Liberal Japan

There was an article this morning in the Yomiuri Shimbun about abused children being separated from their parents:

• 2007/06/21 Abused kids increasingly placed in care, The Yomiuri Shimbun.

At first I couldn’t make sense of certain parts of the article.

There are tens of thousands of cases of child abuse in Japan. See the links I’ve provided below if you want to verify my claim.

Now here’s a quotes from this article:

The number of cases in which abused children were separated from their parents by family court orders hit a record high of 169 last year, according to a survey compiled by the Supreme Court.

Okay. Now check out this quote:

But in light of the increased number of child abuse cases being reported, the court has been receiving more and more complaints from child consultation centers.
Cases have topped 100 a year since 2000, when the Child Abuse Prevention Law came into force, with last year’s figure reaching 213, about four times the figure recorded a decade ago.

What is the 213 number above? It’s certainly not the number of child abuse cases which is in the tens of thousands. Is it the number of cases in which some form of criminal charges were brought against parents?

I guess this must be it. So while we can guess there are tens of thousands of cases of child abuse in Japan, of those about only about 200 of them actually resulted in criminal charges last year.

Understanding this makes the article read much smoother.

Finally the last bit of the article certainly caught my attention:

Under the revised Child Abuse Prevention Law, which comes into effect in April, child consultation centers are allowed to forcibly enter a home to inspect for child abuse.

Huh? If there is suspicion of a crime then with the proper court order, of course, they should be able to enter a home. Are we to believe they can now do this in the absence of suspicion of criminal activity?

We don’t want to end up in a situation where child counselors can spot check us, do we?

Previous articles:

• 2007/05/27 Addressing Child Abuse in Japan, Children Webmag; “The following case work papers which I am introducing are reported by my seminar students at the Social Welfare Department of Kogakkan University.  In this seminar, most of the students chose child care as their research project. We have been investigating child abuse problems through reading previous academic documents (mainly books) and through field work throughout the academic year of 2006.”
• 2006/06/27 Japan hit by huge rise in child abuse, The Guardian; “Child abuse is soaring in Japan, with 33,308 reports to child welfare consultation centres or the police in the year ending March 2005, an increase of more than 20% on the previous year.”
• 2004/02/08 Horrific child abuse case highlights wider problem in Japan, Correspondents Report; “In 1990, when the government began to record statistics there were just one thousand reports of child abuse a year … In 2002, the number was 24,000. Now, it’s estimated there are about 35,000 cases of abuse occurring annually in Japan, but there are probably many more.”
• 1999/08/15 Child Abuse Has Japan Rethinking Family Autonomy, The New York Times; “Recently, Parliament focused for the first time on the increase in child abuse cases by questioning bureaucrats and ministers. Lawmakers are considering relaxing rigid laws that give considerable power and autonomy to families and parents. Statistics suggest a rise in child abuse, although experts are uncertain whether more is actually occurring or whether more instances are now being reported.”

Links:

• The Japan Children’s Right Network: Spouse and Child Abuse in Japan
• Women now: Child Abuse: Present Situation and Countermeasures in Japan
• Children’s Rainbow Center: Child Abuse in Japan