Japan cabinet approves long-delayed child abduction treaty

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan moved one step closer to adopting a long-delayed treaty on child abductions on Friday when the cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave its approval, a government spokesman said.

Japan is the only member of the Group of Eight major industrialised nations that has not joined the 1980 Hague Convention, which requires children be returned to their usual country of residence if they are snatched during the collapse of an international marriage.

Hundreds of non-Japanese parents, mostly men from the United States and elsewhere, have been left without any recourse after their estranged partners took their children back to Japan.

Unlike Western nations, Japan does not recognise joint custody and divorce courts usually award custody of children to their mothers.