Japanese Women Now

Child Abuse:
Present Situation and Countermeasures in Japan

By TATSUNO, Yoko
Counselor, Center for Child Abuse Prevention

Without a doubt, there must have been many cases of child abuse everywhere in the world for quite long time. But in Japan, it was only last 10 years that the problem of child abuse finally gained adequate social recognition as an existing problem.

About a decade ago, citizens groups started activities aimed at preventing child abuse in Tokyo and Osaka. Meanwhile, these groups began to receive a flood of anonymous telephone calls asking for help, "I'm abusing my child, I want to stop but can't." The bulk of these calls were from mothers concerned about their children's education. These incidents of child abuse did not involve other problems such as poverty, family breakdown, parenting in young age, and drug / alcohol abuse. This fact revealed that the act of child abuse is not limited to certain parts of the social structure in Japan.

As recognition of child abuse spread, abused children were often "discovered" at hospitals, public health centers, nurseries, and elementary schools, resulting in the increased number of media reports on abused children. In this way, "discovered" cases of abuse are often more serious than cases where parents are calling to the telephone counseling service to ask "whether their action is abusive or not". Behind this "discovery" are families with many problems and parents who deny abuse and reject support from others.

The number of incidents of child abuse reported at public Child Consultation Centers has soared and exceeded 10,000 throughout Japan in 2000. Child abuse has become a serious social issue that cannot be ignored. In 2000, the "Child Abuse Prevention Law" was introduced by a Diet member and enacted as legislation in the same year. Although this law does not set out a new system to prevent child abuse, it has made the actual work at Child Consultation Centers easier for the following reasons by giving a legal foundation to past measures. Child abuse was seriously discussed at the Diet as a public issue, and the definition and prohibition of abuse were legislated; the discovery and notification of incidents of abuse were promoted among child experts; and the law promotes police cooperation in investigating and protecting abused children.

Characteristics and problems of child abuse in Japan

In Japan, gender roles within family are still strongly defined, as the father is responsible for work and the mother is responsible for child rearing. The recognition that both parents should raise children in mutual cooperation remains weak. As a result, only the mother feels excessive responsibility in raising children, which causes a heavy physical and mental burden for mothers.

In addition, as a characteristic of the Japanese society, evaluation and comparison by others weighs heavily on one's self-esteem. Mothers worry that they will be poorly evaluated if problems arise in their child's development or school grades or behavior. In order to avoid potential blame, mothers often discipline their children excessively. Such a background of the relatively mild abuse is seen among mothers of middle class and higher families. In addition, Japanese people tend to think that child rearing is the private responsibility of parents, and parents often reject intervention of public organizations for their internal, family problems. Both the awareness that children are not the property of their parents, and the idea children should be protected and raised as members of the society are very weak. Unsurprisingly, the social rights of children have not been well recognized, resulting in many other problems, and in particular, making it difficult for others to intervene with cases of severe child abuse.

One reason for making public intervention difficult is that Child Consultation Centers cannot resist parents who are against protecting an abused child, based on the parental rights. Legislation exists to allow child consultation centers equipped with a court order to protect a child despite the parents' wills. However, such a process takes too long to secure a court judgment, and the gathering of evidence for issuing a court order requires an enormous amount of work. This means there only are few cases in which a Center actually seeks court judgments against wills of a child's parents.

Another problem is that people tend not to interfere in family affairs, even if they see a child who looks abused, and this attitude makes it harder to recognize child abuse. The new "Child Abuse Prevention Law" only stipulates that all citizens, particularly child experts, have the obligation to discover and report child abuse at the earliest stage. But as there are no penalties attached to this law, it is difficult to expect positive results by this law.

A more serious problem is the meager social funding for children. In Japan, the system of foster parenting is not fully developed, and in most cases abused children are sent to juvenile welfare facilities. However, the living space per child at a juvenile welfare facility is only one-third of the space allocated at a welfare facility for seniors. Moreover, the standard number of employees at juvenile welfare facilities is only one-third of that in the United States and Europe. The number of caseworkers at Child Consultation Centers and temporary protection centers is insufficient, and the number of psychologist and psychotherapists who can treat children is very small. The system to treat severely abused children has not been developed at all in terms of infrastructure and services. education and family planning facilities.

Future measures to combat child abuse

The "Child Abuse Prevention Law" is scheduled to be revised in 2004. The important issue is how much details of currently lacking perspectives will be incorporated into the amendment. Currently, Child Consultation Centers are obliged to offer consultations to parents, as well as to ensure the protection of children. However, as seen in the United States, it is desirable that legal authorities make quick decisions concerning child protection. It is essential for Child Consultation Centers to exclusively conduct counseling for abusive parents and to provide psychological care for abused children. Experts should replace caseworkers at child centers, and intensive training to deal with child abuse is essential.

From the viewpoint of prevention, it is essential to provide assistance in child rearing using public health centers and nurseries. As it is easier for parents to consult with privately operated child abuse prevention groups than public organizations, these groups can be useful in preventing abuses from intensifying. This is clear given the high number of consultations for private groups. However, the approximately 30 private child abuse prevention groups are mostly operated on a voluntary basis, and their financial foundation is in a fragile condition. In order to assist the activities of those private organizations, public financial assistance such as providing operational funds and offices will be essential.

TATSUNO, Yoko:Fulltime telephone counselor since the establishment of the "Center for Child Abuse Prevention" in 1991.

Center for Child Abuse Prevention Social Welfare Corporation: A private group was established in 1991 to discover child abuse within the family at an early stage and to assist in the prevention of child abuse. This group became a social welfare corporation in 1997, and its major operations are telephone consultation called Child Abuse 110 (03-5374-2990), facilitating self-help group for abusive mothers, creation of textbooks, and holding seminars.

Related Links
Center for Child Abuse Prevention
*Japanese text only

WOM has been working on the initiative Japanese Women Now in order to provide information about contemporary legal/social environment surrounding Japanese women. It is our hope that information on this page help readers gain further understandings on gender issues in Japan.

Authors of articles contributed to this initiative are active and knowledgeable members of the respective fields of selected topics. The contents are based on the fact available as of late 2001, when these articles were written. The original Japanese articles are also available on our Japanese Home Page.

Topics selected in this initiative are: Domestic Violence, Compulsory Selection of a Family Name for a Married Couple, Elderly Care and Women, Women and Work, Sexual Harassment in Working Place, Sexual Harassment on Campus, Equal Employment Opportunity Law, Single Mothering, Child Abuse, Women and Medical Care, and Reproductive Health/Rights. ===＞GO to Index

This initiative was made possible by the grant from Asian Women's Fund.