Hundreds of children have been kidnapped by a divorced parent and taken to Japan. Not one has ever been returned to the United States as a result of diplomatic efforts by the State Department or Japanese government.

That's a pretty startling statistic, but it's directly related to Japan's refusal to sign the Hague Convention. The treaty requires governments to return children abducted in the midst of child custody disputes to their country of origin.

ABC News recently aired a report on the subject, talking to one 37-year-old Japanese mother who laughed about how effortlessly she illegally obtained a Japanese passport from that nation's consulate for her four-year-old son.

"It was easy to me," she admitted of the 2008 abduction.

Her 47-year-old American former husband isn't having such an easy time of things. He  nowspends much of his time lobbying to get the U.S. to pressure Japan into signing the Hague treaty and recognizing American child custody laws.

One father interviewed for the report is a commander in the U.S. Navy. His eight-year-old girl was taken while an infant to Japan by her mother.

He characterizes Japan as "a black hole from which no [abducted] child has ever returned."

A former U.S. diplomat acknowledges that efforts between the United States and Japan to resolve their differences on child custody have taken years. She gave a pessimistic prognosis for change: "I don't think it's going to move," she said.

In the next blog post on this subject, we'll describe U.S. efforts to get Japan to agree to the treaty, as well as share more stories of anguished parents and their abducted children now residing half a world away.

Resource: ABC News: "Abducted to Japan: Hundreds of American Children Taken": February 16, 2011