Scott Mcintyre

A growing number of foreigners in Japan are speaking out against what they say is a little-known but entrenched system that allows one parent in a broken relationship to take away the children and block the other from visiting them.

An Australian man was freed on Wednesday after spending a month and a half detained in Tokyo on charges of trespassing when he went to his estranged in-laws' apartment building to look for his missing children.

A growing number of foreigners in Japan are speaking out against what they say is a little-known but entrenched system that allows one parent in a broken relationship to take away the children and block the other from visiting them.

An Australian man was freed on Wednesday after spending a month and a half detained in Tokyo on charges of trespassing when he went to his estranged in-laws' apartment building to look for his missing children.