Sean Wass was just one-year-old when his mother took him to Japan, far away from his father in Hazelbrook, New South Wales.
Six years on, Sean’s Australian father Daniel has not seen him since and has no way of knowing where he his.
When Mr Wass tracked down Sean’s mother’s family in Japan, they told him to go back to Australia.
“I have travelled to Japan and I have made contact with them, literally at the doorstop,” he told Lateline.
“At one stage they told me that I wasn’t his father and to go back to Australia and get on with my life.
“Unfortunately Japan’s legal system is not the same as ours, they don’t provide for dual custody or shared parenting.”
With his son now aged seven, Daniel has started a YouTube channel dedicated to him, in case Sean one day comes looking for his Australian family.
“To let him know who we were, where we were, what we did. To give him some of that information,” he said.
“Hopefully one day he has a little bit of information that he can come to us with and be familiar.”
Dozens of abduction cases each year
Sean is one of dozens of children abducted out of Australia by a parent each year.
In 2014/2015 there were more than 80 cases.
Most of these abductions are to and from New Zealand and to and from the UK.
Lawyer Rosa Saladino specialises in the field of child abduction and explains that if both countries involved in the case are signatories to the Hague Convention, there are legal avenues for the remaining parent to have their child returned.
In Sean’s case, Japan signed the convention after he was abducted and the laws are not retrospective.
In the case of countries that are not a signatory, the legal avenues for getting a child returned are much harder.
Ms Saladino said parents have the option of commencing legal proceedings in that country.
“There is some assistance offered by the Commonwealth Government, there’s a scheme of financial assistance to assist with payment of the legal fees,” she said.
“The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will also assist with locating a lawyer in the country to which the child has been taken.
“But essentially the legal access has to be taken under the domestic law of that country.”
Child psychologist Vincent Papaleo said child abductions have devastating long-term effects on the children involved.
“When you remove a child so decisively from the world in which they live, you are really compromising their welfare,” he said.
“When there’s been an abduction that’s involved some sense of deceit, when the child has been told misinformation, when the child has been told that their parent is dead or didn’t love them, the realisation that that is not true means that there is a reorganisation of their internal narrative that has a tumultuous effect.”