ago, heard about Fichot’s hunger strike on Twitter and also came from Osaka to support him.

“He’s doing it for himself and his kids, but he’s doing it for us too,” said Masaki Matsubara, a Tokyo resident who was separated from his daughter for a few months last year. After work each day, he comes by to check on Fichot.

Politicians have also visited Fichot during his hunger strike, including the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Hiroshi Hase and Masahiko Shibayama.

“The joint custody of children is common sense around the world,” Banri Kaieda, a lawmaker from the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told Nikkei Asia on Monday.

Hase in 2014 was part of a group of 40 legislators that tried to formulate new laws to ensure child visitations for divorced parents. The effort was futile, allowing a Tokyo court in February to reject a constitutional challenge to Japan’s single custody system, submitted by a Japanese father who had lost custody of his two sons after divorce.

“Of course, under the system of separation of powers, politics cannot intervene in the judiciary,” Shibayama said on Tuesday. “I am appealing to the Japanese government to go further than it did two years ago and respond in good faith, or Japan will be embarrassed internationally.”

Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa convened an advisory panel in February to discuss revisions to Japan’s custody laws. But developing legal amendments in Japan is typically a yearslong process.

“My children don’t have that time,” said Fichot.

A penal case against his wife is pending in France, after failed attempts in Japanese courts. Fichot and nine other foreign and Japanese parents of abducted children are also waiting for the U.N. human rights council to resolve their joint complaint against Japan.

“Japan is not safe for children. Nobody expects it because this doesn’t happen in our countries,” said McIntyre, the Australian father.

Members of the French expatriate community have spent nights outside the stadium, keeping watch as Fichot slept. Supporters come bearing ice, flashlights, batteries and water bottles. A group of friends pick up his laundry, charge his electronics, and guard his belongings while he showers in a nearby gym.

As temperatures climbed in Tokyo this week, Fichot began taking saltwater capsules once a day. Daily medical checks have so far found him in good physical condition, perhaps due to his preparation for the hunger strike, which involved decreasing his caloric intake for six weeks until he was down to an omelet and avocado per day.

“The degradation of my health reflects the degradation of my children’s health and rights,” he said. “It’s an obligation I have to my kids.”

Every so often, the police station across the street try to persuade Fichot to move, saying they have to secure the stadium’s perimeter for the French president’s arrival.

When asked what he wants from a meeting with Macron, Fichot said, “What I’m trying to trigger is for them to bring my kids back here. If not, I want Macron to put sanctions on Japan.”

French newspaper Ouest France said that “the case of Vincent Fichot” is on the president’s agenda in Tokyo, but it was not clear whether Macron would meet Fichot.

The presidential office was quoted by the paper as saying “there are tragic situations” in which “the French state stands by its fellow citizens in distress” and “seeks solutions with the Japanese authorities in the best interests of the children.”

But it added that “it is not for France to decide on social standards by Japan” even if “we encourage” it to launch a debate on this situation that affects nearly 100,000 people.

Additional reporting by Mailys Pene-Lassus in Paris and Rurika Imahashi in Tokyo.

Brig, Soren and Reidar-

Not the Haute Savoie, but Chris Savoie. He was also arrested in Japan by his wife just for trying to see his kids… so he must be monster right?

No, he is another extraordinary man, extraordinary father. He is brilliant, has a quantum computing company.

TOKYO(AP) An American father was arrested in Japan after snatching his children from his ex-wife, who had taken the kids to her native country without telling him.

Photos: Father’s Fight to Rescue Children

The back-and-forth exposes a simmering diplomatic dispute over Japan’s traditional favoritism toward mothers in custody battles. While the father was apprehended by Japanese authorities, a U.S. court has issued an arrest warrant for the mother.

Christopher Savoie grabbed his two children — an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl — while they were walking to school on Monday, forcing them into a car and driving away, Akira Naraki, a police spokesman in the southern city of Fukuoka, said Wednesday.

His former wife, Noriko, then called the police. Savoie, a 38-year-old technology executive from Franklin, Tennessee, was arrested just as he was about to enter the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka with his children, said Tracy Taylor, a spokeswoman at the consulate.

Savoie is chief executive officer of Franklin-based Tazzle Inc. Tazzle makes data sharing devices for BlackBerry mobile phones and has an office in Tokyo that looks after manufacturing in Asia, according to the company’s Web site.

The divorced couple and their children were living in Tennessee, but Noriko came to Japan with the kids in August without telling her ex-husband, Taylor said.

Christopher Savoie only discovered his children were gone when their school called him Aug. 13 to say they had not showed up, according to an affidavit filed with the arrest warrant against his ex-wife for violating the terms of custody.

Alarmed that he would no longer be able to see his children, Savoie flew to Japan to reclaim them, said Jeremy Morley, one of his lawyers.VIDEO COURTESY OF CBS AFFILIATE WTVF NASHVILLE

Divorced fathers in Japan typically don’t get much access to their children because of widespread cultural beliefs that small children should be with their mothers.

That stance has begun to raise concern abroad, following a recent spate of incidents involving Japanese mothers bringing their children back to the country and refusing to let their foreign ex-husbands visit them. The United States, Canada, Britain and France issued a joint statement in May urging Japan to address the problem.

“Japan is an important partner and friend of the U.S., but on this issue we have quite different points of view,” said David Marks, U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tokyo.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen’s office has not been contacted and has not become involved in the case, a spokeswoman said.

Japan has had close ties to Tennessee since Nissan built its first U.S. manufacturing plant in suburban Nashville in the early 1980s. Nissan relocated its North American headquarters from California to Franklin in 2006, and the Japanese consulate for five southern states was moved from New Orleans to Nashville early last year.

Do you see the pattern Brig, Soren and Reidar? Vincent is not a dead-beat dad, or even a normal dad. He is an extraoridinary dad, and that is why his wife has abducted the children. It is BECAUSE he is a such a talented person and father. The mother cannot stand herself- comparing herself to him, she breaks mentally, so she smears Vincent, destroys him, so that that she does not have to face the objective reality of her own flaws, and character. She knows what she has done, is embarrassed, and wants to deny the children from seeing the truth, hence she bans Vincent from their lives.

Vincent Fichot is a French equity derivatives guy who seems to have spent his whole career in Tokyo, at a variety of banks, most recently Nomura. In 2018, his marriage was breaking down, he had suggested a divorce and then came home one day to find his house completely empty, with his wife and children (at the time, three years old, and 11 months) gone. This apparently happens surprisingly often in Japan, as courts have a principle of minimal interference in family life, which in practice means awarding custody to the parent with whom the children are living at the time of the divorce. This means that there’s an incentive for spouses of expats who don’t want to possibly deal with international joint parenting to simply disappear. And since the non-interference principle means that Japanese courts don’t often make access orders, people in Fichot’s situation can find that they lose all contact with their kids.

Obviously we don’t know the full details of any particular case, but this situation has happened to enough people for there to be a campaigning charity about it and for the European Parliament to have passed a resolution calling on Japan to modernise its legislation to incorporate a “best interests of the child” principle and recognise the concept of joint custody. Fichot, for his part, has now taken his campaign to desperate measures.

He’s quit his job, sold his house and now lives outside a railway station underneath some protest banners, a few minutes away from the Olympic stadium. A week ago, he began a hunger strike. The truly frightening thing is that this hunger strike seems to have been planned with all the rationality of a derivatives quant; he refers to it as a “calculated act” and has timed things such that his body will be in an “acutely dangerous state” at the time when Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders are attending the opening ceremony. The idea is to maximise the pressure on the French leader to intervene with the Japanese authorities.

There’s still time to hope that this all has a happy, or at least non-tragic ending, but whatever happens, it puts a certain degree of perspective on the everyday pressures of the banking industry. We wish well to everyone involved.

Elsewhere, as the new CEO of Apollo Global Management, Jeff Rowan has a clear business philosophy. “At the end of the day we offer our clients one product: judgment,” he said in a Bloomberg interview. “Focus on the people. Avoid doing stupid stuff.” This seems like a bit of an open goal for cynics to say it’s a new direction for the company, as the previous CEO Leon Black recently retired amid a cloud of allegations and associations of which “poor judgement” and “stupid stuff” would be a pretty charitable description and which are still causing bad publicity for the firm.

But as it happens, Rowan does, in fact, intend to take Apollo in a new direction – away from being an aggressive buyout shop, and toward something that looks a bit more Warren Buffett-like. Out of the three founders of the company, he was always the quiet one, concentrating on building up the insurance subsidiary Athene, which is now being bought back in. With a load of premium income to invest, Apollo won’t need to be quite so active in raising funds and will be less dependent on performance fees.

Make Finance Boring Again is often an attractive proposition to investors, and after the last two years the company might certainly think it’s time to give someone else a chance to be in the newspapers all the time. Blackstone are also buying into the insurance business, so it may be that the days of private equity masters of the universe are coming to an end.

Meanwhile

The roof garden was open, the trading floor was half full, but His Royal Highness must have been disappointed that the climbing wall is still shut as a coronavirus measure. Prince Charles visited the Goldman Sachs offices. He spoke to one of the interns, who presumably was used to answering the question “and what do you do?”. (Daily Mail)

Do your homework, expect as many as eight interviews and show that you can assimilate facts quickly, and you might be one of the 2% of applicants to KKR’s graduate recruitment program, according to head of talent acquisition Grace Koo. Candidates need to demonstrate both diversity and cultural fit, so good luck with that. (Business Insider)

A business suit that feels and fits like yoga wear? Tragically, only available for women, as yet; a former EMEA fixed income VP at JP Morgan has set up a business to design and sell them. (Daily Mail)

If you were dying to be a UK financial regulator but just couldn’t face living in London, the FCA now plans to recruit in Leeds, Belfast and Cardiff. (Financial News)

The latest round of funding for Revolut includes Tiger and Softbank, values the fintech at $33bn and has almost certainly made paper millionaires out of some of the people who backed it when it was a crowdfunder. (FT)

Has any investment banking analyst spent a better first year under lockdown than this? Luca Cupido signed for Bank of America, then more or less immediately got himself awarded five months’ leave to go to Italy and train in water polo – now he’s off to the Olympics. (LA Times)

PJ Solomon is the latest investment bank to smell the coffee and raise salaries – $100k now feels like table stakes for first year analysts. (Bloomberg)

The rare “double boomerang” – Dave Stolzar is coming back for his third stint at Credit Suisse, as the FIG group builds itself back. (Business Insider)

Vincent lost 15kg in 18 days… he speaks to another father in an outrageous situation like your own Papa. The authorities stonewall for the abductor, and there is little outrage or support from regular people. Listen to his story- one way glass!! That is what the police will do – because the mother does NOT WANT the child to know the father is a good person.

This makes me sick. Simone Biles makes herself famous by claiming to be a victim, rather than stretching herself to go for a gold medal. If you ever needed more evidence that “victimology” is the currency today to be famous, look at Ms. Biles. Vomit. The Olympics Games are dead. Greatness is dead.

Your mother is like Ms. Biles. Claim to be a victim, rather than attempt to achieve something. it is weak and pathetic. She is Talented for sure, but has no courage.

She choses her vanity, over accomplishment. She wants adoring fans, and sympathy – she wants status and fame as victim- rather than being great. This is the mark of Cain- resentment, envy, jealousy. It is murderous…not something to ignore when Ms Biles choses this. It indicates that Ms. Biles can be immensely violent and vindictive. Just like your mother. She is afraid of being a failure. Beware of women like Ms. Biles.

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American gymnast Simone Biles was praised for prioritising “mental wellness over all else” after pulling out of the Olympic women’s team final.

The head of the US Olympic team, many gymnasts, and other sportspeople were among those to praise Biles’ decision.

The 24-year-old withdrew from the event after her vault, saying: “I have to focus on my mental health.”

“You’ve made us so proud,” said Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

“We applaud your decision to prioritise your mental wellness over all else and offer you the full support and resources of our Team USA community as you navigate the journey ahead.”

“I am leaving with my kids, or as a dead body!”

Vincent Fichot,

Listen HERE, 30 minutes interview.

In 2018, Vincent Fichot came home to an empty house in Tokyo, Japan. His wife, 3-year-old son and 11-month-old daughter had vanished. All he had done was suggest that he might want a divorce. He hasn’t seen or heard from his family since, and every effort to contact or reunite with his family has been blocked by his wife, her lawyers, Japanese courts, the police and even the politicians and policymakers – from Japan to his politicians of his country of origin – France (Emmanuel Macron, Josep Borrell).

Now, with nowhere else to go, Vincent have started a hunger strike in a desperate attempt to reunite with his kids. His goal is to stop the strike with a positive end or die trying, literally. I had a chance to speak with Vincent last week, or almost 5 days before he started the strike. In this podcast, you will hear the extend a dad will go to reunite with his kids, the gross negligence of the Japanese courts on the rights of children to have both of their parents, and above all, this reality of child abduction when it comes to Japan. If you are interested in his journey with this hunger strike, you can visit the links below. We will document his journey on a daily basis and we will also share his updates through our social media channels.

FMP Featured page for Vincent: https://findmyparent.org/vincent-fichot