“I thought I’d never see my kids again”: A mother’s harrowing ordeal – Couple abducted and held captive for days
Tokyo, 24th March 2025 – Published as an article in the Japanese newspaper Sekai Nippo. Republished with permission. Translated from Japanese. Original article.
In July 2014, an incident occurred in Hiroshima where a couple in their 40s, members of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly the Unification Church), were forcibly detained by their relatives and confined in an apartment in Osaka. In 2020, the Hiroshima High Court ordered the Christian-affiliated individuals and relatives responsible for the confinement to pay approximately 1.7 million yen [Editor’s note: ca. 11,360 US Dollars] in damages. Yukie Kanamori (pseudonym, in her 50s) spoke to The Sekai Nippo about what happened at the time.
Pastors Appeared to Persuade Them to Leave the Faith
Separated from Their Young Children for Five Days
by Takahide Ishii (石井 孝秀)
Prepared by Knut Holdhus
Kanamori recalls the experience of being abducted and confined while visiting her family home, “At first, I didn’t understand what was happening.”
There have been numerous cases where Family Federation members have been abducted and confined by their relatives, who were influenced by “faith-breakers” (professional deprogrammers) and certain Christian pastors, to force the believers to renounce their faith and leave the religious organization.
Kanamori had returned to her family home in Hiroshima on the afternoon of 26th July 2014. She had other plans that day, but her mother strongly urged her to come home, so she complied, bringing along her 8-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. Other family members, including her parents, her younger sister and her husband, as well as her mother’s brother and his wife, were also present.
By 8 pm, Kanamori began noticing unusual behavior among her relatives. Her mother and younger sister took her daughter out shopping, which she found odd given the late hour. In hindsight, she realized this was a ploy to separate her from her children.
At that time, Kanamori was beside her son, who had already fallen asleep, when her father invited her to talk in another room. There, she was surrounded by her father, uncle and aunt, and her brother-in-law. As they talked, her brother-in-law suddenly pinned her down from behind.
Her mouth was covered with a towel, and her hands and feet were about to be tied. At that moment, she realized she was being abducted and confined to force her to abandon her faith, and she resisted desperately. Suddenly, her brother-in-law’s parents also entered the room.
She screamed in fear, thinking, “I may never see my children again.” However, her sister had already prepared for this – she played music from a CD player to drown out the noise, ensuring that neighbors would not hear the struggle.
After a fierce struggle, Kanamori was not only bound but also forced into a sleeping bag and transported in a van. Around 1:30 am on 27th July 2014, she arrived at an apartment in Osaka. She found that her husband had also been brought there.
Her husband had been tricked into going to visit a critically ill uncle at a hospital earlier that day. However, this was a ruse set up by his relatives, who then took him directly to the apartment.
Persuasion by Christian Pastors and Hunger Strike Resistance
During their confinement, two Christian pastors visited the couple: Pastor Mamoru Takazawa (高澤守) from Christian Truth Church of Kobe (a Protestant church) – after the incident he committed suicide – and Atsuyoshi Oshima (尾島淳義), a deacon from the Aotani Evangelical Lutheran Church in western Japan. They criticized the Family Federation and pressured the couple to leave it. However, the couple resisted by going on a hunger strike, refusing to comply with the pastors’ demands.
Throughout their confinement, they carefully exchanged information and observed their surroundings in an attempt to determine their location. Kanamori noticed a gas valve labeled “Osaka Gas”, confirming they had been moved from Hiroshima to Osaka. Additionally, from overheard conversations among the relatives, she learned that they were being held in “Room 501” of the apartment building.
Since their belongings, including their cell phones, had been confiscated, Kanamori took a risk. At 2 am on 31st July, while their captors were asleep, she used one of their mobile phones to send a text message to a fellow Family Federation member. She provided all the information she had gathered and requested that the police be contacted.
The police arrived and freed the couple. They had been held captive since the night of 26th July and were finally able to return to Hiroshima in the early hours of 31st July.
During this time, their children had been cared for by Kanamori’s mother and younger sister. She recalled, “The night we returned to Hiroshima, my sister and her husband brought the children back home. The moment they saw me at the door, they burst into tears.”
The children had been told that their parents were “away on work”, but the forced separation had taken its toll – especially on her daughter. She had become overly cautious, insisting on locking the chain lock on the door every night, something she had never done before. She also started experiencing severe night terrors, crying uncontrollably at night.
Kanamori expressed her deep sorrow and frustration, “What I find hardest to forgive is how this has hurt my children’s hearts.”
Featured image above: Yukie Kanamori (alias) shares her experience of being abducted and confined. Photographed in Hiroshima by Takahide Ishii (石井 孝秀)