ESCAMBIA COUNTY - A local father who has been fighting to get his abducted daughter returned from Japan for five years.... now has new hope.

Will Lake now has the weight of the U.S. congress on his side.

I hold in my hand.... U.S. House Resolution 1326. Passed last week... it calls on the Government of Japan to immediately help return U.S. children abducted to Japan.

The Japanese government should have no say on this issue whatsoever, other than to chose which airline they're going to send the children home on.

That was Will Lake speaking outside our nation's capitol before the House of Representatives passed Resolution 1326 on September 29th.

What it does is it puts the Japanese on notice that this is an issue that Congress is taking seriously.

We first brought you Will's story in April of 2008.... when seemingly no one was helping him get his daughter... Mary Victoria Lake... back from Japan.

That's where his ex-wife took Mary.... despite the fact that Will had joint custody.

A lot has changed since then.

A Florida judge awarded will full custody of Mary in 2009... and he's found out he isn't alone.

There are 300 children that we know of... that lived in the United States, that have been abducted in the past ten years.

Will is now a member of "Bring Abducted Children Home.".... a group of 35 parents that pushed this issue to the House floor.

Mary is now 13... and while will knows the resolution won't bring his daughter home tomorrow... He hopes a similar resolution in the senate.... and more pressure.... will force Japan's hand in the near future.

But, I've gotta say I'm in this for the long run, just like with Fighting Fathers. If I can make sure this doesn't happen to another parent, I've got to keep up the work.

If you include children from other countries as well ... Japan is now home to over three thousand abducted children.

Japan is one of the few G-20 nations that is not part of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Monday, October 4 2010, 09:22 PM EDT