Dad Arrested in Japan - Sensationalism Colors Coverage

Like everyone else, I was horrified to learn that Christopher Savoie's wife, Noriko, had taken his children and fled to Japan. I was even mre upset to learn that he had been arrested in Japan upon visiting his children.

Then I heard the real story. Turns out that Christopher and Noriko met, and were married in, Japan. They raised their two children there. It wasn't until 2008 that Christopher decided they should move back to the United States, and he actually left months before his family. Noriko did not want to leave Japan in the first place, but her husband convinced her to go. You might even say tricked her into it. Finally, she moved there - only to learn that Christopher had been having an affair with another woman and wanted to marry her. Noriko was stuck in the United States, not knowing the language, unable to get a job, with two children who had been uprooted from their home, school, family and friends, and were now being subjected to hostile divorce proceedings and a new stepmother. After Noriko returned to Japan with her children, Christopher showed up not to visit his children, but to smuggle them back into the United States.

Do fathers deserve to be with their children? Absolutely. Are the children suffering through this? For sure. Could this have been handled differently by all parties? Most definitely. BUT - should the children now be taken from their mother and their homeland, to live with Daddy and their new stepmother in a foreign country? Or, should Noriko and her children be forced to return to the United States so that their husband can have his cake and eat it, too? I think not.

The true victims here are the children, and possibly even Noriko, not Christopher Savoie.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/02/japan.savoie.custody.battle/index.html?iref=mpstoryview