Updates to the petition, more information, and a donation link.

I have created a GoGetFunding page for this petition. The money collected will be used to hire legal support in Ireland and Japan to both challenge the baseless ruling against us and to hire a liaison in Japan that will personally confirm how Sora is doing and that he is getting properly taken care of. If you feel like offering financial assistance, please do.

https://gogetfunding.com/BringSoraHome/

And please share this petition and crowdfunding link to everyone you can. I am using all of the money I am being given to take care of as many of these expenses as I can, but I am being made to wait before I am allowed to work in Ireland, so I am dependent on your help to keep moving forward and getting the proper professional support that I need.

And here is the full text of the account of our situation from the GoGetFunding page:

Back in October 2025, me and my then three-year-old son Sora left Japan after enduring years of abusive and violent behavior from his mother and her parents. Every attempt to work things out or find some reasonable compromise either failed or led to further abuse and danger. Me and my son were forced to live apart from her for over a year. She constantly threatened me with prison, deportation, and lawsuits, she refused to take financial responsibility for a child she was claiming ownership of as if he was a piece of property she was entitled to. Ultimately, she disappeared and refused requests to even visit him. I was not being allowed to work because I was a full-time parent, and the work I could find as a teacher wasn't enough to live on. I was not given any support by the Japanese government, and the money and supplies I had stored up were quickly disappearing. So, after almost 13 years, I made the extremely difficult decision to leave the home I had made for me and Sora in Japan so that I could properly take care of him.

Once the absent mother was told that we came to Ireland seeking asylum to get the medical and financial assistance we both needed, as well as protection from the domestic violence we had suffered through (which the Japanese police refused to do anything about), she filed kidnapping charges using the Hague Convention and demanded that my son, whom I was the only active parent to for over two years, be deported back to Japan.

Despite demonstrating to the Irish Courts that she was abusive, threatening, manipulative, irresponsible in her role as a mother, voluntarily absent, as well as exhibiting mental instability (including mentioning suicide), and despite showing that Sora is exhibiting physical manifestations of his trauma and having evidence that the trauma is linked to contact with his mother, the Courts decided to side with her and ruled that Sora must be returned to her "care." Appealing that decision left me without legal representation which made it impossible to do anything meaningful to change their minds. I had to stand there and watch Sora be shuffled off of the court grounds as he looked back to me wondering why this was happening. That was in mid-June.

Throughout this whole ordeal, I have been repeatedly told that the Judges had no choice but to follow the Hague Convention. The problem with that excuse is that the Hague Convention did not apply to our situation. Not only was the mother voluntarily failing to exercise her custody rights by disappearing multiple times, but our situation qualifies for multiple exceptions of the mandate for the child in question to be deported. Including the fact that Sora now verbally refers to Ireland as "home."

The real problem is clear; The Irish Courts, specifically certain Judges, still hold to the outdated and dangerous beliefs that a woman is entitled to their child no matter what. Even after being abusive and negligent towards them. And that a man cannot possibly be the victim of domestic violence, or raise a child without their mother. Present-day Ireland knows better than that. Present-day Ireland is very progressive and accepting, and champions equality and the welfare and safety of children. But there are still people in positions of power that push against this progress and growth and those people have deliberately and needlessly placed my son, an abuse survivor, in the same abusive environment that I spent years getting us out of.

And Sora cannot possibly be the only one. This hypocrisy is dangerous to many other child abuse survivors who are brought to Ireland and, like us, are told that they will be protected and that they're safe. We were accepted into this country on the grounds that we were escaping abuse and were promised protection by the Irish government. "You're safe now." But when the time came, that protection simply was not there. This miscarriage of justice has to be corrected for Sora's sake and for the sake of everyone else who's found themselves at the mercy of unfeeling Judges who simply wants to quickly brush the case under the rug and look good in front of the EU.

This campaign is primarily for Sora, but will hopefully effect changes that positively impact many other children. We are currently collecting donations to hire legal representation here in Ireland to formally challenge the Courts' decision against protecting an abused child and demanding a reversal of the verdict against us. As well as that Judges acknowledge the Irish & international laws that provide those protections for children in all cases going forward, including cases involving misuse of the Hague Convention. And to hire legal representation in Japan to locate Sora to confirm that he is safe, in good health, and argue the same facts in Japanese court to claim sole custody and secure his safe return to his home in Ireland.

Please help us as this battle drags on. I refuse to give up on Sora, but I need your help to keep going. Every little bit will help. If you have any questions about this or can help us out in any other way, please reach out to me here or through the links below. Thank you very much.

Another way that you can help is to contact the Ireland Judicial Council and voice your concerns over the ruling against us: https://judicialcouncil.ie/contact/

Please continue to sign and share this petition with everyone. We need this to become a public discussion so that my child, and other children, are not simply swept under the rug and forgotten.

Please also search for, favorite, and repost #BringSoraHome on Mastodon or Bluesky.  Feel free to use the hashtag on other social media platforms to spread awareness of this petition. Thank you for all your help.