JAWW NGO Reportfor Beijing+20

JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch)
Watch
10 November 2014

Table of Contents
Foreword

NAKAMURA, Mitchiko1

Preface

TANAKA, Masako

2

A.

Women and Poverty

TAMIYA, Yuko

3

B.

Education and Training of Women

KIMURA, Ryoko

7

C.

Women and Health

TSUGE, Azumi
ONISHI, Kayo

11

D.

Violence against WomenYOSHIHAMA, Mieko and
TSUNODA, Yukiko

15

E.

Women and Armed Conflict

NIWA, Masayo

21

F.

Women and the Economy

OSAWA, Mari

25

G.

Women in Power and Decision-making

MIURA, Mari

29

H.

Institutional Mechanisms for the
Advancement of Women

MIURA, Mari

33

I.

Human Rights of Women

GOTO, Hiroko

37

J.

Women and the MediaHAYASHI, Kaori

41

K.

Women and the Environment

DOMOTO, Akiko andODA, Yukiko

46

L.

The Girl-child

TANAKA, Masako and
ASANO Mariko

49

Q.

Women and Work

Equality Action 21

53

R.

Migrant WomenYAMAGISHI, Motoko and
OGAYA, Chiho

57

S.

Women with Disabilities

SEYAMA, Noriko

61

T.

The Role of Men and Boys

ITO, Kimio

65

U.

Older WomenHIGUCHI, Keiko

69

V.

Rural Women

NAKAMICHI, Hitomi

73

W.

Minority Women

MOTO, Yuriko

77

X.

Disaster Risk Reduction

HARA, Hiroko

81

Chronology in relation to activities of JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch)

85

Foreword
NAKAMURA, Mitchiko, Advisor, JAWW

This NGO Report was made in preparation for CSW 59 (2015) by JAWW (Japan Women’s
Watch) to present the status of women in Japan as a resultof study sessions, conferences andmany Board Meetings.
CSW 59 is a special occasion as it will celebrate Beijing+20. How long have we come andhow much has the status of women advanced during these years? Have we been successful inmainstreaming gender? Have we been able to eliminate violence against women? An attempt
has been made in this report by JAWW to present the results of our activities this past year.
JAWW was established in 2001. But its members have been involved in women’s issues
for several decades and I pray that our readers will forgive me for reminiscing. I remember how
excited I was when the International Women’s Year was celebrated in 1975. I was fortunate tohave been present at the 34th UN General Assembly when the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was adopted in 1979,and how excited I was. CEDAW is often referred to as a Bible to enhance the women’s
movement.
The Asia Pacific NGO Working Group (APNGOWG→APWW) was established in 1992 in
preparation for the 4th World Conference on Women to be held in Beijing which produced the
Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA). BPFA has inspired women world-wide to work for its
realization. In order to bring results to our endeavors women in the Asia Pacific Region got
together and organized the Asia Pacific NGO Symposium at Kasetsart University, Bangkok in
1999. NGOs gathered at the ESCAP High-Level Ministerial Meeting in October that year topresent their recommendations, and on the final day, October 29, held a meeting at which
APWW (Asia Pacific Women’s Watch) was established. This meeting was attended by JapaneseNGOs who were members of a committee that edited NGO reports to be presented at CSW
meetings, which in turn became JAWW on February 18, 2001. JAWW is in close cooperation
with APWW~ especially at CSW in New York and with members in the Asia Pacific Region.
Our thanks go to our many supporters for their valuable contributions

which havehighlighted the issues of women in this report in addition to the presentations by JAWW
members.

1

Preface
TANAKA, Masako, Convenor, JAWW
JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch) was formed in February 2001 as a non-governmental
advocacy network to promote the implementation of the BPFA (Beijing Platform for Action)
which was adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women and the UN General AssemblySpecial Session on Women 2000 Outcome Document. APWW (Asia Pacific Women’s Watch) is
the umbrella organization of JAWW.
Publishing the NGO report is one of the main pillars of JAWW activities. JAWW has
published NGO reports for Beijing + 10 (2005) and Beijing + 15 (2010), along with annual
reports on the main theme of every session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of
Women (CSW) since 2007. In this NGO report, 21 areas (12 critical areas of Beijing Platform
for Action plus nine other critical areas) are covered.
JAWW had already started preparation for its NGO report for Beijing + 20 in March 2015,
when CSW will review the implementation of BPFA and discuss critical issues after 2015.
However, it was found that the report should be ready for the Civil Society Forum to beorganized before the Asian and Pacific Conference on Gender Equality and Women’s
Empowerment to be held from 17 to 20 November 2014.
In order to prepare the report in time, JAWW had to identify authors for each critical areafrom JAWW individual and organization members as well as networks. It is regretful that due totime constraints, JAWW was not able to request input from a wider range of NGOs working for
gender equality during the preparation for the report. The authors prepared, withoutcompensation, the papers in English which were checked by native English speakers on
their own as well as a one page Japanese outline for the JAWW workshop organized in lateAugust for the National Women’s Education Center’s Forum within a tight schedule.
Furthermore, JAWW requested the authors to limit their papers to four pages.
JAWW has no appropriate words to express its sincere gratitude to the authors for theirgreat cooperation and their endeavors despite their extremely heavy schedules. The papers wereprepared at the authors’ responsibility as of August 2014 and do not reflect JAWW’s views.
In late July 2014 the Mioko Fujieda Fund for Promoting Gender Equality informed JAWW
that it was chosen as one of the recipients of the fund which was launched in 2014. Without thefund, it would not have been possible for JAWW to publish this report by professional printing
and layout. JAWW would like to thank the Fund as well as the late Ms Mioko Fujieda who wasa pioneer of women’s studies in Japan.

2

A．
．Women and Poverty
TAMIYA, Yuko, Kobe Gakuin University
1. Severe poverty of lone parents and children
Discussions about poverty have been taking place in Japan around mid-2000s,
2000s, and Japanesesociety seems to have discovered that poverty is not an issue of the past. In October 2009 thegovernment released the official data of relative poverty rates for the first time. The latest data showchild poverty rates has been the highest level since 1985; from 10.9% to 16.3%. Compared withlone-parent and two-parent
parent households, the poverty rates of the former is 54.6% and it is more thanfour-times as much as the two--parent (12.4%)1. According to OECD data, lone parent households inJapan hass one of the worst rates of poverty in the industrialised countries (Figure 1). Japanese
government is responsible for implementing policies to alleviate women and children’s poverty.
poverty
mid
Figure 1: Poverty Rates of Households with Children by Household Type, mid-2000s

Note: Poverty thresholds are set at 50 per cent of the median income of the entire population.
Source: OECD (2008)2; Figure 5.7.

The number of lone parent households, 84% of loneparents is female, has increased3. The rise in the number oflone parent households has also increased the overall
proportion of households with children (Table 1). In aninternational context, the number of lone-parent
lonehouseholds
in Japan is fewer than in other developed countries: forexamplemple 28% in the U.S., 26% in the UK4. In terms of thetypes of lone mother households,
households the majority of lone
mothers are divorced (81%),), and the remaining is either
widowed (8%)) or has never been married (8%)(8 5. Compared
1

Table 1: Percentage oflone-parent households (% ofall households with children)

1975
3.1
1985
3.7
1995
4.3
2005
6.3 toNote: Lone-parent
parent households referhouseholds consisting of 2010
one parent with
6.6 atleast one non-married
married child under18; it
excludeslone
parentslivinginthree-generation
generation households. Source:
MHLW, Comprehensive
Comprehens
Survey of Living
Conditions.

MHLW. (2013) Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions.
OECD. (2008) Growing unequal?: Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries.
3
MIC. (2010) Population Census.
4
U.S. Census Bureau, Current
urrent Population Survey, 2012 Annual Social and Economic Supplement.
Supplement Office for
National Statistics, Labour Force Survey 2012.
2012
5
MHLW. (2011) Nationwide
nwide Survey on Fatherless Families.
23

with other countries, never-married mothers in Japan make up far fewer: 46% in the UK and New
Zealand and 43% in the USA6. This factor influences a smaller number of lone parents in Japan
when compared with other developed countries.
2. Work and Employment
One remarkable characteristic of lone mothers in Japan is their high labour participation
rate; lone mothers made up a larger portion of full-time employment than married women. This
does not always correspond to trends in other countries. Unlike Japan, joblessness has been
more typically an issue for lone parents than for married mothers in other countries (OECD2007). The proportion of lone parents in full-time employment was at around 50% in 2012 asseen in Table 2. On the other hand, part-time employment has increased by one and a half times
in the past thirteen years, from 28% in 1993 to 42% in 2011.
Table 2: Working Status of Lone Mothers and Married Mothers, 2012

Notes: Lone mothers refer to lone mothers with at least one child under20, Married mothers refers to married mothers with at least
one child under 18. Sources: MIC (2012) Labour Force Survey

Many lone mothers engage non-standard job and there is a significant difference of lone
mothers’ earnings between standard employment and non-standard employment. Annual earningsof lone mothers engaging non-standard employment (1,250,000JPY) make much less than half ofthe standard employee’s (2,700,000JPY) 7. This situation might leave lone mothers in poverty
despite their participation in paid work.
Table3: Time use data for employed
Table 3 shows that the characteristics of timeparents with at least one child under 6,
spent on child care and work in the case of parents
2011 (Average minutes per day)with at least one child below six years of age. Lonemothers spend much longer work hours and spend
significantly less time on child care than do marriedmothers. Despite the existence of the trend of theincrease in part-time jobs resulted in many mothers
allocating more time toward child care instead of to
Source: MIAC (2011) Survey on Time Use and Leisurepaid work 8 , the fact that lone mothers spend
Activities
conspicuously less time on child care compared tomarried mothers suggests that for solo-mothers thereconciliation of child care and work still presents great difficulties.

6

Bradshaw, J. and Finch, N. (2002). A Comparison of Child Benefit Packages in 22 Countries, Department for Workand Pensions Research Report No.174. Corporate Document Services, Leeds, Table 2.3.
7
MHLW. (2011) Nationwide Survey on Fatherless Families.
8
Tamiya, Y. and M. Shikata (2010) “Analysis of Time Use Surveys on Work and Care in Japan”, Edited by
Budlender, D. Time Use Studies and Unpaid Care Work, Routledge. 142-170.

4

3. Social Security Benefits
Social security benefits for lone mother households in Japan mainly consist of the Child
Rearing Allowance (CRA), Child Allowance (CA), survivors’ pensions and Public Assistance (PA).
The coverage of lone motherFigure2: Social security benefits for lone parent
households awarded these benefits ishouseholds in Japannshown in Table 6. CRA was the largest
number of recipients,
nts, and it isestimated that 74% of lone mothers
was awarded the allowance. On theother hand, recipients
cipients of PA were 14%
and the pensions
sions including Survivors’
Basic/Employees
asic/Employees Pension were theleast claimed benefit (9%).
(9%) As the
CRA plays a vital role for lone mothersin the present climate, the next section
will analyse this more closely.

Child Rearing Allowance

Survivors’ Basic Pension

Income-tested benefit

Income--tested but with a highFor lone parent households withincome ceilinga child under 19

For widows with a child underOR

19

Income--tested but with a highincome ceiling
For widows with/without a childChild Allowance
Income-tested benefit
For households with a child under 16

Public Assistance
Means-tested benefit

4. Income and Poverty
A working wage is the mostimportant source of income foror lone motherhouseholds in Japan. However, their earnings Figure 3: Sources of Gross Annual Income by
Household Type in 2012
remain low and their social security benefits,
which must be used to supplement theirinsufficient primary incomes, are not enoughto cover this shortfall. Figure 4 compares theincomes of lone motherther households and allhouseholds with children. Lone mothers
make only one-third of the income of allhouseholds with children. Their main sourceof income is wages but the proportions differ;lone mothers: 73%;; all households: 90%. Note: Households are defined as households with at least
Social security benefits are important source of one non-married child under 18.
income for lone mothers consisting of a quarter Source: MHLW(2012). Comprehensive Survey of Living
Conditionsof all income, but this is not the case with otherhouseholds with children, where it only makes up 8 per cent of their income.
One factor contributing to such
such poverty is joblessness. The poverty rate among lone parent
households where the parent is not engaged in paid work is, according to the OECD average,
three-times
times higher than that of those who are working (Figure 5).
). Nevertheless, in Japan thepoverty rate
ate of lone parents engaged in paid work is still 55%,
55 , and the poverty rate gap between
those working and those not working is only 3 % points. This suggests that engaging in paid
work does not provide an escape from poverty for lone mothers in Japan.
In orderrder to analyze the effect of social security benefits in reducing poverty includingchild-support
support payments, Figure 6 illustrates changes of poverty rate in primary income and5disposable income. The poverty reduction effect amounts 51 to 66 % points for Switzerland,Sw
Denmark, Sweden and Finland; rather poor effects amounts less than 10 per cent points arefound for UK, Italy, Ireland, US and Japan. Since the redistribution of income through social
security benefits has not been effective, lone mothers still kept in poverty.
Figure 4: Poverty rates for lone parent households, 2008

Note: Poverty

thresholds are set at
50 per cent of themedian income ofthe entire population.
Source: OECD(2012),, OECD
Family Database

Figure5: Poverty rates for lone parent households before and after child-support
child support payments
Note: Families aredefined as householdswith at least one childunder 18. Data forJapan refer to poverty
rates of lone motherhouseholds before andafter transfer.
er.
Source: OECD (2011);
Table6.5, Abe (2006);
Table5-6.

5. Policy implication
What is distressing about the situation of lone mother households in Japan is that the highwork participation rate does not by itself solve the problem of poverty. The
he poverty sufferedby lone mothers is caused by the unfortunate combination of low-paying
lowjobs, the lack ofopportunity to find better work and insufficient monetary benefits. Welfare reform has focusedon reducing the number of recipients of social security benefits in spite of the fact that they do
not lead to a welfare trap. Kilkey and Zhou9 suggest with regard to the situation in Japan that
support for the improvement of mothers’
mothers human capital is insufficient. Kimoto and Hagiwara10
also highlight the urgent necessity for secure cash benefits and effective job training. If further
welfare reforms
orms should reduce the available benefits even more and push lone mothers into
working still more, the majority of lone mother households will remain poor.
9

Kilkey, M. (2000) Lone mothers between
between paid work and care: The policy regime in twenty countries. Ashgate,
Aldershot. Zhou, Y. (2012). Conditions Necessary for Single Mothers to Obtain Regular Employment in Japan, The
Quarterly of social security research,
research 48(3), 319-333. (In Japanese)
10
Kimoto, K. and Hagiwara, K. (2010) A feminization of poverty in Japan: A special case? In Goldberg, G. (ed). Poor
women in rich countries: The feminization of poverty over the life course. Oxford University Press, New York.

6

B．
．Education and Training of Women
KIMURA, Ryoko, Osaka University
1. Introduction: Amendment to the Basic Act on Education and Gender Equality
1-1. Deletion of the Article on Co-education
When the Basic Act on Education was amended in 2006, several revisions were madeconcerning gender equity. An important revision was the deletion of Article 5, titled“Co-education”, which stated that “Men and Women shall esteem and cooperate with eachother. Co-education, therefore, shall be recognized in education”. With the exception of highschools in several prefectures which were organized according to the pre-war sex-segregatedsystem at that time, with the reform of the educational system after World War II, under theformer Basic Act on Education, no sex-segregated public school had been newly established.
Generally the number of girls’ schools and boys’ schools has decreased since the 1990s in the
public education system as well as in the private system. However, owing to the deletion of
Article 5, a public boys’ residential secondary education school in Kagoshima Prefecture will
open in 2015 with the aim of training male elites.
1-2. Newly setting of Article 2 “Objectives of Education”
Another important revision was made to Article 2, which newly established 5 objectives of
education, emphasizing a “sense of morality”, “a public spirit”, “respect for our traditions”, and“love of country”. “Equality between men and women” was also included as one of the objectives
in this Article, which may give the impression that “equality” has been given a place as a moral
issue and not a human rights issue. This Article is related to the last revision of the Government
Curriculum Guideline, which raises moral education to the status of an official teaching subject
from only a period especially set. There is a concern that the idea of gender equality/equal rights
for everyone will be narrowed down and distorted in a kind of conservative moral sense.
2. The Gender Gap in the Academic Career
2-1. MDGs and the Status Quo of Japan
Regarding the Goals 2 and 3 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Goal 2, to“achieve universal primary education”, has been already realized in Japan. However, Goal 3,
to “promote gender equality and empower women”, and its Target 3.A, to “eliminate genderdisparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of
education no later than 2015”, have not yet been achieved.
2-2. The Gender Gap in the Enrollment Rate in Upper Secondary Schools and theAdvancement Rate to Higher Education
After World War II, the new Japanese educational system has generally provided equal
opportunities for female and male students, and gender discrepancies in education have beensmall. Nearly all girls and boys are enrolled in compulsory education, and the gender gap forthe enrolment rate in upper secondary education was closed after the 1970s. Moreover, thepercentage of female students advancing to higher education became larger and caught up withthat of male students in the 1980s.
7However, considering the different types of institutions, we find that there still exists a
gender gap in higher education. In Japan, two-year junior colleges have developed as an
institution of higher education that is considered appropriate for women. As Chart 1 depicts,
many female students enroll not in universities but in these and in specialized training colleges.
2-3. The Gender Gap in the Choice of Courses in Upper Secondary School and Higher
Education
The gender gap is apparent in several ways in students’ choices of courses or majors.
While girls go into so-called “feminine” fields of study, boys choose the stereotypically“masculine” fields. Chart 2 shows the Gender Parity Index (GPI) for the number of highschool students enrolled in different types of courses. Over 70% of female and male students
are registered for general courses intended mainly for advancing to higher education. But inthe case of students in specialized courses, focused primarily on occupational training, female
and male students are differentiated into gender-stereotyped courses. Regarding specialized
training colleges, a similar situation occurs. Chart 3 shows the GPI for university majors.
Recently, the gender gap in the choice of faculties has decreased due to the rise in the numberof female students advancing to the university. Yet even now, the GPI for the science andtechnology fields is very low and that for the humanities is high.
Chart 1: Enrolment in and advancement rate to higher education (%)

2013
2000

Specialized
Training College(1)
Women
Men
18.4
11.8
17.5
12.8

Junior College(2)
Women
9.5
17.2

Men
1.1
1.9

University(3)
Women
45.6
31.5

Men
54.0
47.5

Graduate School(4)
(%)
Women
Men
6.0
15.0
6.3
12.8

(1)〜(3) New entrants as a percentage of the 18-year old age cohort(4) New entrants who entered upon completion of the bachelor’s course, as a percentage of the total bachelor’s
course graduates
Source: MEXT, School Basic Survey

Chart 2: GPI for the number of high school students by courses (Person & Index)

2013

Women
Men
GPI

General1,219,107
1,179,154
1.03

Industry
25,762
234,797
0.11

Commerce
134,037
75,262
1.78

Home economics
37,4845,293
7.08

Source: MEXT, School Basic Survey

Chart 3: GPI for the number of undergraduate students by major (Person & Index)

2013

Women
Men
GPI

Engineering
48,036
342,006
0.14

Science21,12359,3670.36

Social Science
285,176
563,476
0.51

Humanities
248,301
128,881
1.93

Source: MEXT, School Basic Survey

3. Gender Bias and Specific Problems in Primary and Secondary Education
3-1. Home Economics and Physical Education
8

Until the 1990s, both home economics and physical education were formallygender-specific subjects under the Government Curriculum Guidelines. However, after theseguidelines were revised, both became gender-neutral subjects. Nevertheless, almost allteachers of home economics are female even now, and people still hold the idea that home
economics is a subject for girls. In secondary education, girls and boys are separated in many
physical education classes. It can also be said that currently physical education emphasizes sex
differences in body and mind. Home economics and physical education are related to agender-biased “hidden curriculum”, which will be discussed below.
3-2. Sex Education
In the early 21st century, a backlash against feminism has arisen. This anti-feminist
movement has attacked reasonable practices of sex education, considering a teenager’s sexual
behavior. While many of these practices were employed from the perspective of genderequality and the children rights, those individuals opposing to feminism have called them“excessive sex education” which encourages teenagers to actively participate in sexual
behavior. A typical example of the bashing of sex education can be seen in the case of
NANAO High School for intellectually disabled, whose principal and teachers were punishedby the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education in 2003 (the Tokyo High Court ordered theBoard to rescind the punishment in 2009). Because the backlash has been so strong, it appears
that the Boards of Education in each location, and schools and teachers have become reluctant
to impart sex education.
Due to the movements of conservatives (right-wing organizations, some religious bodies,
the New Right of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology (MEXT) has chosen to exert control over and restrict sex education.
Japanese schools now provide instruction on sex/sexuality in health and physical education
classes. The Government Curriculum Guideline stipulates that elementary schools should
teach students about puberty and secondary sexual characteristics, and that junior and seniorhigh schools should teach students about STDs and HIV as part of the infectious diseases
curriculum, according to the students’ developmental level and grade in school. Junior andsenior high schools provide students with information about fertilization and pregnancy, but
do not cover the process that leads to pregnancy, i.e., sexual intercourse.
An analysis of survey data1 collected in 2005 and 2011 suggests there have been some
negative effects of the backlash against sex education during this decade. The percentages of
topics for which senior high school students answered they had learned about at school are low
for social and relational aspects of sexuality. Also the number of correct answers to the questions
about contraception and STIs has decreased. (TSUCHIDA, Yoko, NAKAZAWA, Chie)
3-3. History/Civics and Textbook Screening
The issue of the jugun ianfu (comfort women: women working in military brothels during
World War II) of Japan has been strongly debated both inside and outside Japan. In 2012,
when the first screening of textbooks took place following the amending of the Basic Act on
Education, the word jugun ianfu was deleted from all social studies textbooks in lower
1

The National Survey of Sexual Behavior of Japanese Youth was conducted in 1974, 1981, 1993, 1999, 2005, and2011, almost every six years by the Japanese Association for Sex Education.

9secondary schools. As a result, it has now become difficult for children to learn about andreflect on wartime sexual violence and gender discrimination in school.
3-4. Hidden Curriculum
In the 1990s, the concept of a “hidden curriculum” related to gender socialization drew
the attention of educators and parents. A typical example is a name list that is divided
according to sex and arranges boys first, which was used in almost all schools. Since the latter
half of the 1990s, the use of mixed name lists increased with the aim of creating a gender-bias
free educational environment. But individuals who were part of the conservative backlash also
attacked educational practices for being “gender-bias free”, such as the use of mixed namelists, as well as sex education, in the 2000s.
In addition to name lists, there are many examples of a “hidden curriculum” which can beviewed as gender biased. Many Japanese schools adopt a uniform system that compels girls towear skirts and boys to wear trousers, separate students by gender in physical education or
sports events without a rational reason, provide gender-biased advice in academic and career
counseling, and produce disparity by gender in interactions between teachers and students inclass. Measures to address these problems have been obstructed until now by the backlash
against feminism.
4. The Current State of and Issues Related to Government Measures
The Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality 2010 set numerical targets and provided
updated figures for the “proportion of female vice principals or higher in elementary andsecondary educational institutions” and the “proportion of female university presidents, vicepresidents, professors, associate professors, and lecturers”, “target[ed] employment numbers
for female researchers in the natural sciences” and so forth. In 2006, MEXT implemented the“Project to Encourage Female Junior High and High School Students to Select Courses inScience and Technology” in order to address the issue of the limited number of women who
study, work, and pursue research in the fields of science and technology. Moreover, the Gender
Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office started a similar campaign in 2013. Setting targets andestablishing positive projects are very significant initiatives. But the range of the targets islimited, and the budgets for these projects are insufficient.
Women face many problems, such as unstable employment, poverty, and violence. As thesituation of women worsens, new measures are required to meet their needs in the area ofsocial education. The National Women’s Education Center (NWEC) has played a central part
nationwide in providing various opportunities for lifelong learning and career training for
women. Although the NWEC has been a very important social educational organization forachieving gender equality since its foundation in 1977, it faced a crisis of integration andthreat of being abolished several years ago. Under neo-liberal policies and due to the backlash
against feminism, valuable spaces and opportunities for women’s learning and training are
gradually diminishing.
On examining the budget of the government and the policies of MEXT or the Gender
Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office, I cannot help but say that a positive and effective plan
is not enough to support girls and women who are in disadvantaged positions througheducation and to diminish gender bias and establish gender equality in education.
10

C．
．Women and Health
TSUGE, Azumi, Meiji Gakuin University
ONISHI, Kayo, National Center for Child Health and Development
Introduction
In Japanese society, women’s health has been traditionally defined as “maternal health,”with the emphasis on women’s capacity for being reproductive, giving birth, and bearing
children. However, since the adoption of the Programme of Action of the International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994 as well as the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, anintegrated and life-course approach to women’s health has been gradually mainstreamed inJapan. That is, addressing not only women’s sexual and reproductive health/rights but also
more comprehensive women’s life-course health, including successful aging, has become our
top agenda. Despite this recent trend, Japanese women still confront some tough realities, suchas the existence of the Penal Code which bans induced abortion in principle, lags in the
introduction of newly developed contraception and abortion methods, maternity harassment at
workplace which gives women disincentives to get pregnant, and so on. This paper aims toreport the current situation surrounding Japanese women’s health as well as reproductive
health/rights and to provide some policy recommendations.
1.

Towards An Integrated and Life-Course Approach to Women’s Health
Since the adoption of the Programme of Action of ICPD and the Beijing Declaration andPlatform for Action, an integrated and life-course approach to women’s health has gained civilrights and has been gradually mainstreamed in Japan. For example, some hospitals and clinics
have begun to label the division “women’s health” instead of the traditional label ‘obstetrics
and gynecology’. This change reflects the recent trend to re-define women’s health as not
merely a status of being reproductive but also of being well physically, mentally, and sociallythroughout the life-course. This transition in the concept of women’s health has inspired
Japanese society’s new policy targets which encompass specific needs of women withdisabilities and issues such as violence against women, women in disasters, and women inpoverty.
For example, in 2012, one year after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Japanese
government proposed a resolution, Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in
Natural Disasters was adopted at the 56th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.
Moreover, it has been widely demonstrated that the health of women under emergency
situations, such as natural disasters, is strongly correlated with their social and economic
status.
Increasing reports on violence against women in temporary housing or evacuation
shelters has abundantly demonstrated that disasters have negative impacts on women’s healthand safety under emergency situation such as natural disasters or intimate partner abuse. Thus,
researchers, NGO activists, and health-workers have started to re-examine women’s healthfrom a much broader view than conventional views.
112.

Underlying Causes of The Lowest Total Fertility Rates in Japan
It is widely known that Japan has one of the lowest total fertility rate in the world,
reaching a minimum of 1.26 in 2004. Although the total fertility rate rose to 1.43 in 2013, itshows no sign of continuous increase.
One of the underlying causes of the decreasing birthrate in Japan is that for several
decades there has been a trend for Japanese women to delay marriage. The Ministry of Health,Labour and Welfare reported that the mean age for women’s first marriage became 29.0 in
2011. Consequently, in 2011 the average age at first birth became 30.1, exceeding the age of
30 for the first time. (MHLW, Vital Statistics, 2012).
Another cause of the low birth rate is considered to be the difficult environment for
raising children, e.g. long working hours, minimal involvement in fathering, shortage of day
care centers and their high cost and the heavy expense for educating children. Even for women
who are willing to get pregnant despite the difficulties of raising children, the added reality ofso-called “mata-hara” in the workplace makes them feel reluctant to get pregnant. The“mata-hara” is a term derived from maternity harassment. The term, which became widely
known over the last couple of years in Japan, refers to workplace discrimination against
pregnant women who have just returned to the workplace after giving birth.
3. Strategic Objectives of Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and Current
Situation of Reproductive Health/Rights in Japan

3-1. Abortion and Contraception in Japan
Upon the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995, Japanesesociety has witnessed two major changes in reproductive health/rights.
First of all, the Eugenic Protection Law was amended to what is called Maternal Body
Protection Law in 1996. The Eugenic Protection Law was established in 1948 with the
purpose of legalizing abortion under the authorization of General Head Quarter soon after theend of the Second World War, legalizing abortion as well as sterilization for eugenic reasons
with his/her own and spouse’s consent. That is, while the Penal Code had banned induced
abortion in principle, the Eugenic Protection Law was enacted to “to prevent birth of inferior
descendants from the eugenic point of view, and to protect life and health of mother”. In 1950,
the law was amended, allowing abortion not only for eugenic reasons but also for “economic
reason,” which resulted in free access to abortion on demand. Since its enactment, the numberof induced abortions showed a peak of 1,170,143 in 1955, which had contributed to thedecreasing birth rate in post-war Japan. However, given its eugenically discriminatory
character, the Eugenic Protection Law was criticized by people with disabilities and women
involved in the reproductive rights movement as well, which finally led to the elimination of
the discriminatory clauses in 1996. With the elimination of the clauses, the law’s name waschanged to Maternal Body Protection Law.
The Maternal Body Protection Law legalizes abortion on demand until the 21st week ofpregnancy, even though the Penal Code still bans induced abortion in principle. However, it
requires her spouse’s consent in addition to her own if she is married. Therefore a problem
happens for a wife who is suffering from domestic violence when she wants an abortion.
12

er of induced abortions is decreasing since 1955, when it reached its peak,
Although the number
the number of induced abortions for those less than 20 years old is increasing. Also, it is worth
pointing out that abortion rates after the 12th week of pregnancy are relatively highhamongthese young females while most abortion cases are conducted before the 12th week.
Second, oral contraceptive pills were finally approved by the Ministry of Health in 1999,
notoriously making Japan the last state among the member states of the United
Un
Nations tolicense them. One of the reasons for the delay in approving the oral contraceptive pills was a“fear of the sexual liberation of women” by the male side. However, even after the approval of
the oral contraceptive pills, Japanese women still shy away from using them. It is partly
because the usage of oral contraceptive pills requires doctors’ prescriptions. When it comes tothe pill usage percentage, the demographic with the largest percentage using the method is
women aged 25 to 29 years, with
with for 6.5 percent usage, the second largest is those aged 35 to
39, with 5.3 percent usage. Instead of the oral contraceptive pills, male condom use has been
the most popular contraceptive usage up until now, currently accounting for more than eighty
percent
ent of women. Especially for women aged 15 to 19 years, the condom usage accounts forone hundred percent according to the Japan Family Planning Association1.
In addition to the lack of adequate contraceptive methods, Japanese women also face abarrier to accessing safe abortion methods. Currently the most popular abortion method inJapan is Dilatation and Curettage (D&C), which accounts for more than 90%2. WHO defines
D&C as “an obsolete method of surgical abortion”3 and it instead recommends vacuum
aspiration
ation and/or medical methods. Specifically for the latter, WHO recommends oral
mifepristone followed by a single dose of misoprostol, for pregnancies of gestational age up to
9 weeks (63 days) as well as oral mifepristone followed by repeated doses of misoprostol
miso
for
pregnancies of gestational age over 9 weeks (63 days). However, mifepristone is not approvedin Japan yet.
Figure 1: Number of abortions (1949-2010)(1949
in Japan

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Report on Public Health Administration and Services（1949-2010）
1

Kitamura, Kunio and Japan Family Planning Association (2012) “Dai Rokkai danjyo no seikatsu to ishikiishi nikansuru chosa kekka (gaiyo)”.
2
Tsukahara, Kumi et. al. (2010) “Problems of the Japanese Government's Reproductive Rights Policy: from a
Technical Viewpoint”, Igaku tetsugaku igaku rinri (28), 38-48.
3
WHO (2012) Safe Abortion: Technical and Policy GuidanceG
for Health Systems, Second edition.

13

3-2. Prenatal Care in Japan
While the maternal mortality rates drastically decreased from 30.1 per 100,000 to 16.0
per 100,000, between 1960 and 1975 due to the improvement of hygiene and the establishmentof maternal center in rural areas, maternal mortality rate has to some extent increased in the
2000s, reaching 4.0 in 2007. Although Japan has kept one of the lowest maternal and infantmortality rates in the world, one of the underlying causes of the recent increase in maternalmortality rates is considered to be the decreasing number of obstetricians and maternity
hospitals and clinics.
3-3. Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and women’s healthJapan is a country that the number of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) conducted in a year isthe largest in the world. Now more than three percent of children are born through IVF
annually. Japanese Society of Obstetrics and gynecology (Ob/Gyn) collects data of children
who are born through IVF and discloses it partly. However, it does not disclose the data onside effects, especially long term side effects by high dose hormonal drug for hyper
stimulation for IVF.
There is no legislation concerning Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) but JapaneseSociety of Ob/Gyn regulates ART. Although it permits conducting artificial insemination by
donor sperm, it does not permit conducting IVF and intra cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)
with donated sperm and/or eggs. It bans surrogacy as well. However, not a few couples or
women, or men in rare cases, had their “own” babies by using ART with donated sperm,
donated eggs or surrogacy in foreign countries. Recently, there are some cases that Japanese
couples/ Japanese men had children by surrogacy in foreign countries, which cause several
problems in terms of legal status of children in Japan.
3-4. Sexual Minorities and HIV/AIDS
Although the existence of sexual minorities is gradually getting recognized through themass media or through their own declarations, the protest against same-sex marriage and bias
towards the sexual minorities still persist.
The total number of newly HIV-infected people and AIDs patients reached 1,590 in 2013
the second largest number ever (the National AIDS Surveillance Committee, 2014). The newly
HIV-infected people are mostly males in their 20s and 30s. However, there are also some
women who are not aware of their infection of HIV till their maternity.
Conclusion
In conclusion we would like to highlight the importance of education on women’s healthincluding reproductive health/rights since there are very few occasions and very few places tolearn it. Although many women get information about their concerns through the internet, they
don’t have a chance for consulting with specialists, discussing their issues with others, andmaking an informed decision after careful consideration. Policies and actions are needed to set
up adequate classes for studying about women’s health, including reproductive health andrights, at school and also to establishing a center for women’s health at a hospital.

14

D．
．Violence against WomenYOSHIHAMA, Mieko, University of Michigan
TSUNODA, Yukiko, Attorney at Law
The 1990’s saw emerging and growing efforts to raise public consciousness about violenceagainst women and to demand governmental response to previously unrecognized forms ofviolence against women in Japan. International currents such as United Nations (UN)conferences and declarations1 provided additional pressure for the Japanese government todevelop policies and programs to address violence against women (VAW). This report presents
1) a brief summary of the scope of VAW in Japan; 2) a discussion of the overall policy
framework, machinery, and guiding policies; 3) a critical review of specific statues and policies;and 4) an assessment of current laws and policies based on the Beijing Platform of Action.
1. Violence against Women in Japan
VAW is highly prevalent in Japan. National studies have consistently documented thatabout one third of adult women experience some form of partner’s violence.2 The number ofdomestic violence cases known to the police has steadily increased over the years; there was a
total of 49,533 cases in 2013 (almost double from 25,210 in 2008).3 Similarly, the number ofstalking cases recognized by the police is on the rise: 21,089 cases in 2013. Women make upover 90% of all victims of stalking, while men account for over 85% of perpetrators.3 In 2013,
1,409 rape cases were known to the police.3 The prosecution rate is low; of the 1,320 rapecases recognized by the Ministry of Justice in 2012, only 42% (554 cases) were prosecuted.3
These numbers are based on the narrow definition of rape in Japanese law (see below). Sexual
harassment features in about half of the approximately 20,000 consultations cases handled by
the Equal Opportunity Employment Department (EOED) of Prefectural Labour Bureaus every
year.4 Considering many barriers to reporting, those cases recognized by the police and EOED
likely represent only a small tip of the iceberg.
2. Policy Framework, Machinery, and Guiding Policies
The Headquarters for the Promotion of Gender Equality (established in 1994) has been theofficial and central machinery for Japan’s policymaking on matters concerning gender issues.
The Council for Gender Equality serves as an advisory body, and the Gender Equality Bureau
serves as a central administrative unit to coordinate national efforts concerning gender equality.4
1

For example, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted at the World Conference on Human
Rights in 1993; the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women adopted at the 48th UN General
Assembly; and the Beijing Declaration and Beijing Platform for Action adopted at the UN World Conference on
Women in 1995. The Global Campaign for Women’s Human Rights was instrumental in transforming a
conventional definition of human rights from men’s rights in the public sphere to one that includes women’s rights
in the private sphere.
2
Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office http://www.gender.go.jp/e-vaw/chousa/index.html
3
Japanese government. (2014). Seventh and Eighth Periodic Reports on the Implementation of the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
4
It should be noted that although the English translations use the term “gender equality,” the official Japanesenames of the Headquarters, Council, and Bureau do not contain the equivalent term. Instead, they use the term

15

The Council’s work as an advisory body became visible following the 1995 UN World
Conference on Women. In July 1996, the Council issued The Vision of Gender Equality. It
recognized VAW as a serious societal, structural problem that places women in a subordinate
position relative to men and impedes the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental
freedoms by women. In the same year, the Headquarters developed the National Plan of
Action for Promotion of a Gender-Equal Society by the Year 2000 and identified theelimination of all forms of VAW as one of the priority policy objectives. The Bureau
conducted the first nationwide survey on VAW in 1999; a similar national study has been
conducted every three year since. In 1999, the Council issued two reports specificallyaddressing VAW: Toward the Creation of a Society Free of Violence Against Women in May
and the Basic Policy Approaches concerning Violence Against Women in July. Both reports
clearly recognized VAW as a serious social structural problem and a barrier to gender equality.
In 1998, the Council also issued reports to inform the development of the Basic Act for
Gender-Equal Society. The Basic Act for Gender-Equal Society was enacted in 1999; itarticulated the basic principles for the formation of a “gender-equal society” (read: cooperative
participation) and guides efforts of the national and local governments and citizens5. The Act
does not reference VAW specifically. However, accompanying resolutions adopted by theupper and lower houses of the parliament included a statement that active efforts to eradicate
all forms of VAW are indispensable to the establishment of women’s human rights.
As stipulated in the Act, the national government developed the Basic Plan of Gender
Equality in 2000 and identified 11 priority fields, including the elimination of all forms of
VAW. It recognized VAW as a major barrier to achieving gender equity and stated that indevising a societal response, it is imperative to view VAW as a structural problem rooted in
rigid gender-based role divisions, and economic disparity, and power differentials. These
perspectives remained central to the Second Basic Plan of 2005. There are, however,concerning changes in the Third Basic Plan, such as a notable shift in the degree to which theroot causes of VAW are articulated and an absence of clear articulation that VAW is a societal,
structural problem.
3. Specific Statues concerning Violence Against Women
In this section, we analyze major laws and policies concerning selected forms of VAW.
3.1. Laws and Policy concerning Domestic Violence
Grassroots organizing, action research, and advocacy efforts prompted the legislative andpolicy responses to domestic violence during the 1990’s.6 The Prevention of Spousal Violence
and the Protection of Victims was first enacted in 2001 and has since been amended threetimes, in 2004, 2007 and 2013. The Act’s preamble clearly states that spousal violence is agrave violation of human rights and an obstacle to gender equality. As stipulated by the Act,danjo kyōdō sankaku, which means “cooperative participation of men and women.” In this report, we use thegovernmental English translation, gender equality and gender equal society, when referring to governmental bodies
and documents.
5
A number of political parties and non-governmental organizations critiqued the concept and the term used in theAct, danjo kyōdō sankak,u and suggested alternatives, such as Basic Act for Gender Equality and Act to Prohibit
Gender Discrimination; see http://www.gender.go.jp/about_danjo/law/kihon/situmu2-2.html.
6
Yoshihama, M. (2002). The definitional process of domestic violence in Japan: Generating official response
through action-oriented research and international advocacy. Violence Against Women, 7, 339-366.

16the government formulated the Basic Policy Concerning Measures for the Prevention of
Spousal Violence and Protection of Victims, which has been revised along with revisions in
the Act. It recognizes that spousal violence further worsens the economic vulnerability ofwomen and hinders the actualization of gender equality.
The main legal tool of the Act has been the issuance of protection orders, which canrequire an abusive spouse not to approach his wife and others (e.g., accompanying minors)
and to vacate the residence. The requirements to obtain a protection order are strict, andrenewal can only be granted under strict conditions. The 2004 amendment expanded theduration of vacate orders from 2 weeks to 2 months. An unintended consequence of thischange was that courts became hesitant to issue a vacate order as long as 2 months. The 2013
amendment expanded the scope of spousal violence to cover violence committed by anunmarried partner who shares the same residence with the victim. However, violence
committed by an unmarried, non-cohabiting partner remains out of the eligibility criteria forprotection orders under this Act. (Note: stalking by an unmarried, non-cohabiting partner canbe covered by the Act on the Restriction of Stalking discussed below.) The Act also focuses on
the provision of assistance primarily through public Domestic Violence Support Centers. The
Centers’ services can be used by victims of domestic violence, regardless of victims’ marital or
cohabitation status.
The Act and the Basic Policy are limited in several major ways. First is the lack of the humanrights principle. The right to safety and violence-free life is a fundamental right of any humanbeing. However, currently victims of domestic violence must seek safety by leaving home. Second
is the lack of comprehensive measures to promote self-reliance. Specific provisions focus on
emergency or otherwise temporary assistance; 7 virtually no measure addresses obstacles toself-reliance that are rooted in the social structure, such as the gender-based wage gap, thepreponderance of non-regular worker status among women, and sexual harassment at theworkplace. Unless these obstacles are removed, women’s self-reliance cannot be achieved. An
additional and perhaps most fundamental limitation of the Act is the absence of substantive
measures to prevent domestic violence, although “prevention” is in its title. The Act focuses on theprovision of information, assistance, and protection to the victim, with limited intervention directed
at the perpetrators. Preventing domestic violence calls for eradicating root causes, which are deeply
rooted in the very social structure supported by patriarchal ideology.8
3.2. Laws concerning Stalking
The Act on the Restriction of Stalking was enacted in 2000. Precipitated by the steadyincrease in the reported stalking cases, including lethal cases, the 2013 amendment expanded thecategory of stalking to include stalking via repeated email communications. The revised Act also
expanded the jurisdiction of local public safety commissions and police over stalking cases. It
7

For example, provision of emergency shelter, cash assistance, assistance with job search, and job training; special
arrangements for subsidized public housing; provision of guarantor; allowing an abused woman and accompanying
minors to register for health insurance separately from her abusive husband.
8
For example, Domestic Violence Chosakenkyukai. (1998). Domestic violence: Otto/koibito no boryoku wonakusutameni [Domestic violence: Towards the elimination of violence against women by husbands andboyfriends]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku; Tsunoda, Y. (2001). Seisabetsu to boryoku [Sexual discrimination and violence].
Tokyo: Yuhikaku; Yoshihama, M. (2005). A web in the patriarchal clan system: Tactics of intimate partners in theJapanese socio-cultural context. Violence Against Women, 11, 1236-1262.

17

also strengthened the responsibility of the local police and public safety commissions to notify
the victim regarding the issuance of a warning and a restraining order (and the reasons for denial
for the request). The National Police Agency (NPA) has made efforts to improve the proceduresto handle stalking cases, trained police officers to properly assess the degree of danger, required
local police agencies to set up a special department with expert members. The number of arrests
for stalking, albeit increasing over the years, accounts for less than 8% of all reported cases.3 The
prosecution rate for stalking has been lower than 50% since 2008.
3.3. Laws/Guidelines concerning Sexual Harassment
A combination of grassroots organizing, legal actions, and action research efforts helped
problematize sexual harassment at the workplace in late 1980’s. The first codification ofsexual harassment in Japan was in the revision of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law(EEOL) in 1997, which recognized sexual harassment as a form of gender discrimination. The
EEOL requires employers to establish necessary measures to prevent sexual harassment in theworkplace and oblige the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) to establish
guidelines. MHLW can make the name of the company that does not comply with the Law andguidelines public and/or impose a fine. Although the revised 2006 EEOL strengthened theemployers’ responsibilities for compliance, the 2009 CEDAW Concluding Observations 9
criticized current legislation for its insufficient punitive measures to enforce compliance.
3.4. Laws concerning Prostitution
The legal and social situation surrounding prostitution is filled with contradictions andloopholes. Three major laws concerning prostitution are: the Amusement Business Control Act
of 1948, the Act on Prevention of Prostitution (Anti- Prostitution Act, hereinafter) of 1956, and
the Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and
the Protection of Children (Child Prostitution and Pornography Act, hereinafter) of 1999.
The stated purpose of the Amusement Business Control Act is not to prohibit prostitution;in effect, the Act protects prostitution. This Act “regulates” the so-called sex industry, as wellas other businesses considered to affect public morals and compromise the healthy
development of young people, such as soaplands, strip clubs, and adult shops. The Act
requires sex business establishments to register with the local authorities and regulates theiroperations (e.g., restricting business hours and location and prohibiting people under age 18
from entering or working there. Regulated (read: legitimized) under this Act, owners andmanagers develop creative sexual services within the legal confines of what counts as“prostitution.” This kind of innovation flourishes in Japan.
The Anti- Prostitution Act defines prostitution very narrowly: sexual intercourse with anindividual unknown to a prostitute and in exchange of money or exchange of promise of
payment. This narrow definition provides many loopholes. For example, acts that do not
involve intercourse are exempted. Or at a soapland (a registered business supposedly offeringbathing and massage services), a customer pays for services that do not involve intercourse; ifintercourse takes place, it is argued to have taken place between individuals who had become
9Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). (2009, August). Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, Japan.

18acquainted. Thus, their act is rationalized as not meeting the definition of prostitution. As seenin this kind of “creative” and convenient interpretation of the law, the Act’s narrow definitionof prostitution prompts the development of innovative services, which become regulated (andthus legitimized) by the Amusement Business Control Act. The Child Prostitution andPornography Act represents the first ever attempt to respond to the high prevalence of childprostitution and pornography in Japan. It defines prostitution more broadly than theAnti-Prostitution Act: sexual intercourse and any conduct similar to sexual intercourse. It is
not limited to acts between unknown persons, as was the case of the Anti-Prostitution Act
described above. Unlike the Amusement Business Control Act discussed above, the Child
Prostitution and Pornography Act intends to prohibit prostitution. The 2014 amendment madethe possession of pornography without intent to distribute punishable by law. However, thecurrent legal definition of child pornography does not include video games or cartoons
involving sexual violence against girls.
The Japanese government ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of
the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography in 2005. In addition,
under the auspice of the Inter-Ministerial Liaison Committee on Crime Response, theInter-Ministerial Liaison Committee on the Protection of Children from Crimes was establishedin 2005 and developed Measures to Protect Children from Crimes, which has been updated
annually. In 2010, the Inter-Ministerial Liaison Committee on Crime Response developed
Comprehensive Measure to Eradicate Child Pornography. While recognizing certain degrees ofprogress, the CEDAW Concluding Observations9 strongly urged the Japanese government to ban
the sale of video games or cartoons involving rape and sexual violence against women and girls,
which currently falls outside the legal definition of child pornography.
It is clear that current legal response to prostitution in Japan is lukewarm at best. It
condones prostitution and encourages new (and legalized) forms of prostitution. This
compromises the rights of those in prostitution, but also affects women as a whole, for legalized
prostitution sends a message that women are sexual objects and can be bought “legally.”
3.5. Laws concerning Trafficking
The Japanese government has developed several specific measures to combat trafficking,such as the adoption of an Action Plan on Measures to Combat Trafficking in Persons in 2004,
the establishment of the Inter-Ministerial Liaison Committee on Trafficking in 2004, and the
addition of new articles concerning trafficking in persons to the Penal Code in 2005. Since theadoption of the Japan’s 2009 Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Persons, annual follow-up
reports have been issued. However, trafficking of women remains prevalent in Japan. The
CEDAW Concluding Observations9 pointed out the lack of measures aimed at rehabilitating
women victims of trafficking and the disparity in legal response because “prostitutes are subject
to prosecution under the Anti-Prostitution Law while their clients do not face punishment.” In2009, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons also identified a range of issues that
require immediate attention, including the lack of a comprehensive definition of trafficking in
national legislation; insufficient efforts in the area of prevention; and the difficulty for victims inaccessing needed assistance due to mis(under)identification of victims, lack of assistanceprograms that ensure confidentiality, and language barriers. The Special Rapporteur warned thatwithout proper measures, the problem could go “underground.”19

3.6. Law concerning Rape and Sexual Assault
Crimes of rape and forcible indecency are punishable under the Penal Code (Articles 176
and 177) enacted in 1907, over 100 years ago, predicated on the old Japanese Constitution,
which was enacted in 1889. Some of the fundamental problems found in the current legal
response to rape include: 1) the crime of rape is prosecutable only with a complaint; 2) the court
seldom recognizes marital rape as a crime; and 3) predominant legal interpretation that a crimeof rape requires a degree of force that is beyond a victim’s ability to resist and that a victim muststrongly resist the perpetrator’s action. The 2009 CEDAW Concluding Observation9 urged theJapanese government to eliminate the requirement of the victim’s complaint in prosecuting
sexual assault cases, to increase the statutory penalty, and to include incest as a specific crime.
4. Beijing +20: Assessment of Current Conditions and Visions for the Future
As reviewed above, while considerable advances have been made over the last 20 years,
laws and policies concerning VAW in Japan remain limited in several important ways. Here,we highlight critical areas that require further efforts. The Strategic Objectives in Beijing
Platform of Action required member nations to:
1． Take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate VAW.
2． Study the causes and consequences of VAW and the effectiveness of preventive measures.
3． Eliminate trafficking in women and assist victims of violence due to prostitution andtrafficking.
As for Strategic Objective 1, the current policies and measures in Japan are notprevention-oriented. Prevailing focus is on the provision of emergency and temporary assistanceto the victim, as seen in the Spousal Violence Prevention Act, and the definition of VAW isnarrow as in the case of rape and (adult) prostitution. Despite acknowledgment that VAW is
rooted in gender disparities, virtually no substantive measures have been implemented to address
structural inequalities that render women vulnerable to violence, exploitation, and coercion in
the first place. Echoing Strategic Objective 2, the CEDAW Concluding Observations9 urged theJapanese government “to collect data and to conduct research on the prevalence, causes andconsequences of all forms of violence against women … and to use such data as the basis forfurther comprehensive measures and targeted intervention.” However, studies conducted by thenational and local governments tend to focus on documenting the public’s attitudes toward andthe prevalence of specific forms of violence. Enhanced efforts must be made to examine thecauses of VAW, develop measures based on such analyses, and assess the effectiveness of
prevention and intervention measures. Much remains to be addressed with respect to Strategic
Objective 3. Legal loopholes leave the so-called sex industry to thrive, condoning (and in effect,
legitimizing) diverse forms of prostitution. Video games, cartoons and other media that portray
rape and various forms of VAW and girls remain outside of the legal definition of pornography.
Along with broadening the definition of prostitution and pornography, the efforts to address theroot causes of trafficking in women and prostitution thereby reducing and eliminating theirvulnerability to exploitation are critically needed.
VAW is a violation of fundamental rights to bodily security and integrity. Any sexual act
against one’s will is a violation of human rights regardless of whether physical force was used.
Laws and policies must be founded on the human rights principles. The prevention andelimination of VAW requires eradicating its root causes, gender inequity in all spheres.
20

E．
．Women and Armed Conflict
NIWA, Masayo, JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch)

1. The Statement by the Government of Japan at The Global Summit to End Sexual
Violence in ConflictNobuo Kishi (younger brother of Prime Minister Shinzo ABE), the then Vice Minister for
Foreign Affairs, who attended The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict held in
London on June 12, 2014, gave an outstanding speech as the representative of the Japanese
government in which he outlined Japan’s many contributions to this goal. In Japan, the media
reported that Angelina Jolie was one of the organizers of the Summit, but the content of Vice
Minister Kishi’s speech received insufficient media attention.
The position of the Japanese government is that these issues are occurring in the Congo,
Somalia, Nigeria and in other countries, where sexual violence, such as rape, is being used as aweapon in armed conflict situations, and moreover, there is little change in the culture thatforces part of the criminal responsibility on the victims while the impunity of perpetrators
continues. It is necessary to ensure that those who are charged with crimes are brought tojustice. He stressed that Japan has been focusing on strengthening the judicial systems of thecountries involved in conflicts and on providing training and raising the awareness of the
judicial personnel concerned. Japan is also making active contributions to the funding of these
efforts, as in the past, and intends to strengthen these contributions in the future.
In addition, the Vice Minister stated, “Sexual violence is a crime. It is important toeliminate the culture of impunity against the perpetrators and to change our mindsets. As isstated in the preamble of the Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict,most of the victims of sexual violence in conflict are women. I believe that the acceleration of
women’s empowerment and promotion of women’s full participation in politics, society andthe economy must constitute a dynamic force for changing people’s mindset.”
Nevertheless, there are continuing concerns expressed in the international community
about the current Japanese government’s involvement in this issue. Naturally, Japanese womenthemselves are strongly voicing their view that it is rather the Japanese government that needs
to change its mindset before involving itself with issues of other countries that require support.
2. Preparation of the Action Plan for Implementation of the UN Security Council
Resolution 1325
The Japanese government voted in favor of Resolution 1325 (the first Security Council
resolution to clearly associate a means to realize the participation of women in a) the processesof conflict prevention and resolution and in b) the protection, rights and special needs ofwomen in conflicts to the issues linking women with peace and security), which was passed in
the UN Security Council in 2000. For more than ten years since that time, however, no start
had been made on the formulation of an action plan for putting the Resolution into practice.
21

These issues are precisely connected with problems inherent in Japanese culture, andmoreover, it would seem that this inaction has occurred because the government has been
unwilling to recognize the huge unresolved question that exists before its very eyes. The workof formulating this action plan must be one that is undertaken jointly through cooperation
between civil society and the concerned government ministries and agencies.
Finally, at the Foreign Ministers’ meeting of the G8 held in April 2013, Foreign Minister
Kishida announced that work was to begin on the formulation of the action plan. The true
motive behind this appears to be that only two of the G8 member states, Russia and Japan,
have not yet begun working on the action plan. The slogan of the Abe administration, “makewomen shine” was also an important driving force. The work is now in progress following
strong demands for assured participation by civil society and sufficient time to be madeavailable for the drawing up of an effective plan.
However, it has become apparent that there are several points on which a wide gap inawareness and understanding exists between the women who have responded to the call andare participating actively in the formulation process and the government, with the Ministry ofForeign Affairs in the central role. This concerns the basic principle of the action plan. That is,while the government of Japan, as a “developed nation,” focuses on the elimination of theviolence against women in countries where armed conflicts occur, women are calling for Japanto first prioritize efforts to resolve Japan’s own problems. This issue consists of three main
points: (1) the Self-Defense Forces, (2) the US bases in Japan, and (3) historical
understanding.
3. The Self-Defense Forces
Whether it be the transport of supplies or the protection of Japanese nationals, when
Japan considers aid to countries involved in conflicts, this will be carried out by the
Self-Defense Forces. We need to ask to what degree the Self-Defense Forces are aware of the
problem of violence against women.
In 2006, a female member of the Self-Defense Forces, who was working at a Japan Air
Self-Defense Force (JASDF) communications base in Hokkaido, was sexually abused by asenior male. When the woman denounced the attack, because she was startlingly encouraged
to retire, she filed a state redress suit against the government. The trial drew a great attention
due to the involvement of a woman on active duty within the Self-Defense Forces and the factthat suffering caused by sexual violence and the reality of the handling of the case within theForces had been made a matter of public scrutiny.
In 2010, four years later, the court recognized the suffering to the female plaintiff causedby sexual violence and clarified that while the process leading up to the occurrence of thesuffering was atrocious, the ensuing handling of the case had been especially unlawful. In
what can be considered to have been a total victory for the plaintiff, the verdict stated, “TheSelf-Defense Forces, a group that exists for the purposes of combat, is an organization inwhich there is an overwhelming internalization of the chain of command,” and recognized thatby its very nature there is a disposition for the frequent occurrence of bullying and violence. If
that is so, then the organization must bear the duty to ensure that undue harm does not occur,that consideration is given for an environment in which new personnel and the small number22

of female personnel can continue to work in comfort, and that victims are protected fromfurther disbenefits. However, neither a fact-finding investigation nor sufficient efforts for
positive improvements were implemented, resulting in further cases of harm, some of which
are currently pending in court. Reports of horrendous bullying against male personnel are also
continuing without end.
The courts and police investigations have also clearly shown that training courses are no
more than mere formalities. In order to aim for realization of the notion that “sexual violence
is a crime, and it is important to eliminate the culture of impunity against the perpetrators andto change our mindsets,” it is first necessary to make robust efforts, for example, to strive toredress gender disparities, implement effective gender-sensitive training and review all kindsof regulations, including those relating to sexual harassment within the Self-Defense Forces.
4. US Bases in Japan and Violence against Women
The violence against women perpetrated by the existence of US bases in Japan and themilitary personnel stationed in them is a pressing issue that Japan needs to take action on. Of
the US bases in Japan, 75% or more are concentrated on Okinawa. Even since the return of
Okinawa to Japan in 1972, over 5,000 US service personnel, army civilian employees andtheir families have been arrested under violations of the criminal code. It is said that there areat least 20 times that number of persons who have committed criminal offences, but who havereturned to the US or have remained on Okinawa without their crime being questioned orwithout them being arrested. This is largely due to the unequal nature of the US-Japan Status
of Forces Agreement (SOFA). It is impossible to attain equality between people, as provided
for in the Constitution of Japan, under a situation where SOFA is seen to be placed in aposition superior even to the Constitution. The case of sexual violence against a girl by three
US soldiers that occurred just as the UN World Conference on Women was being held in
Beijing in 1995 received massive attention, and the governments of both countries promisedthat they would definitely make changes on the ground, but in fact nothing is being done.
The establishment of an effective method of dealing with the relations with such militaryforces stationed in Japan, including those on Okinawa, should be aimed for as a goal of the
Resolution 1325, but that would not be sufficient. The large US military presence on Okinawa
is the consequence of 20th century wars, and with this situation still continuing to this day,many people consider that it is hard to say that the conflict has been resolved. To the extent
that the action plan does not make a sincere attempt to deal with this issue, it will be
impossible to implement a transformation of the current situation in Japan.
5. Encouraging People to Transform their Mindsets
The issue of historical understanding is crucial in the aim for an effective realization of
Resolution 1325 that “eliminates the culture of impunity against the perpetrators and changes
our mindsets.”
The international community is currently focusing a great deal of attention on theJapanese government. The reason is that the Japanese government is ignoring a large numberof UN human rights recommendations, defiantly claiming that it has no obligation to observe23them, and, furthermore, is even trying to advance along the outrageous path of attempting tomodify the preliminary report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on violence against women,
its causes and consequences, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, in accordance with theCommission on Human Rights resolution 1994/45.
Regarding the issue of “comfort women,” there is a campaign being stirred up recently
that claims that the whole issue stems from a fallacious scoop article in the press and thus
there never was any “comfort women” issue in the first place, and even if there were someincidents that went too far, these have all now been resolved. On the contrary, the “comfort
women” issue is an historical injustice committed by Japan, and a serious fact concerning
violence against women in wars and conflicts.
The victims themselves are raising their voices for Japan to recognize these facts andmake sincere apologies and reparations. These ongoing issues must be tackled squarely and ina manner that will satisfy international assessments. We may say that a full recognition of thefacts and the very act of taking responsibility for one’s past actions will show us how toeliminate the culture of impunity and change our mindsets.
It is unfortunate that while it is now 107 years since the provisions for punishment ofsexual violence under the criminal law were codified they remain unchanged, and that there
has been no alteration in the provisions that view sexual violence as an infringement against
women as part of the assets of the ie (a household characterized by the traditional patriarchal
structure). This has simply been left as it is without any active attempt to encourage people totransform their mindsets.
The international community’s trust in Japan will not be restored if Japan continues topreoccupy itself with interceding in countries with armed conflict situations on the basis of theimplementation of Resolution 1325 and the formulation of the action plan while the inherent
issues of Japan remain unchanged. Since we now have this wonderful opportunity before us, I
strongly urge that we make every effort to rectify the false historical understanding andcontribute to the transformation of people’s mindsets.

24

F．
．Women and the Economy
OSAWA, Mari, The University of Tokyo
1. Gendered employment performance
From a “Women and Economy” point of view, one of the most remarkable changes since
the mid-1990s is that the average wage has been significantly declined in Japan, while it has
increased in other major industrialized economies. In Japan this change is certainly a genderissue as explained below. Figure 1 compares trends of compensation per employee in theprivate sector (indices at 1995=100) for G5 nations (France, Germany, Japan, the UK and theUS) and Denmark and Korea, showing that only in Japan it has declined to about 90 in 2009.
If you ask whether the regular male workers of Japan in their prime earning years, whohave the greatest employment security, have seen their pay checks dwindle as much as othergroups, the answer is evidently no. Trends in average designated wage (base wage without
overtime pay) levels are functions of three factors - changes in the base salaries of regular,
full-time workers, who are predominantly male in Japan, changes in the base salaries ofpart-time workers, who are predominantly female, and the percentage of part-time workers
among employees. The base salaries of regular, full-time workers rose from 1997 to 2002, has
not declined since then. The median hourly wages of female part-time workers stayed ataround 70% of female full-time workers, and at lower than 50% of male full-time workers. We
can therefore conclude that the overall decline in average nominal wage resulted from therising share of part-time workers, primarily among women, and to a certain extent among
young men, which is shown in Figure 2-1 and 2-2.
Figure 3 shows trends of male/female ratio of total wage, a gendered outcome of
employment performance, in G5 and some other countries. The earning power of Japanesewomen relative to that of men is quite low and has not improved. The figures have been loweven compared with Korean women since the early 1990s.
2. An economic and financial system vulnerable to shocks
The 2010 Annual Report on the Japanese Economy and Public Finance (hereafter,
Cabinet’s Annual Report) mentioned that the government’s fiscal activities have a “built-in
stabilizing” function. More specifically, this stabilizing function works as follows. When theeconomy is on an upward swing, the progressive taxation system increases tax revenues at a
rate faster than GDP growth, keeping the economy from overheating. When the economy is on
the decline, on the other hand, tax revenues decrease at a rate faster than the drop in GDP,
while government expenditures expand as a result of increases in payouts of unemployment
and other benefits, putting a brake on the recessionary trend.
As a proxy for such built-in stabilizing function, counter-cyclical function in other words,
the Cabinet’s Annual Report adopts the revenue (inclusive of both tax revenues and social
insurance premiums) as a percentage of nominal GDP, and finds that Japan’s revenue was thesmallest among advanced countries in 2006-07 (Cabinet Office 2010: 1-6-07).
The Cabinet’s Annual Report should, however, have examined progressivity of
government’s fiscal activities at the same time, because it seems that large-scale annual
25revenue would help the economy become resilient to fluctuations, only when the fiscal policy
is redistributive, or progressive enough. It has actually been revealed by the OECD Taxing
Wages report in 2013 that the personal income tax scheme as well as the tax wedge (sum of
personal income tax and employee plus employer social security contributions together withany payroll tax less cash transfers, expressed as a percentage of labor costs) in Japan has
almost the lowest progressivity among major OECD countries, as shown in Figure 4.
Japanese public finance was thus in the polar opposite situation to the hypothesis of
built-in stabilizing function, and it is not “beyond anticipation (souteigai)”, albeit it “shocking”,
that Japan’s GDP was more seriously affected by the Lehman shock than that of otheradvanced countries.
3. Unfavorable redistribution for the poor and households where all adults are working
In Japan’s small revenue, however, social security contributions has grown continuously
to reach the same level with Sweden in 2010, which imposed heavier burdens on lower
income earner (predominantly female), since those contributions have very regressive nature.
This is partly because some of the social insurance contributions (or a portion of them at theleast) are charged at a flat rate irrespective of the insured person’s income (e.g., a National
Pension contribution paid by a Class 1 insured person, and the monthly flat premium for the
National Health Insurance plan) and also because social insurance contributions are not fully
proportional to the insured person’s income as a result of the imposition of a contribution cap,of the “maximum monthly standard remuneration”.
In other words, the manner in which social security contributions (or government
revenues) are collected in Japan has grown increasingly unfavorable for low-income earners,
who are predominantly female, over the last two decades, and this has diminished both theeconomic stabilization function built into the government’s fiscal activities and the income
redistribution function. In parallel with these developments, the rate of increase in social
security benefit payouts was strictly curbed, especially since fiscal 2002 until 2008.
Japan’s poverty reduction rate for the working-age population, achieved through theredistributive mechanisms of the tax and social security systems, was the lowest among OECD
countries. The situation in Japan is unique not simply because of Japan’s low poverty
reduction rate, but moreover, contrary to the widespread understanding of income
redistribution as a means of reducing poverty, redistribution in Japan is “reverse-functional” inthe sense that it ends up increasing the poverty rate for certain groups among working-age
population (and children). The OECD’s Employment Outlook 2009 has made a very
informative disaggregation of working-age population from a gender perspective, which are
population in households where all adult members are working (dual income couples with orwithout children, single working parents and single working individuals) and those where only
one of the couple is working (with or without children). Through this data, we come across thefollowing astounding reality about income redistribution in Japan: only in Japan does thepoverty reduction rate for households where all adults are working actually take on a negativevalue at -7.9% (OECD, 2009: Figure 3.9).
These points clearly highlight the fact that, among OECD countries, Japan’s livelihood
security system is by far the most oriented around the male-breadwinner model (to the detrimentof dual-earning households and single-adult households), and that this orientation is attributable26

not so much to institutions and practices in the private sector, employment practices for instance,
but to the redistribution undertaken by the government through taxation and social security.
This state of affairs was brought about by the revisions of the tax system and “structuralreforms” in the social security system starting in the early 1990s, that is during the Beijing+20
period.

Figure 1: Compensation per employee in the private sector (1995=100)
240.0
220.0
200.0
Denmark
180.0

FranceGermany

160.0

Japan
140.0

Korea
United Kingdom

120.0

United States
100.0
80.0
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995

Source: OECD.StatExtracts.

Figure 2-1: Trends in proportion of non-regular workers among employees, female
80.0
70.0
60.0
1990

50.0

1995
% 40.0

2000

30.0

2005
2010

20.0
10.0
0.0
aged 15－ aged 25－ aged 35－ aged 45－ aged 55－
24
34
44
54
64

27

over 65

Figure 2-2: Trends in proportion of non-regular workers among employees, male
80.0
70.0
60.0
1990

50.0

1995
% 40.0

2000

30.0

2005

20.0

2010

10.0
0.0
aged 15－ aged 25－ aged 35－ aged 45－ aged 55－ over 65
24
34
44
54
64

Source: Labor Force Survey (the Special Survey and the Detailed Tabulation)

Figure 3: Trends of the male/female ratio of total wage
0.8
0.7

SwedenFinlandDenmark
FranceUS
CanadaAustralia
UK
Germany
Korea
Japan

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990

Note: Total wage = number of employees × working hours × hourly wage
Source: Cabinet Office, 2010 White Paper on Gender Equality, data in section 4

Figure 4: Average rate progression for one-earner married couples with 2 children, 2011
Tax wedge 50%-200%

PIT 50%-200%

0.800
0.600
0.400
0.200
0.000

Source: OECD Taxing Wages 2013, Special Feature

28

G．
．Women in Power and Decision-making
Decision
MIURA, Mari, Sophia University
Women’s presence in the decision-making
decisionbodies is extremely low in Japan, whichsignificantly pushes down Japan’s Gender Gap Index (GGI): the 105th among 136 countries(as of 2013). The Japanese government sets the goal of achieving 30% of women’s ratio in
leading positions in both public and private sectors
sectors by 2020, upholding the slogan of 202030
or “30% by 2020.” The second Abe Shinzo cabinet (2012-present)(2012 present) shows its commitment tothis goal and gives a high priority to women’s policy under the slogan of “society in which
women shine.” Although the government
government sets many numerical targets, it remains to be seen
as to whether such a soft approach without coercive measures brings about concrete results.
1. Women in Politics
The extremely low level of women’s representatives in Japan is the upmost factor thattha
drove its GGI score down. The women’s ratio in the Lower House is 8.1%, and 16.1% in theUpper House (as of August 2014). According to the Inter-Parliamentarian
Inter Parliamentarian Union (IPU) whichissues monthly world rankings of women’s ratio in the Lower House, Japan ranks
raat 132nd
1among 184 countries (as of May 2014). Japan is basically one of the bottom 30 countries inthis regard.
Although Japan’s international ranking is low, women representatives have steadily
increased in the past. Graph 1 shows the trend in the Lower House and Graph 2 that in theUpper House.
Graph 1: The Ratio of Women’s Representatives at the Lower House
30
25
20
% 15
10
5

1946
1947
1949
1952
1953
1955
1958
1960
1963
1967
1969
1972
1976
1979
1980
1983
1986
1990
1993
1996
2000
2003
2005
2009
2012

0

Candidate

ElectedSource: Source: Cabinet Office, White Paper on Gender Equality,
Equality 2014.

Both show the steady rise of women candidates and representatives in the past decades.
In 2009, the ratio in the Lower House for the first time exceeded 10%, reaching 11.3%. In theUpper House, the ratio went over even 20 % in 2007. Political parties have constantly
endorsed women’s candidates since 1989, at least securing 20%.
1

IPU (http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm
e/classif.htm), last accessed on August 10, 2014.

29

Graph 2: The Ratio of Women’s Representatives at the Upper House
30
25
20
% 15
10
5

Candidate

2013

2010

2007

2004

2001

1998

1995

1992

1989

1986

1983

1980

1977

1974

1971

1968

1965

1963

1959

1956

1953

1950

1947

0

ElectedSource: Source: Cabinet Office, White Paper on Gender Equality,
Equality 2014.

With respect to the local governments, the situation is worse than the national level.
Women’s ratio is only 8.7%
% at the prefectural assemblies and 13.1% at the municipal
assemblies. 40% of town and village assemblies do not include even a single woman.2 In
many other countries, women tend to gains more seats at the local levels than the national
level, but this doess not hold true in Japan. Patriarchal political culture still dominant in local
communities and homosocial networks effective for vote mobilization seem to discourage
women from running for elections.
These data clearly indicate that attaining “30% by 2020”
2020” is unrealistic, unless Japandrastically changes its approach.3 The government investigated the usefulness of positive
action measures and now asks political parties to contemplate the possibility of candidate
quotas (this intervention was authorized by the Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality issued in2010).
The response from the civil society has recently become more visible. In 2012, major
women’s organizations created Group Q (Group to Promote Quotas), and this group hosted a
symposium at the Diet member’s
member’s building on the women’s day of 2014, inviting
representatives from all the parties. The acting secretary general of the Democratic Party ofJapan proposed to set up a caucus for women’s quotas, which led to the birth of the Caucus to
Promote Women’ss Participation and Involvement in Politics in October 2014.
The civil society is now more concerned with the low level of women representation
partly because a woman member of the Tokyo metropolitan assembly, Ayaka Shiomura, wassubjected to sexist heckles
es while speaking about the necessity to support childrearing in June
2014. One shouted “you should get married as soon as possible,” while another asked if she
was not able to bear children. The incident drew widespread criticism, accumulating over
80,000 petitions within several days through an internet base petition tool, Change.org., todemand the Liberal Democratic Party to identify and punish the hecklers. After initial denial, amale councilor eventually admitted and offered her a public apology. A thoroughthorough investigation
was ruled out before the rest of the hecklers were unidentified. Minna no To (Your Party) towhich Ms. Shiomura belongs to, announced in July that it would introduce 25% quotas for its
2

Cabinet Office, White Paper on Gender Equality,
Equality 2014.
The Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality sets the goal of achieving 30% of women’s ratio at the level ofcandidates, not elected officials.
330

candidates in all levels of elections. The low presence
presence of women in parliaments, it stated, led
to sexual harassments, which urged it to take a visible step forward toward promotion of
women.
2. Women in Government
Compared to increasing women candidates in elections which is essentially up to thedecisionn of political parties, it is relatively easy to attain “30% by 2020” in the government.
The ratio of women among central government official entrants is 26.8% (as of 2013) and thatof Advisory Councils is 34.1% (as of 2013).4
The challenge lies with respect to increasing women officials at higher rankings. Only
2.9% are women at the level of section chief and 1.7% at the level of vice minister andequivalents. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe actively appointed women at senior positions
positio such as
prime minister’s secretary, vice minister of the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare,president of National Personnel Authority, director generals at the Ministry of Economy, Trade,and Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, as well as the Ministry of
Health, Labour, and Welfare. It remains to be seen if his successors also continue to appoint
women at important positions.
Notoriously long working hours in the central government have prohibited women frompursuing a fast stream career track. Responding to Abe cabinet’s policy to accelerate women’s
appointments, six women’s bureaucrats handed a proposal to the newly established Cabinet
Personnel Bureau to change the way in which work is done and evaluated in the government.
gov
It is customarily bureaucrat’s role to prepare ministers’ answers to questions in the Diet. Since
opposition parties often disclose their questions only in the last minutes, bureaucrats arecompelled to stay late during parliamentary sessions. The relationship between bureaucrats
and politicians (both ministers and the Diet members) needs to be scrutinized in the light ofwork and life balance among central government officials.
3. Women in Business
Women’s ratio in managerial positions in the private
private sector is 11.2% (as of 2013). Graph
3 shows the ratios of women in three managerial positions: subsection chief, section chief, anddirector. The higher up the position goes, the fewer women are appointed. Women’s share is
only 5.1% at the director level.
level 5Graph 3: Women’s Ration in Managerial Position
18
16
14
12
10
%
8
6
4
2
0

Director

1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013
Year
Source: Cabinet Office, White Paper on Gender Equality,
Equality 2014.
4
5

Cabinet Office, White Paper on Gender Equality,
Equality 2014.
Cabinet Office, White Paper on Gender Equality,
Equality 2011.

31

As far as board members among 3,068 companies whose shares are listed in the stock
markets are concerned, it is only 1.2%.6
In 2013, in orderer to increase the number of women in managerial position, Prime
Minister Abe requested major business organizations to include at least one woman in theboard. Consequently, Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) called on its member companies
to formulate voluntary action plans by the end of 2014 to appoint more women as managers
and board members.
4. Other Indicators
Let us briefly look at women’s ratios in other professions (Graph 4). Pharmacists
supersede the 30% goal and so do the government’s advisory councils. All the prefectural
councils for disaster prevention now contain at least one woman. The ratio varies from 40% to
1.7%, which suggests the importance of political initiative.
In order to increase women in leading positions, the government should give a higher
priority to the elimination of barriers for women to continuously work after childbirth. Only
38% of women stay in workplace after giving birth to their first child. The situation has not
improved since 2005.
Again, as is the case for the promotion of women bureaucrats, the reconciliation of workand family responsibility both for men and women is the key to achieve gender equality at
workplace. However, the government is reluctant to enforce effective measures to reduce
working hours. On the contrary, it aims to introduce a new working hour regulation that allows
employers to exempt from paying overtime payment to employees above a certain income
threshold. Once overtime payment is abolished, it is more likely that employees are forced towork even for longer hours. The Japanese government needs to be more aware ofcontradictions between policies. Integrated approach is thus necessary, bringing all the
relevant policies together
gether and evaluate their effects and counter-effects
counter effects as a policy package.
Graph 4: Women’s Ratios in Professionals and Other Indicators

Source: Cabinet Office, White Paper on Gender Equality,
Equality 2014.

6

Cabinet Office, White Paper on Gender Equality,
Equality 2011.

32

H．
．Institutional Mechanism for the Advancement of Women
MIURA, Mari, Sophia University
The report focuses on the national machinery for gender equality and gender mainstreaming,
which are the main institutional mechanism for the advancement of women.
1. The National Machinery for Gender Equality
The national machinery for gender equality in Japan consists of the three organizations.
Headquarters for the Promotion of Gender Equality
Council for Gender Equality
Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office
The headquarters chaired by the Prime Minister promotes the smooth and effective
implementation of gender equality measures, while the Council for Gender Equality,
comprising of 12 ministers and 12 experts, is required to submit to the Prime Minister its
opinion on the Basic Plan for Gender Equality. It is also required to study and deliberate on
basic policies and measures, as well as important matters with respect to promotion of theformation of a gender equal society. Finally, it also monitors the implementation status ofgovernment measures and surveys the impact of government measures on the formation of agender equal society. Expert committees under the Council assist the above functioning of theCouncil. Finally, Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office serves as the secretariat for the
Headquarters for the Promotion of Gender Equality, the Council for Gender Equality, as wellas the Liaison Conference for the Promotion of Gender Equality.
The government announced in September 2014 that the Headquarters for the Promotionof Women’s Active Participation would replace the Headquarters for the Promotion of Gender
Equality. At this point, it is uncertain as to what form the new regime of national machinerywill take and how much gender equality norm would be promoted under the new regime.
The national machinery has been located at the highest level of the government. It is
designed to be accountable to the Prime Minister, which makes it susceptible to varying
degrees of political commitment of the Prime Minister and the ruling party. In 2013, Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe appointed as a member of the Council for Gender Equality a scholar who
criticizes sex education programmes that include women’s reproductive rights and promotes arather conservative view of motherhood. Civil society organizations expressed their concernsthat gender equality policy could be compromised by such an appointment. It is important tocarefully monitor the process and content of the Fourth Basic Plan for Gender Equality that isscheduled to be formulated in 2015.
At the local level, authorities are required to enact an ordinance on the promotion of theformation of a gender equal society. All prefectures except one (Chiba) and all designatedcities have enacted the ordinances. 31.3% of cities, town, and villages have done so (as of2013). Formulation of an ordinance at the local level invited a political backlash in some cases,
thereby producing a controversial ordinance in the case of Ube City, Yamaguchi prefecture,and blocking the enactment in itself in the case of Chiba prefecture (the backlash movement33

began in the early 2000s and peaked in the middle of the 2000s.). It is thus crucial to carefully
investigate the actual implementation status of gender equality programmes at the local level.
The rise of the grass-root backlash movement suggests the limitation of top-down
approach led by the national machinery. First, the national machinery needs to reinforce thelinkage with civil society organizations. Although the national machinery regularly consultswith major NGOs and includes NGO representatives in the Council for Gender Equality andthe expert committees, partnership between the two parties need to be further fortified,because civil society organizations can strengthen the position of the national machineryvis-à-vis conservative groups and politicians.
Secondly, the national machinery needs to reach out to lay people in the society. Genderequality perspectives have not sufficiently penetrated into Japanese society, which laid thefoundation for the rise of backlash movement at the local level. The top-down approach risks
creating an image that gender equality is an elite project thereby blocking the smooth
implementation of gender equality programmes at the local level. The national machinery
needs to ensure that women and men of all categories benefit from gender equality policy.
Civil society organizations are able to assist in this regard to raise the awareness of the generalpublic as to the relevance of gender issues in their lives.
2. Gender Mainstreaming
Beijing Platform for Action added a new focus for national machineries: the mandate tosupport mainstreaming of a gender-equality perspective in all government policies andprogrammes. The Council for Gender Equality as well as the Gender Bureau are the gender
coordination unit located at the highest level of the government. Yet, the mainstreaming ofgender issues is still under way, partly because tools to assist gender mainstreaming have notbeen fully used.
(1) Basic Plan for Gender Equality (2000, 2005, 2010)
The government formulates the Basic Plan for Gender Equality every five years, whichfunctions as a coordinating process of gender mainstreaming. It has so far issued three Basic
Plans in 2000, 2005, and 2010. The contents of the Basic Plans reflect the politicalcommitment of the Prime Minister and the ruling party. The Second Plan was regressive since
it was formulated when the ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, was orchestrating ananti-gender equality campaign. It set as many as 42 gender performance indicators, but aparagraph on reproductive health/rights as one of the health issues to be addressed by thegovernment was deleted. The definition of “gender” was limited to “social developed gender,”as the phrase “culturally developed” was erased. The term “unpaid work” used for domestic
chores that should be examined through a Basic Survey on Social Life was also dropped.
In contrast, the Third Basic Plan is the richest among the three Basic Plans mainly
because it was formulated under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government (initiallyallied with Social Democratic Party and People’s New Party) and the then Ministers of Gender
Equality were committed to gender equality. The terms such as reproductive health/rights andunpaid work, which were deleted in the Second Plan, reappeared and the definition of gender
returned to “social and culturally developed.” Moreover, it extended the coverage to include,
for instance, benefits of gender equality for men and children, women and men facing poverty,
34gender equality in local communities, and respect to international norms. It also promoted
effective use of positive action measures in order to achieve 30% of women’s ratio in leading
positions in all areas of society. (The goal was set in 2003.)
Civil society organizations keep a close eye on the formulation process and content of the
Fourth Basic Plan for Gender Equality (scheduled in 2015). It is particularly important that
following issues continue to receive government’s support: policies toward the mostvulnerable, women’s reproductive rights, and education on reproductive health/rights.
(2) Gender Budgeting
The Japanese government has not yet implemented gender budgeting. Instead, the GenderBureau compiles budgets related to the implementation of the Basic Plan for Gender Equality.
As each ministry assumes a direct responsibility to make a budget, the role of the GenderBureau is limited to putting together budgets made and used by each ministry. Budget data are
not presented in a way that NGOs can assess a chronological trend or apply gender budget
analysis. Budgeting process needs to be improved so that NGOs are able to monitor outputs
and outcomes of budgets from a gender perspective.
Table 1 shows the total amount of budgets allocated to the implementation of the Basic
Plan for Gender Equality. It may appear that the budget jumped from 4.5 trillion yen in 2007
to 7.7 trillion yen in 2014, but the coverage is not consistent over time. A major increase took
place in 2010 because the Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality enlarged the coverage of
gender equality programmes and childcare policy also expanded at that year due to the birth of
the DPJ government which committed to “children first” policy. The increase in 2013 resulted
from the inclusion of budget related to reconstruction from the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Table 1: Budged for the Implementation of the Basic Plan for Gender Equality
Fiscal Year
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007

Amount (Unit: million yen)
7,731,000
7,357,000
6,325,000
6,721,000
6,111,000
4,271,000
4,158,000
4,552,000

Source: Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office(http://www.gender.go.jp/about_danjo/yosan/#yosan_20), last accessed on August 10, 2014.

In order to facilitate assessment of the differential impact of budgets on women and men,
the government should provide gender disaggregation of budgetary outlays. Such process is
supposed to raise awareness of officials with respect to the differential impact of seemingly
gender-neutral budgetary decision-making. Moreover, gender audit needs to be introduced,
requiring ministries and agencies to assess benefits of their budget implementations to womenand men. Such process would reveal differential allocation of resources to women and men
35thereby raising awareness of officials and the general public.
(3) Gender Statistics
Gender statistics are supposed to adequately reflect differences and inequalities in thesituation of women and men in all areas of life. Data need to be collected and presented
disaggregated by sex. The Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality stipulates that the government
should investigate an appropriate way of statistics to objectively capture the situation in which
men and women are put into. It also stipulates that the government should collect data
disaggregated by sex as much as possible and present and assess numerical goals
disaggregated by sex.
In 2013, the government conducted a survey as to the status of gender-disaggregatedstatistics on 114 indicators that the government uses to implement basic plans and outlines. It
turned out that 77 indicators collect and present gender-disaggregated data, but 33 indicators
do not even plan to compile data disaggregated by sex.1 It is an improvement that the
government investigated the current state of gender statistics in Japan. NGOs need tocontinuously give pressure to the government to employ gender statistics in all areas.
Another area worth mentioning is data on the status of women in private companies. Cabinet
Office collects and discloses data through its website as to the extent to which each company promotes
women’s participation and advancement2. This visualization project aims to cover all the 3,552
companies that are listed in the stock markets. Customers, investors and job seekers are now
able to evaluate companies’ practices with respect to the advancement of women. As thebusiness community does not welcome the enforcement of quotas, they preemptively disclose
data on the status of women and make their own action plans. Surveillance of and continued
pressure from the civil society are thus crucial to make use of newly available information for
the interest of women.
Availability of data regarding women’s situations in major private companies is welcoming,
but it should be also noted that the government conducts such policy under the initiative ofPrime Minister Shizo Abe who commits to creating “a society in which women shine.”
Instrumentalization of women for the purpose of economic growth might produce a favorable
environment for some career-oriented women, but NGOs need to carefully monitor whether theobjective of gender equality is not sidelined, especially for women in vulnerable positions.
3. Future Task
Cooperation with mass media to raise public awareness regarding the benefits of genderequality needs to be further developed. Outcomes of the major United Nations Conferences
hardly drew attention of mass media, thereby leaving general public uninformed oninternational agreements regarding women and gender equality or CEDAW recommendations
to the Japanese government. NGOs are expected to develop effective means and innovative
campaigns to raise public consciousness so that international pressures can be successfullytransmitted to domestic politics.

1
2

http://www.gender.go.jp/kaigi/senmon/kansi_senmon/20/pdf/shiryo_s.pdf (Last accessed on August 10, 2014).
http://www.gender.go.jp/policy/mieruka/company/mierukasite.html (Last accessed on August 10, 2014).

36

I．
．Human Rights of Women
GOTO, Hiroko, Chiba University
1. The Constitution of Japan and CEDAWParagraph 232(d) of the Beijing Platform of Action indicates that amongst actions to betaken by governments are to ‘review national laws, including customary laws and legal
practices in the areas of family, civil, penal, labour and commercial law in order to ensure theimplementation of the principles and procedures of all relevant international human rights
instruments by means of national legislation, revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on
the basis of sex and remove gender bias in the administration of justice’.
Japanese women have two effective legal tools to guarantee our human rights. One is theConstitution of Japan of 1945. The Constitution has an equal right clause that states ‘All of thepeople are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic orsocial relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin’. The other strong
legal tool for us is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979. Japanese government
ratified CEDAW in 1985. We have been in possession of these two powerful legal tools morethan 30 years; we had them at the time of Beijing Conference in 1995.
However, we still have many laws against gender equality. Japanese family law (Civil
Code) still has many discriminatory provisions. The minimum age for marriage is 18 years formen and 16 years for women (Article 731). Only women have to wait 6 months before theyremarry after divorce (Article 733). When registering their marriage, the couple has to choose
either one of the spouses’ surnames (Article 750), and 95% of couples choose the husband’s
surname. These provisions have been criticized by the CEDAW Committee, but the Japanese
government has ignored the Committee’s concluding observation so far.
In 1996, Legislative Council of the Ministry of Justice advised the Minster of Justice torevise these discriminatory clauses in the Civil Code, but the Japanese government, including
the administration under the Democratic (a non-conservative) Party, has never proposed therevision to the Diet.
Japanese Cabinet Office conducted a National Survey for Family Legal Framework in
2012. According to the survey, 46.0% favored changes to make marriage age for both sexes
the same. Concerning the choice of the surname of a couple, 36.4% supported the present
Article 750 of Civil Code, 35.5% favored its change. 24.0% said that it was acceptable forwomen to use their maiden names in business. 59.8 % also answered that spouses using
different surnames would not affect family relationships1. CEDAW Committee also indicatedthat Japanese courts were very reluctant to apply the Convention to legal cases. It said that ‘theCommittee is concerned that the Convention has not been given central importance as abinding human rights instrument and as a basis for the elimination of all forms of
discrimination against women and the advancement of women in the State party. In this1

Japanese Cabinet Office, National Survey for Family Legal Framework in 2012,
http://survey.gov-online.go.jp/h24/h24-kazoku/index.html

37

connection, while noting that article 98, paragraph 2, of the Constitution stipulates that treatiesthat are ratified and promulgated have legal effect as part of the State party’s internal law, theCommittee is concerned that the provisions of the Convention are non-self-executing and are
not directly applicable’ and ‘the Committee urges the State party to take immediate measures
to ensure that the Convention becomes fully applicable in the domestic legal system, and thatits provisions are fully incorporated into national legislation, including through theintroduction of sanctions, where appropriate.’2
In order to improve this situation, we have tried to use these legal tools in Japanese court.
Some lawyers have tried to adapt these tools to gender discrimination cases. In March 2014,
the Tokyo High Court declined cases of couples’ choice of surnames. Plaintiffs claimed thatthey had a right not to be forced to change his/her surname under the Constitution and the
CEDAW Convention. The court said that plaintiffs had no constitutional right not to be forced
to change surnames and Article 750 of the Civil Code was constitutional. The court also ruledthat CEDAW articles were legally binding but they were not self-executing nor directly
applicable. This case has been appealed to the Japanese Supreme Court.
2. Local government and gender equality ordinance
The Beijing Platform of Action in Section 232(i) urged governments to ‘provide
gender-sensitive human rights education and training to public officials, including, inter alia,
police and military personnel, corrections officers, health and medical personnel, and social
workers, including people who deal with migration and refugee issues, and teachers at alllevels of the educational system, and make available such education and training also to the
judiciary and members of parliament in order to enable them to better exercise their public
responsibilities’.
We still have witnessed many cases lacking gender-sensitive education. I would like toshow one recent case.
Japan introduced the Basic Act for Gender-Equal Society in 1999 and the government
adopted Basic Plans for Gender Equality under this law. Now we have the third Basic Plan andanother Plan will be adopted in 2015. Under this Act, local governments are strongly
recommended to adopt gender equality ordinances. Now 46 out of 47 prefectures have suchordinances.
Tokyo Metropolitan Gender Equal Ordinance was enacted in 2002 and Tokyo
Metropolitan government adopted its Action Plan for Gender Equality. Now its third action
plan has been implemented from 2012. The third plan includes promotion of gender equality
in business area and work-and-life balance, support for single-parent household, andprevention of sexual crimes and sexual harassment.
In April 2014, a female member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly was heckled in its
April session. Unidentified male assembly members yelled at her that she should get married
and have children in a hurry while she tried to debate the support for childrearing. A maleassembly member was identified later and apologized to her.
The Assembly has an ethical code of conduct; however his identity was not discovered by
2

Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women: Japan,
CEDAW/C/JPN/CO/6, 7 August 2009, paras.19-20.

38

the time limit for disciplinary action. Then it adopted a resolution for taking preventive
measures for inappropriate conduct by members. However, the Assembly did not indicate that
his conduct was sexual harassment or sexist abuse, nor a violation of Gender Equality
Ordinance3.
The Gender Equality Ordinance prohibits discrimination against women and sexual
harassment. It was discussed and adopted in the Assembly. The Assembly members are
expected to behave in a manner, reflecting awareness and sensitivity against discrimination
against women.
This might be a reflection of under-representation of women in positions of influence inJapan. The Assembly has just 26 female representatives out of 126. All but 78 of the 772 seatsin the upper and lower houses of the National Diet are occupied by males. The ranking ofJapan in the Global Gender Gap Index by the World Economic Forum has always been low inthe last five years because of the under-representation of women in decision making4.
Affirmative action should be powerful tool to change this unequal political situation, andsome parties introduced candidate quota systems in nominating their candidates several times
in the past twenty years; however, we have no such system for female candidates mandated5.
Moreover, the Assembly did not introduce any concrete educational program to prevent
further sexist abuse. It has to establish gender-sensitive ethical code of conduct as well. Of
course it is an issue not only within the ethical but also in the legal sphere.
3. Criminal justice and gender inequality
The Beijing Platform of Action in Section 232(l) urges governments to ‘review andamend criminal laws and procedures, as necessary, to eliminate any discrimination against
women in order to ensure that criminal law and procedures guarantee women effective
protection against, and prosecution of, crimes directed at or disproportionately affecting
women, regardless of the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, and ensure thatwomen defendants, victims and/or witnesses are not revictimized or discriminated against in
the investigation and prosecution of crimes.’
In the past twenty years, our criminal justice system has started to recognize the existenceof victims/survivors. In order to support victims/survivors, the Criminal Procedure Law wasrevised and the Act on Measures Incidental to Criminal Procedures for Purpose of Protectionof Rights and Interests of Crime Victims were introduced. They include the following:1) opportunity to express their feelings about the damage suffered from the offense (2000)
2) witness protection measures(2000): shielding a witness from the defendant or the public at
the court; keeping the witness in a different room for testimony; testifying via audiovisualcommunication through the transmission of images and sound (video-link system); and being
accompanied by being accompanied by a personnel of the court3) concealing victims’ identity (2007)
3

Hiroko Goto, Josei ni taisuru bouryoku toshite no yaji (Sexual hecklings as violence against women),
pp.228-233 , Sekai, No. 860, 2014
4
World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap Report 2013, p.10,
http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2013
5
For example, in 2014, Your Party announced to introduce candidate quota system.
http://www.your-party.jp/activity/press/002940/

394) right to participation in criminal trials (2007): sitting at the bar, during asking question to
defendant, closing argument and sentencing recommendation as the prosecutor.
We introduced the Basic Act on Crime Victims in 2004 and the government adopted the
Basic Plan for it in 2005. Now we are on the second phase of it. In the last twenty years, legal
supports for victims/survivors have been reinforced; however, their emotional, psychologicalor financial supports are still ignored.
Our crime rate has been low compared with other economically developed counties andreported cases and arrested numbers have been decreasing dramatically recently6. However,female arrest rate is almost stable.
Many people in Japan, including professionals and academics still believe a myth thatcriminal justice system is gender-neutral. In fact, the criminal justice system itself is so‘masculine’ because it was made by men to protect public=male interests. In this context,
categories of crimes are formed by men. It indicates that women’s life had been ignored
relating to crime. In modern system based on patriarchy, females are forced to stay in theprivate sphere and there are no crimes in that sphere. When women become victims ofdomestic violence or child abuse, they might be forced to live outside of the home. They may
end up in drifting in society and commit crimes to survive. Women’s spaces in the publicsphere are limited and these spaces tend to be connected to crimes or criminals. Theirbehaviors for survival could be recognized as crimes. They are treated as male, as
criminals=male in criminal justice system, since crimes, by definition is acts by men, and laws
governing such are for men. They are evaluated according to criminal=male standards.
Because of this, female criminals are victimized again in criminal justice system. Second or
third victimization by the system makes it difficult for female criminals to recover from crimes.
The criminal justice system does not care about gender differences regarding the pathway tocrimes or recovery from crimes.
We have to find a way to make criminal justice system more gender-sensitive and gendermainstreamed.
4. Human Rights of Women in Prison
Japanese incarceration rate is not high compared to other economically developed
counties and the population in prison is decreasing7. However, numbers of female prisoners
are increasing in the last two decades. There are 9 female prisons in Japan. They have been
overcrowded for decades. Female prisons have no treatment index8 to classify prisoners. All
kinds of female prisoners, like first offenders and reoffenders, are mixed in prison. This meansthat it is very difficult for female prison staffs to treat them. Moreover, it is also difficult for
female prison staffs to work after their marriage or after giving birth to children because
prisons are usually located in remote areas and they work on 24-hour and 365-day shifts. We
have to promote gender-equality in prison to guarantee women’s rights.

6

Hanzai Hakusyo 2013 (White Pater on Crime 2013), Figure 1-1-1-1.
http://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/jp/60/nfm/n_60_2_1_1_1_0.html
7
Id. Figure 2-4-1-3. http://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/jp/60/nfm/images/full/h2-4-1-03.jpg
8White Paper on Crime 2012, http://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/en/61/image/image/h002004002002h.jpg

40

J．
．Women and the MediaHAYASHI, Kaori, The University of Tokyo
Gender & Communication Network (GCN)
1. Conservative Media and Politics
Abe Shinzō, the current Prime Minister of Japan (Dec. 2012- ) adopted a series of newpolicies in line with his conservative political views soon after the Liberal Democratic Party
regained the majority in both the Upper and Lower Houses of the Diet in July 2013. Among thesenew policies was the highly controversial Secret Information Protection Act, set to be enacted in
December 2014. This new state secrets law was conceived to toughen penalties for civil servants,
politicians and any others who leak sensitive information related to diplomacy, defense, terrorism
or espionage. A wide range of social groups including opposition parties, journalists and citizen
groups have raised grave concerns believing that the law’s vague wording could give thegovernment too much power over the disclosure of public information and thus risk limiting
freedom of the press and the public’s right to know - all in the name of national security.
The current government line was also reflected in a series of appointments for important
posts at NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), Japan’s sole public broadcaster. At his
inaugural news conference on January 25, the newly appointed NHK President Momii Katsuto
effectively rejected the broadcaster’s core principle of journalistic impartiality by stating “We
can’t say ‘left’ when the government is saying ‘right’.” He also dismissed claims relating to theissue of comfort women and the Imperial Army’s practice of forcing Asian women into
prostitution during World War II, arguing that such wartime practices have “existed in every
country.” His comments drew sharp criticism from both inside and outside Japan as Momii holds
the ultimate editorial control over the nation’s most influential and trusted1media institution.
Critics have also questioned appointments to NHK’s Board of Governors, their top
decision-making body. One new appointee, Hasegawa Michiko, Professor Emeritus of
Saitama University, published a column in January saying that a woman’s most important task
is to bring up her children, and that childcare should take priority over working outside thehome. Prior to this statement she published an essay praising the right-wing extremist Nomura
Shūsuke, who committed suicide in the office of the liberal daily Asahi Shimbun in 1993.
Another new appointee and popular novelist, Hyakuta Naoki, denied Japanese involvement in
the massacre in Nanjing, China, in 1937. Appointed by Prime Minister Abe both board
members were instrumental in rallying support for Abe’s second bid for leadership of the
Liberal Democratic Party in 2012, and both remain close to the current administration. A third
appointee to the board was Abe’s tutor during elementary school.
When he served as Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary in 2001, Abe was one of two politicians
who allegedly “requested” NHK to revise the content of a controversial documentary program
dealing with the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery.
The program was altered as a result. The independence and credibility of Japan's publicbroadcaster has been seriously damaged by such political interference.
1

http://www.chosakai.gr.jp/notification/index.html (Accessed 7 August 2014)41

Japanese politics is known to be a male bastion, and journalism has long failed torecognize and criticize this exclusive macho culture. On 18 June 2014, a Tokyo assemblyman
heckled a female colleague during an assembly session by jeering “you should get marriedrather than ask questions.” This story was first carried only locally, but thanks to the Internet
and social media it developed into a national, and soon after, international news story. This
incident brought to light the fact that heckling of female politicians and lawmakers with sexist
remarks is a common practice in Japanese politics and that the media has overlooked suchabuses for decades. This story reflects the persistent traditional chauvinistic attitude inJapanese politics, business and media circles. (KODAMA, Miiko)
2. Media Organizations as Masculine Workplaces
Women are still significantly underrepresented in Japanese media organizations. According
to the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF), the average percentage of womenacross all job levels in the Japanese media industry stands at 15.2%, significantly lower than theworld average of 35.1%2. It is likely that this tendency will persist at least into the next decade as
we have seen very little progress in the past (Figures 1, 2 and 3). Senior media management
positions in particular are occupied mostly by men while women tend to work only in thestereotypically “feminine” sections of family, lifestyle and culture. Even though percentages
have relatively improved compared to those of the 1980’s and 90’s, vertical and horizontal
segregation based on sex and gender is still common within the industry.
Figure 1: Number of Women Employed in NHK (Public Service Broadcasting) (%)
100% of womenamong allpositions

％
80
60
40
14.5%

20 5.9%0 1.5%
1988

4.4%
1993

1998

2003

% of womenamong themanagement
positions2008

Source: Sōgō Jānarizumu Kenkyū [Journalism Studies] 1988-2013

Figure 2: Number of Women Employed in Commercial Broadcast Stations (%)
100 %% of womenamong allpositions

80
60
40
17.0%
20
1.4%
0
1980 1985

21.1%
12.2%
1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

Source: The Japan Broadcasters Association 1980-20122

http://www.iwmf.org/our-research/global-report/ (Accessed 27 July 2014)42% of womenamong
management
positionsFigure 3: Women Journalists in Newspaper Companies (%)
100 %
50
16.5%
1.6%
0
1983

1988

1993

1998

2003

2008

% of
women
journalists

2013

Source: The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association

Major Japanese media companies incorporate many traditional features of Japanesemanagement into their own corporate management practices. Most companies guarantee
lifetime employment to their employees including reporters, photographers and editors, andprovide them with firm-specific training and skills after recruitment. Consequently, because ofheavy corporate investment in human capital and resources, switching companies during one’s
career is regarded as disadvantageous and seldom takes place. This human resource
management style has an effect on gender balance. With its offers of relatively high salaries,
diverse social benefits, and generous spending on staff training, Japanese media management
tends to favor employees that are worth the investment, i.e. those who give 24-hourcommitment and loyalty to their company and work uninterruptedly throughout their career
until retirement. In short, journalism in Japan is a job designed for breadwinners. By necessity
then, the breadwinner needs support from a spouse who can take 100% responsibility for thehome and housework. Recent government research shows that almost 40% of employees inthe broadcasting sector reply that they work an average of 60 hours or more per week. 30%
have ten or more nightshifts per month and 70% consider it difficult to maintain a healthy
work-life balance3. Human resource managers at the major media firms the authors of thisreport interviewed admitted that they prefer to cap the percentage of women at 30% to 40%
from among new college graduates, even though most female candidates outperform theirmale counterparts at job exams and interviews.
To alter the traditional employment system it is necessary to increase the number ofwomen at top decision-making levels. Already in 2005, the Japanese government set theobjective of filling 30% of public and private sector managerial positions with women by 2020,
but little progress has been made so far. Likewise Prime Minister Abe, long thought to be an
unlikely leader to advocate for gender equality due to his conservative views, pledged topromote women’s empowerment in his policy platform, but his policies failed to introduce thefundamental measures necessary to combat the male corporate culture of long and inflexible
working hours. In a society where the majority of people are reluctant to acknowledge hidden
gender biases, it seems this will be an arduous task. Continued efforts must be made tocarefully monitor progress. (ISHIYAMA, Reiko)
3. Burgeoning Alternative Media
While corporate culture in conventional media remains as masculine as ever, alternative
media is thriving with a growing number of women playing active roles. Following the Great
3

Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office, Surveys were conducted in Dec 2011.
www.gender.go.jp/research/kenkyu/sekkyoku/pdf/00_full_set.pdf (Accessed 22 July 2014)43

East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011, thirty small-scale, temporary emergency broadcast
FM radio stations were established in the disaster inflicted Tohoku (northeastern) region to
enable the sharing of evacuation, rescue and recovery effort information in affected local
communities. One such radio station, FM Aozora [Blue Sky] in Watari Town, Miyagi Prefecture,is operated by a network of mothers who teach children at a private tutoring school. The
earthquake provided these mothers with the decisive impetus to take up the microphone out ofsheer necessity. Although there are still very few women executives in mass media, a growing
number of women are beginning to play an active role in community media such as FM Aozora.
Women have also become essential to public access television operated by cable television
networks. Under the directorship of Nishiumi Mari, Musashino Mitaka Public Access TV Station,a specified nonprofit corporation that serves both Musashino City and Mitaka City in the Tokyo
Metropolitan Area, focuses on community building, local culture and children. The public accessTV station also engages in community education activities that support public video andfilm-making projects, foster media literacy and nurture self-expression through film.
Eizō Hasshin Terere is another media-related citizens forum that presents films created byordinary citizens. The Osaka-based group, overseen by Shimonobō Shūko, got the idea of‘four-walling’ from French civic broadcasting groups that screens their films in cafés. All
submitted works, regardless of quality or level, are aired unconditionally. The goal of thegroup is to foster dialog based on the audience’s reactions to the diverse works of ordinary
citizens. Similar initiatives are spreading to other communities throughout Japan.
With regard to internet broadcasting, ever since the Great East Japan Earthquake and theensuing disaster at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant, OurPlanet-TV, another specified
nonprofit corporation, has continued to question Japanese nuclear energy policy. The director,
Shiraishi Hajime, a former TV director, has won numerous scientific journalism awards
including the Hosō Woman Taishō [Women in Broadcasting Award] for her reporting on theaccident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant and its ensuing consequences. She continues toplay a pivotal role in post-Fukushima era journalism by constantly questioning government
policies from a grass-roots perspective and by capturing the reality of mothers and children in
Fukushima, which mass media has been unable to keep pace with.
The media activities introduced above are generating a new type of communication that isboth free of conventional objectivity constraints and rooted in the local community andpeople’s lives. These women have turned their backs on the conventional methods ofcommercially driven, self-censored corporate media outlets. The number of supporters of andparticipants in media outlets and activities that place high value on such alternative practices
continues to grow, slowly but surely. (MATSUURA, Satoko)
4. Digital Technologies and Future Challenge
The alternative media activities described above are largely underpinned by the growing
accessibility of digital technologies. According to an OECD survey conducted in June 2013,
Japan boasts the second largest fixed and wireless broadband market among OECD countries,
just below the United States4. With ready access to broadband technology, Japan has become
one of the most socially diffuse information and communications technology (ICT) societies
4Japan takes up 11 % of the share in the OECD broadband market.
http://www.oecd.org/internet/broadband/oecdbroadbandportal.htm (Accessed 22 July 2014)44

in the world. The 2014 White Paper on Telecommunications found that household Internet
usage in Japan has reached 82.8%. The increased use of the Internet and other digitalcommunication technologies such as mobile and smart phones in recent and coming years isbringing major changes in the everyday lives of ordinary citizens, both at work and home. At
the same time however this increased use of the Internet has given rise to new social problems
relating to privacy, security, internet addiction and crime. In this final section, we will addresssome of the expectations and challenges related to gender and minority in the digital age.
Two of the biggest challenges facing Japan today are the country’s aging society and its low
birth rate, both of which contribute to the decline in Japan’s working age population.
Aggravating the effects of the decline further however is the fact that men and women ofworking age find it significantly difficult to stay in the workplace when they have elderly family
members in need of care and that more than 60% of working age women who are having
children quit their jobs upon marriage or childbirth, even though most desire to keep working.
Digital technologies offer many opportunities for change in the Japanese workplace toameliorate the effects of the decline in the working age population. It is hoped that further
introduction and advancement of ICT will enable diverse arrangements for people to work fromhome. The adoption of teleworking by major corporations however remains at only around 10%.
We need to design more flexible working styles with the assistance of digital technologies.
Finding new paths toward more desirable social media (SNS) use is another challenge.
SNS is most popular among individuals in the 20 to 49 age bracket, but its use often poses
problems among younger children. The government has taken steps to promote the appropriate
use of ICT by young people with the “Act on Development of an Environment that Provides
Safe and Secure Internet Use for Young People.” Use of SNS however, continues to spread
without sufficient understanding of SNS manners and ethics and society has been slow in
responding to such problems as hate speech and cyber bullying. Furthermore, according to the2014 White Paper on Crime, the number of internet-related crimes in violation of the “Act on
Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography” has doubled
to 1520 cases over the last five years. This shows that there is a pressing need to monitor at theschool and community levels, the risks posed to young people by digital technologies such as
online dating services, rife with underage prostitution.
When used properly however, SNS has proven to be successful at supporting such initiatives
as promoting comprehensive support programs for victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake andproviding emergency shelter, counseling and training for survivors of domestic violence. Women
have accumulated a substantial body of knowledge and experience regarding such use and it is our
future task to make these initiatives and their potential widely known to society at large.
Finally, the rapid spread of ICT use has impacted the lives of individuals within different
age groups in different ways. Training and assistance efforts, appropriate for each age group,
must be undertaken to increase media literacy among both the producers and the consumers ofthat information. ICT workshops and classes, similar to the kinds used to instruct the varietiesof generations and social groups affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake held by women5,
are useful as examples as we find ways to support more long term institutional ICT initiatives
to narrow the gaps in use of the Internet. (AOKI, Reiko)5

One example is an initiative supported by Oxfam. http://risetogetherjp.org/?page_id=93#lang_en

45

K．
．Women and the Environment
DOMOTO, Akiko (Japan Women’s Network

for Disaster Risk Reduction)
ODA, Yukiko (JAWW, Kitakyushu Institute on
Sustainability)
The Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) recognizes the detrimental effects ofenvironmental degradation on the health, well-being and quality of life of girls and women of
all ages and specifies three strategic objectives: K.1. Involve women actively in environmental
decision-making at all levels, K.2. Integrate gender concerns and perspectives in policies andprograms for sustainable development, and K.3. Strengthen or establish mechanisms to assess
the impact of development and environmental policies on women. This recognition is thereaffirmation of the Agenda 21 adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment andDevelopment in 1992.
How much has the BPFA been implemented in Japan over the past two decades?
Unfortunately, the answer is not positive. Neither women’s equal participation inenvironmental decision-making, nor mainstreaming gender concerns and perspectives insustainable development polices has been achieved, although some progress has been made.
1.

Women’s equal participation in environmental policy- and decision-making
Women have been playing a significant role in environmental protection in Japan andtheir contributions have been highly valued by the environmental community, in both thegovernment and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Most environmental NGOs
responded that women’s opinions are valued the same as men’s in their activities and no
gender based discrimination exists in their management.
The importance of women’s participation in environmental policy- and decision- making
has been also recognized in Japanese government’s environmental policies, though it has beensporadic. For instance, the Third Basic Environment Plan (2006), which maps out the basic
approach of environmental policies and measures based on the Basic Environment Law inJapan, mentions promoting women’s participation in both formation and decision-making
process of policies as important. Another example is in the National Biodiversity Strategy
2012-2020, which is Japan’s roadmap for achieving the Aichi Biodiversity Targets approvedby the Cabinet in 2012. The Strategy sees women’s participation crucial in order to bring up todate the issues of biological diversity in the society.
In spite of these favorable examples, the level of women’s participation in environmental
policy- and decision- making is generally far from equal. Applying the female ratio ofmanagerial positions in the Ministry of Environment (MOE) as a proxy to measure the level ofparticipation, the percentage doubled from 2.3% to 4.5% from January 2007 to January 2013,
although the number of women in managerial position is still only 5 persons out of total 193
persons as of January 2013. In spite of the MOE’s action plan to increase the number offemale managers and officers, it is unlikely that the figure will improve quickly because
women newly recruited to the MOE in April 2013 was only 6 persons (26.1% of all members).
In addition, the history of recruiting women to the MOE is relatively short.
46

Another indicator to gauge women’s participation in policy- and decision-making is the
proportion of female members of national advisory councils and committees. The percentage
doubled for the last 17 years from 16% in 1996 to 32.8% in 2013, yet the figure is below thetarget set at 40- 60% female representation by 2020 in the Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality.
NGOs face similar shortcomings in terms of women’s participation in decision-making
despite their high self-evaluation of gender equality in management as introduce above. The
statistics shows that of 2,744 organizations listed on the Comprehensive Environmental
NGOs/NPOs List of 2008, whose main activity is environmental conservation; only 13.5% are
led by women. In addition to shortage in number, women-headed organizations seem to be lessinfluential in environmental decision-making arenas as they tend to be small in size and morecommunity-based, while the NGOs headed by men tend to cover a larger geographic area andhave many organizations under their networks. As the representatives of environmentally
active NGOs are often appointed to be members of the local advisory councils and committees,
women have less opportunity to participate in decision-making in spite of their contributions.
Internationally, at the 18th Conference of Parties (COP18) of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha in 2012, a decision was
adopted to promote gender balance in the Parties’ representation and to improve women’s
participation in UNFCCC negotiations and in bodies established pursuant to the Convention or
the Kyoto Protocol. To my regret, Japan places at the 10.1 - 20% range level that is much
lower than the average of 32%, according to an analysis of women’s representation at the
UNFCCC meetings between 2008 and 2012.
These statistics indicate that women’s participation in the environmental policy- and decisionmaking in Japan has not been sufficiently achieved and much more effort needs to be undertaken.
2.

Integration of gender perspectives into the national environmental policies andprograms
Starting from the anti-pollution and protection of the natural environment against
industrialization, environmental policies have emerged over the last two decades in Japan
since the Agenda 21 in 1992. A series of laws, acts, policies, and measures have beendeveloped to tackle emerging environmental issues such as global warming, biodiversity loss,
health hazardous chemicals and finally the decontamination of radioactive materials.
How have gender perspectives been integrated into these environmental issues? The answer
is again disappointing judging from language used in the three Basic Environment Plans. From
the First Plan in 1994 through the Third Plan in 2006, the Plans appreciated women’s knowledge
and experience in environmental conservation activities and included the term of gender equality
in the Plans statement. The Plans also declared the necessity of promoting women’s participationin decision-making. The Fourth Environment Plan in 2012, however, reversed the trend andfailed to mention either gender or women. The Fourth Environment Plan ensured safety andsecurity as a core concept of its measure as the Plan was laid down after the Great East Japan
Earthquake in 2011. But it did not acknowledge the significant role that women play in theachievement of safety and security, or that gender equality is the key to these goals.
Why did the Plan omit the terms of gender and women from the Fourth Environment
Plan? One explanation can be attributed to a recent change in emphasis on green economy
with focus on technologies and financial measures. After the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, thepolicy focus has been the reduction of greenhouse gas emission along with the enactment of47

the Law for Promotion of Global Warming Measures in 1998. In promoting this policy,
changing lifestyles from mass consumption to 3R (reduce, reuse, and recycle) became
important and attention was paid to women, who led the practice the 3R at home and in theircommunities based on their gender role. Thus, the role of women and the necessity ofintegrating women’s concerns as well gender equality were recognized in the Plan, eventhough the recognition was peripheral. The countermeasures and efforts for global warming
have been continuing today, however, the government broke away from the second Kyoto
Protocol commitment period from 2013 to 2020. It set a less ambitious target to reducegreenhouse emissions by 3.8 percent compared to the 2005 level by 2020 and more emphasis
was put on the market mechanism in partnership with the private sector. For this shift, lesspriority was put to women’s role and gender equality and thus the Fourth Environment Planomitted women and gender from its statement.
Contrasting this downward trend, the environment has been mainstreamed in the policyof promoting gender equality. In the Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality in 2010, the“environment” was identified as one of 15 priority fields, upgrading from the previous plans.
This indicates that the integration of gender perspectives into the environmental policies will
be possible if the policies for promoting gender equality are strengthened.
3.

Establish mechanisms to assess the impact of development and environmental
policies on women
Despite the recognition of BPFA’s strategic objective, the mechanism of collecting
gender-disaggregated statistics and the incorporation of the data in policy formation,
monitoring and evaluation are very weak in Japan. For instance, nurturing foresters is one ofmeasures of the National Biodiversity Strategy 2012-2020 and a target number is provided tomonitor the implementation process, but gender-segregated target is not given. There is no way
to know if and how many female foresters were trained.
Another example is the Japan Environment and Children's Study, a huge birth cohort
study launched in 2011 in order to identify harmful factors in the environment that affectchildren's growth and health. The Study involves as many as 100,000 parent-child pairs
nationwide and the expectation of the results is high. But the survey does not clearly mention
if the data will be analyzed by gender. It seems that Study focuses only on children as a group.
It is already known that gender gaps exist in perception, attitude and behavior on waste
management, especially on 3R in Japan. Young males are the group of people who least
acknowledge the significance of 3R and exercise in their daily life, but no specific measures
have been taken to educate these indifferent groups. In this way, even if gender based statistics
exist, they are not incorporated into policies and measures.
According to a series of polls on the biodiversity conducted by the government, it was
revealed that more women are willing to take eco-friendly actions than men, though male ratio
is higher than female in terms of knowledge of biodiversity. This gender gap again has notbeen taken in consideration in the National Biodiversity Strategy 2012-2020. The Strategy
only refers to citizens without paying attention to gender. Women’s enthusiasm and motivation
have not been valued in the measures to combat biodiversity loss.
As these examples indicate, the importance of collecting the gender based data has notbeen recognized; the mechanism of collecting gender differentiated data is insufficient; and thedata even when it exist is not utilized in formulating policies and measures.
48

L．
．The Girl-child
TANAKA, Masako, JAWWASANO, Mariko, JAWW
Translated by FUSANO, Kay, JAWW
1. Situations in Japan
The priority theme of the 51st Session of the CSW in 2007 was Elimination of All Formsof Discrimination and Violence against the Girl-Child. In Japan at that time and now, childprostitution and child pornography have been serious problems. In 2007, JAWW published abook based on the priority theme of the CSW, entitled Discrimination and Violence against theGirl-Child: Situations in Japan and Approaches to Eliminate It, Akashi Publishing Company.
The following report shows challenges that remain to be overcome in Japan and recent
outcomes concerning girls’ education.
2. Main Legal Responses Concerning the Girl-child and the backgrounds in JapanIn 1994, Japan ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and its Optional
Protocol to the Convention on the Sale of Children, and the Child Prostitution and Child
Pornography was ratified in 2005. In 2001, the Second World Congress against Commercial
Sexual Exploitation of Children was held in Yokohama city and the National Plan of Action on
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children was established and promoted the legal
approaches to commercial sexual exploitation of children.
In 1999, the Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child
Pornography and the Protection of Children was enacted. In 2003, Act on Regulation on
Soliciting Children by Using Opposite Sex Introducing Service on the Internet was enacted.
Very recently, in 2014, the Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution
and Child Pornography and the Protection of Children was revised and the “simple possession”
was at last prohibited like western countries.
Japan has no national action plan specific to the Girl-Child to date because the Girl-Childhas been regarded to be included in the category of women. As a result, statistical data
describing the situation of the girl-child have not been fully compiled.
3. The Serious Situation Regarding Human Rights Violations of the Girl-Child
3.1 The situation of commercial sexual exploitation of children
Table 1 shows statistics released in 2014 by the National Police Agency. It shows
statistics on the number of cases sent to the police agency in the past decade. Although thenumber of cases of child prostitution is decreasing, that of child pornography is increasing.
The number of victims is great in child prostitution via online dating websites. However,the number of cases is decreasing due to the revision of the act on regulation of online dating
websites and the arrest of offenders who violated prohibition of solicitation (those whosolicited minors knowing that they were under 18), but it is worrisome that the number ofvictims is increasing in the case of child prostitution via community sites because free49

telephone application is available and ID exchange is possible through bulletin board system.
Table 1: Number of cases arrested on the charges of violating the Act on Punishmentof Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and theProtection of Children (2003-2013)
Year
No. ofcases sent
Child
Prostitution(via
onlinedatingwebsites)(via
telephoneclubs)(via
community sites)Child
Pornography(viaInternet)(via filesharing
softwares)

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

1,945

1,845

2,049

2,229

1,914

1,732

2,030

2,296

2,297

2,291

2,353

1,731

1,668

1,578

1,613

1,347

1,056

1,095

954

842

695

709

791

745

654

775

679

531

358

254

230

213

213

212

178

219

169

61

46

72

54

86

29

39

-

-

-

-

-

994

1,347

1,541

1,421

1,311

859

215

177

470

616

567

676

935

1,342

1,455

1,596

1,644

102

85

136

251

192

254

507

783

853

1,058

1,058

-

-

-

-

-

-

54

156

368

519

507

The number of cases via community sites in 2013 shows that of the first half of the year.
Source: National Police Agency, June, 2014

The number of victims is great in child prostitution via online dating websites. However,the number of cases is decreasing due to the revision of the act on regulation of online dating
websites and the arrest of offenders who violated prohibition of solicitation (those whosolicited minors knowing that they were under 18), but it is worrisome that the number ofvictims is increasing in the case of child prostitution via community sites because freetelephone application is available and ID exchange is possible through bulletin board system.
3.2 The situation of child pornography
As shown in Table 1, victims of child pornography are increasing in number and laws failto change the trend. Child pornography is not a simple recording of obscene images. 80% of
the images depict rape, forced sexual intercourse and acts that violate human rights of actual
children. Even in some foreign countries where the possession of adult pornography islegalized, child pornography including its simple possession is regarded as a crime. In Japanthe law was revised this year (2014) and the simple possession of child pornography was atlast banned.
Unfortunately, of the 646 victims in 1644 cases in 2013, 270 produced pornographic
images of themselves by themselves and 50% of them seemed to have voluntarily sold theimages to buyers. The fact shows the importance of education at school.
50

In July, 2010, the National Police Agency released comprehensive measures to crack
down on child pornography. The following three policies are now being promoted at the
Cabinet Office and the National Police Agency: (1) disclosure and punishment of producers,(2) deletion of pornographic images from the Internet, and (3) aid to victims.
It is difficult to save child victims once their images are exposed on the Internet. It isconsidered as an effective care and support to the victims to provide continued counseling by
juvenile counselors qualified as clinical psychologists
4. Protection needs for the girl-child4.1. Abortion of teenage girls
The number of abortions of women under 20 exceeded 40,000 around 2003 and it
became a social problem. At present the number has halved as shown in Table 2, and thenumber has been stabilized in every age bracket since 2010.
Table 2: Number of Abortions by Age
Age

1995

2000

2005

2010

2011

2012

Under 20
19
18
17
16
15
Under 15

20,117-44,477-30,119
11,635
8,236
5,607
3,277
1,056
308

20,357
7,291
5,190
3815
2,594
1,052
415

20,903
7,257
5,204
4,099
2,831
1,046
408

20,650
7,100
5,344
4,038
2,701
1,076
400

Source: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare
The figure under 20 is the total number of 19 to under 15.
4.2. Necessary health measures

First of all, in order to prevent unwanted pregnancies, it is necessary to give informationon the prescriptions of low-dose contraceptive pills and emergency contraception as part ofsexuality education at school.
The side effects of cervical cancer vaccines are now a health issue in Japan. Cervicalcancer is almost always caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Of the 100,000
doses, 6.9 cases of serious side effects are reported. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare
doesn’t now recommend active injections of the vaccine. Access to information on the vaccine
is important if girls are already sexually active.
5. Girls’ Education
Use the search engine as ‘Japan,’ ‘girls’ education’ or ‘boys’ education” as key words,
and you’ll find it is difficult to get valuable information on researches and education outcomesof girls’ education. The situation is quite different from Western countries where single sex
education is highly evaluated and tried, while in Japan single sex education is not researched
nor interests researchers.
In order to measure the impact of the environment consisting of only women and girls,
the Girl Scouts in Japan conducted a research on middle school girls and high school girls
51

studying at co-educational schools as well as middle school girls and high school girls
participating in the Girl Scouts activities1. They found a clear difference between girl scouts
and other girls in (i) self-affirmation, (ii) contribution to society, positive attitude without
feeling shy in front of strangers, and confidence in their own views. They confirmed
superiority of girl scouts to other girls. As for (i) (on a maximum scale of 4), middle school
girl scouts got 1.37, while other middle school girls got 1.14; high school girl scouts got 2.38,
while other high school girls got 2.13. (ii) rates of affirmative answers were 73.9% among
middle school girl scouts, while those among high school girls scouts were 79%. As forco-educational school girls, only 47.6% of middle school girls gave affirmative answers, while
61.9% of high school girls did so. These findings2 coincide with the outcome of awarenesssurvey released by the Cabinet Office in May this year 3 , which identified the lack ofself-affirmation among Japanese youth4, including boys and girls5.
“Anna and Snow Queen,” a film shown all over the U.S. in fall last year, won the 86th
Academy Award’s long animation film section award. The Walt Disney Company was taken
notice of its first ever appointment of a female director for the film6, but the film wasco-directed by female and male directors. Although it is a product of gender equality based on
the collaboration of both female and male directors, no media took any notice of the fact.
Different from the usual women and girls who passively wait for the rescue from princes, theheroines, two sisters, challenge their hardship for themselves and show what they can do bythemselves, which held the audience spellbound7. In Japan many people from pre-school
children to older people visited movie theaters8 and the total number of audience exceeded
17.000.0009 as of June 4, 2014. The fact that citizens have a good opportunity through media
to consider how women should live is expected to lead to an impact that will change Japanesesociety10.

1

Girl Scouts of Japan (March, 2014), Girls Will Grow Further: Necessary Power and Environment for Girls,
Bearer of Our Future. Survey Period: July 2012~February 2013 (Preliminary Survey: 2011); Method of Survey:
Survey Forms, Online Questionnaire and Group Interview; Target: 237 middle school girls and 112 high school
girls at coeducational schools; 323 middle school girl scouts and 262 high school girl scouts.
2
Mari Kataoka, Mieko Hisayoshi, Masami Tajima and Orie Nakamura, Impact of Experiences as Girl Scouts on
the Self- of Middle and High School Girls, in Japanese Society of Educational Psychology, “Collection of Papers
Presented at the Annual Conference,” 2011; 52: 547．
3
Nikkei, Not Confident but Want to Be Useful, Lack of Self-affirmation of Japanese Youth. See
http://www.nikkei.com/article/
DGXNASDG2501E_W4A520C1CICR0000/
4BLOGGS “Awareness Survey on Japanese Youth”, http://blogos.com/article/87286/
5
Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Awareness Survey on the Youth.
6
New Era of Disney Animation! ‘Eccentricity’ of the film directed by the first female director and casted two
women as heroines. http://news.mixi.jp/view_newspl?media_id~14&id=2804273
7
Sugar covered gender perspective of “Anna and Snow Queen”. http://blogos.com/article/84395/
8
Secrets hidden behind the great success of “Anna and Snow Queen” http://mdpr.jp/dcisney/detail/1356504
9
Chuokoron, “Refused to Carry! Akio Nakamori’s Pershttonal Interpretation of ‘Anna and Snow Queen’”
http://real-japan.org/%E3%80%8C%E4%B8%AD%E5%A4%AE%E5%85%A8D%C%E8%AB%96%E3%8D%E6%8E%B2%E8%BC%89%E6%8B%92%E5%90%A6%EF%BC%81-%E4%B8%AD%E6%A3%AE%E6%98%8E%E5%A4%AB%E3%81%AE%E3%80%8E%E3%82%E3%83%8A%E3%81%A8%E9%9B%AA%E3%81%AE/10
The 3rd Survey on “Seeing Movies at Movie Theaters,” NTT Com. Research Portal,
http://research-nttcoms.com/database/data/001895/

52

Q．
．Women and Work
Equality Action 21
Introduction
In 1995, under the globalization of the economy, the Nikkeiren [Japan Federation of
Employers' Association] published a report called “The Japanese Style of Management in the
New Era.” Since then, labor laws and regulations have been rapidly deregulated. As a result,the number of irregular workers among women workers grew to over 50% in 2002 and is still
increasing (Figure 1). Poverty among women has persisted and intensified.
Figure 1: Composition Ratio of Employees* by Employment Status

1985
1995

Female

2005

Male

2012
2013
Regular employee
Part-timer including students
Other types of casual workers including dispatched workers

Source: Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Labour Force Survey (Detailed Tabulation)
Note*: Employees excluding executives of company

In Japan, traditional gender concepts have not yet been swept away. Such concepts
include the traditional family image, according to which women are dependent family
members and their earnings only supplement family income. The job segregation by genderis deeply rooted.
The present Abe administration is trying to raise the fertility rate to counteract thedecrease of the labor supply due to a dwindling birthrate and an aging population. Under theslogan of “Active Participation of Women” the Abe administration is also trying to bolster thefemale workforce by increasing irregular work. However, the Abe administration has notoffered any remedies for “maternity harassment”, i.e. the harassment that women workers facein the workplace when they get pregnant and have babies.
Setting the wage of a male regular worker at 100, a female regular worker’s wage is 71.3,
for part-time workers it is 50.7 (Figure 2). There have been many lawsuits against wage
discrimination by gender in the past several decades and many victories and victorious
settlements have been achieved. Under the recent reactionary tendencies in the court,
however, we have seen a chain of unfavorable rulings. Still, women workers including53

irregular workers continue to bring new law suits.
Figure 2: Ratio of Female Wage to Male Wage (Male employee’s wage=100)
Female regular
employee
Male part-time
part
employee
Female part-time
part
employee

Source:: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Basic Survey on Wage Structure (2014)

1. Irregularization and impoverishment of women workers
As of March 2014, irregular workers consist of 57.5% of female workers and womenmake up 67.8% of all irregular workers. Most
Mo irregular workers are on fixed-term
term contracts, sothey have difficulties in claiming their rights, out of fear that their next contract renewal will
be rejected.
For over last 10 years, the annual income of 43.2 % of the women workers has been two
millionion yen or less, which is considered to be below the poverty line. Impoverishment of
women has worsened. In particular, it is severe for single mothers who are familybreadwinners (approximately 1.08 million people). Their average annual wage is 2.23 million
milli
yen 1,, which is only 41.4% of the 5.38 million yen, average annual income of all households
in Japan in 2010. These women have to work day and night in double jobs to maintain theirlives.
2. Gender equality in the workplace
The Equal Employment Opportunity
Opportuni Law (hereafter, the EEOL) was established in 1986
and has been revised twice since then. Revisions prohibited discrimination in employment andpromotion (before the revision employers were only obligated to make their best efforts not todiscriminate), as well as indirect discrimination. But the EEOL still limits indirectdiscrimination to only three example cases and discrimination by employment managementclassification is overlooked. Furthermore, wage discrimination is not covered by the EEOL
and Article
cle 4 of the Labor Standards Law, which stipulates equal wages for men and women,
has not been enforced effectively. In the 2013 review of the EEOL,
EEO , only the enforcement
regulations and the regulatory guidelines were revised, and those changes came into effecteffrom July 1, 2014. The job evaluation system to realize equal remuneration for men andwomen workers for work of equal value, based on international standards (ILO Convention
No.100), has not been established, though some studies have been made. The percentage ofwomen managers of the private sector is only 11.1% which is the lowest in the advanced
1

Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Nationwide Survey on Fatherless Families (2011)54

countries (Figure 3). In order to promote “Active Participation of Women”, the introduction
introductof
quota system is most required.

Figure 3: Female Ratio in Management Positions in the Private Sector*
SectorSub-section
head

Section head

Department
head

Source: Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Basic Survey on Wage Structure* Enterprises with 100 employees or more.

3. Policies for irregular employment
The Part-timetime Employment Act was amended in April 2014. Previously, Article 8 of the
Act prohibited discrimination against part-timepart time workers when: 1. The job description is thesame as ordinary workers, 2. The contract is without a fixed-term,
fixed term, 3. The personnel system isapplied same as ordinary workers. The above condition No. 2 was removed by theamendment of the Law, but only 2.1% of all part-timepart time workers (approximately 300 thousand
thousapeople) are covered by the remaining two conditions.
The Labor Contract Act, which was amended and enforced in April 2013, allows
fixed-term
term contract employees with renewed contract periods of over 5 years to convert theiremployment contract to non--fixed
ed term status. But, there is no guarantee that their working
conditions are same to those of regular workers. Cases have been reported that employers
terminate labor contracts before 5 years to avoid such conversion.
The Worker Dispatching Act of 1985 limited the employment of dispatched workers tocertain professional jobs, but this limitation has been removed through a series of five
amendments. The most recent amendment in 2012 under the Democratic Party Government
prohibited the use of dispatched workers
workers on a daily basis in principle, and required dispatchingbusiness operators to make a best effort to employ dispatched workers without a fixed-term
fixed
and to improve wages and other conditions. The Abe administration is proposing a newamendment of the Act,ct, which will force dispatched workers to remain dispatched workers
indefinitely. Indirect employment will further increase precarious jobs. In addition, women’s
poverty will be aggravated since women dispatched workers are mostly insecure
registration-type status.
4. Work-life balance55

Of women workers, 62% leave their jobs after having the first baby (Figure 4). This trend
has not changed even after the introduction of the Child Care Leave Act in 1991. The
backdrop of this phenomenon is “maternity harassment”
harassment” in the workplace. Article 9 of theEqual Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) and the Article 10 of the Child Care Leave Act
prohibit discrimination against women based on pregnancy, childbirth and/or taking child careleave. There are an increasing number
number of inquiries for assistance to dispute resolution andconsultations to the local government’s labor bureaus regarding the violation of the EEOL and
the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act.
According to statistics provided by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 20122,
only 1.89% of male regular workers take child care leave compared to 83.6% of female
regular workers in the private and public sector. The Unemployment Insurance Act wasamended in April 2014 to raise child care leave benefits by 67% for the first 180 days. But theamendment benefits only small portion of targeted population. Irregular women workers, whocomprise nearly 60% of women workers, hardly ever take child care leave.
Figure 4: Changes in Employment
Employment Status of Wives before and after Giving Birth to
Their First Child, by Year of Birth of First ChildNo jobbeforepregnancy

Leftwork fordeliveryContinued
working withchildcare leave

Continued
working

Source: National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, The Fourteenth Japanese National Fertility
Survey (Survey on Married Couples), 2010.
Notes:
The figures shown are for first-marriage
firstcouples. For the statistics on before and after giving birth, the data of1.
couples whose first child is 1 to under 15 years old.
2.
Definition of Employment status:
1) Continuous employment (using child-carechild care leave): employed when finding out about pregnancy, tookchild-care
care leave, and employed when the child was
w one year old2) Continuous employment (not using child-carechildleave): employed when finding out about pregnancy,
employed at the time the child was one year old, without taking child-care
child
leave
3) Cessation of employment upon becoming pregnant: employed when finding
finding out about pregnancy andunemployed at the time the child was one year old4) Unemployed since before becoming pregnant: unemployed when finding out about pregnancy andunemployed at the time the child was one year old

2

Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Basic Survey of Gender Equality in Employment Management (2012)

56

R．
．Migrant WomenYAMAGISHI, Motoko, Solidarity Networkwith Migrants in Japan
OGAYA, Chiho, Yokohama National
University
1. Overview of migrant women in Japan
According to the most recent statistics of the Immigration Control Bureau of the Ministryof Justice, as of the end of 2012, out of the 2,033,656 foreign residents in Japan, 1,111,787 (or55%) were women. Their residential status are as follows: permanent resident: 389,296 (mostof them having changed their visa status from ‘spouse of Japanese’), special permanent
resident: 190,757, spouse of Japanese: 111,456, and long-term resident: 87,266 (migrantdivorcees could attain this status). These figures show that a majority of migrant women living
in Japan are, in fact, long-term settlers who came to Japan through the increase in international
marriages after the 1980s. It is noted that holders of ‘Student’ (86,773) and ‘Technical Intern’(82,806) visas have also been increasing among migrant women in Japan.
In general, migrant women in Japan have been facing multiple discrimination, violationand exploitation based on their gender and country of origin. Despite their need for special
support and consideration as minority women, the Japanese government has never conductedany studies on the situation of the migrant women nor has it passed any comprehensive laws
or measures to protect their human rights and assist in their settlement. Due to the lack ofsupport system, various human rights violations have been committed against them.
2. International marriage /divorce and lack of policy support for settlement
The number of migrant women settling in Japan through marriage has been increasing
since the 1980s. There are an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 international marriages taking place
annually since the 1990s. Married migrant women constitute a large proportion of the migrant
women population in Japan, although their number has been slightly decreasing after 2006,
then the number was 44,701, at the most. There is also an increase in the number ofinternational divorces from 10,000 to 20,000 cases annually. Since the year 2000, the divorce
rate between Japanese citizens and foreign nationals has grown higher than the marriage rate.
In 2012, 16,288 international couples divorced. That is 6.9% of the all divorces in Japan. In
contrast, international marriages were only 3.5 % of all marriages in Japan in that same year.
NGOs provide counseling to a number of migrant women, and a majority of these cases
pertain to international divorces or the breakdown of marriages. Most of these cases are
Domestic Violence (DV) related and the evident power disparity between Japanese husbands
and their migrant spouses. In addition, migrant women often experience discrimination andisolation within their families and communities. One of the reasons for this is the lack of laws
and measures to help these women settle down in their communities, such as Japanese
language lessons, child care support, employment support and information dissemination andcounseling in their own languages, to protect them from human rights abuses. These measures
are utilized in other developed countries and recently, in South Korea.
57

Japan has the Basic Act for a Gender-Equal Society which was established in 1999.
However, migrant women were only mentioned for the first time as “foreign” women in one of
the subsections in the Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality in 2010 Any further specificmeasures and even just a study for preparing them have not yet been conducted.
Comprehensive legal measures should be established to ensure the safety of the lives of
migrant women in their families and communities, to prevent discrimination and human rights
abuse.
3. Insufficient protection measures for migrant women from Domestic Violence (DV)It is widely known that migrant women are vulnerable to physical, mental and sexual
violence because of their cultural differences and unstable legal status. Various internationalorganizations have recommended the need for special consideration and treatment of minority
women, who are vulnerable to violence. In the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing
1995, this issue was already pointed out in the Beijing Platform for Action.
In Japan, DV against migrant women is a serious issue. Although there is no official
statistic on the total number of DV victims, it is estimated that the temporary protection rate of
migrant women DV victims at Women's Consulting Offices is around five times higher thanthat of Japanese women. This is according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare(MHLW)’s statistics of temporary protection from DV and the population ratio of migrant andJapanese women.
Upon the first revision of the 2000Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and theProtection of Victims in 2004, the provision for “respect their human rights regardless of theirnationality” was inserted in the Act, aiming to address the serious damages done to migrant
women DV victims; however, the practical support for migrant women on site is stillinsufficient.
Consequently since migrant women are systemically forced to depend on their Japanesespouses to acquire resident status, an abusive husband may threaten his wife that he will not
help her in acquiring resident status if she does not obey him; then willfully prevents her fromobtaining residency/permanent resident status/citizenship or prolongs the legal process. These
conditions make it difficult for migrant women victims to escape from their abusive partners.
There have been cases when migrant women - who have lost their residential status due to thelack of cooperation by their abusive husbands - ran to the police seeking protection from DV,
but were instead arrested due to the violation of the Immigration Control Act. The fact is that
migrant women are a highly vulnerable group and the Japanese system of residential status
systematically makes these women depend on their Japanese spouses, as a result, foster DV.
There is no sufficient support system for them. These realities have been repeatedly
pointed out and various recommendations have been proposed.1 In response, the Japanese
government revised the Immigration Control Act in 2009 to strengthen the control overforeign nationals by requiring them to report any changes related to their registration status
and if they are late to report, they have to face criminal punishment. The revision even
1

The final resolution of the Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women in August 2009, the Bustamante United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights ofMigrants in March 2010, the recommendation from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in
March 2010 and August 2014, and the United Nations Human Rights Committee 2014.

58

introduced the expansion of the annulment of resident status. It is strongly feared that theseactions by the Japanese government will not only foster more DV cases but also moredisregard for the rights of migrant women.
4. Human trafficking
Human trafficking cases in the form of managed prostitution and sexual exploitation havebeen observed in Japan since the 1980s. Most of the victims in the 1980s were Filipino andThai women, however women from Latin America, Eastern Europe and Russia have also been
included after the 1990s. NGOs and some embassies have been supporting these victims ofsexual exploitation for a long time. The Japanese government for its part took its first action
when it signed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially
Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime. And it established an Action Plan against Human Trafficking in 2004, which
was then revised in 2009. In 2005, related laws were partly amended accordingly.
In 2010, the Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality specified the measures on the victimsof human trafficking. However, even under those actions, the numbers of victims recognizedby the related offices were too small. According to the statistics of Ministry of Justice,recognized victims are only 10- 20 annually in recent years and, in 2013, it was only 12. Thisshows that the government’s recognition of the victims of trafficking is too limited and that
more actual victims are possibly forced into the underground. NGOs are requesting for the
clarification and expansion of the measures of recognition of victims by introducing theguidelines for it.
Among the recent cases wherein NGOs have assisted, the increase of trafficking inindividuals using the guise of marriage and labor exploitation under the Technical Intern
Training Program have been observed. Various maltreatment and human rights abuses such as
unfair wages, long working hours, collection of guarantee charges, confiscation of passports,
confinement of workers and forced repatriation have been reported under the Technical Intern
Training Program. International organizations and the U.S. State Department have repeatedly
claimed that this program is “modern slavery” or “human trafficking for the purposes of labor
exploitation.” However, the Japanese government is even planning to expand this program andstill does not recognize the victims of labor exploitation as human trafficking victims. Various
recommendations from different international organizations were already proposed.2
5. Rights as workers
Most migrant women in Japan face difficulties in their employment. One of the problems
is that the job available for them is quite limited; spouses of Japanese and long-term resident
women (most are Japanese descendants from Latin America) are often in factory work whileothers are in the sex-related service sector where human trafficking have frequently occurredsince the 1980s.
In the sex-related service sector, serious problems remain such as unclear labor contracts,

2

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons 2008, the Committee on the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 2009, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination 2010 and 2014, and the United Nations Human Rights Committee 2014.

59

unpaid wages, wage cuts as “penalty”, and the difficulties for seeking help against humanrights violation such as forced prostitution.
Recently, the number of migrant women who have entered Japan as “Technical Intern”
and work in the small to middle scale factories or farms are increasing. Those women often
suffer from long working hours with low wages, fierce controls including confiscation of
passports and sexual harassment.
In fact, there are no limitations on employment for the women who have the residential
status as “permanent resident”or “ spouse of Japanese” based on their marriages to Japanese,
as well as women who have the “long-term resident” status due to their divorces fromJapanese spouses or by virtue of being Japanese descendants. However, due to the lack ofopportunities for Japanese language lessons and job training, migrant women often stay within
the limited sector at minimum wage levels.
In June 2014, the Japanese government announced the “Japan Revitalization Strategy
2014.” It emphasized the utilization of Japanese women and foreign talents and proposed thenew plan to introduce foreign nationals to the labor force. Amidst the trend of aging and lower
fertility rate in Japanese society, it is predicted that more newly arrived migrant women will be
accepted as workers in the care, domestic work and nursing sector. A recent media report on acase of exploitation and human right abuse by the recruitment agency against Filipino women
who came to Japan as long-term residents to work as caregivers only implies that the numberof these cases will be increasing in the near future. With the expanded plan of receiving moremigrant women in Japan, the protection of the rights for the workers is imperative.
6. Recommendations to the Japanese Government (GOJ)The GOJ should conduct studies on the situation of migrant women, and from thesefindings establish a comprehensive legal system for the protection of human rights andfor the support the settlement of migrant women.
・ The GOJ should strengthen measures to prevent violence against migrant women (e.g.
DV and human trafficking). Ensuring the residential status for the victims of violence
and the protection of the victims of human trafficking in the form of labor exploitation
should be prioritized.
・ From the viewpoint of protecting migrant women’s rights, the provision of therequirement to report changes and the annulment of residential status in the 2009
revised Immigration Control Act should be amended.
・ The GOJ should carefully examine the current plan of receiving the new migrant
workers in the care and domestic work sector, in terms of the rights of women and ofworkers, then from this should establish the appropriate measures.

60

S．
．Women with Disabilities
SEYAMA, Noriko, DPI Women's Network Japan
Women with disabilities are discriminated due to the combination of disabilities and thegender gap. With this recognition, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (CRPD) included the provisions on Women with Disabilities in Article 6.
Hence, we, DPI Women's Network Japan (hereafter DPIWNJ), made a proposal to theCommittee for Disability Policy Reform (CDPR) in regards to revising the Basic Law for
Persons with Disabilities in 2011. Influenced by our approach, the Second Opinion to
Disability Police Reform subsequently included the need of measures for women withdisabilities. We felt a strong sense of support by this. Unfortunately, the Basic Law for Persons
with Disabilities, after it was revised in2013, did not contain any provisions on women withdisabilities as found in the Second Opinion. Through this experience, the DPIWNJ confirmed
the stronger need to the current status of the multiple discrimination women with disabilities
face and to position it explicitly in laws and regulations.
In this effort we conducted a survey on Living Difficulties of Women with Disabilities
from April to November in 2011. The purpose of the survey was to disclose a large number ofdifficulties women with disabilities experience through their life which require legal remedy.
Along with questionnaires and interviews with women with disabilities, a survey on theDomestic Violence Prevention Program and the Basic Plan for Gender Equality was conductedbased on the annual reports and the plans posted on 47 prefectures’ official websites. The
responses of 87 surveyed individuals across the country were categorized into types of issues
and analyzed. The results were issued as Living Difficulties of Women with Disabilities: A
Report on Current Status of Multiple Discrimination” in March 2012.
1. Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse is a serious issue women with disabilities go through and it must be solved.
Therefore sexual abuse is herein addressed first.
The dominant response in the survey was sexual abuse: as many as 35% responded thatthey have experienced sexual abuse in their lifetime. The responses indicated that theoffenders were their bosses at work, teachers or staffs at school, service providers at welfare
facilities or healthcare settings, caregivers and family members at home. Victims need to stayand cannot easily leave these types of settings. Furthermore it is common among the reported
incidents for the offenders to be in an advantageous position, which is highly likely to
discourage victims to make any effort in reporting abusive incidents although they may fallunder crime.
Some offenders may take advantage of characteristics of disabled women such as those
who are unable to escape, to counter sexual abuse, or, because of their intellectual disabilities,
are unable to have their testimony accepted or to identify offenders by voice or physicalappearance. Difficulties in achieving financial independence may also hinder women withdisabilities to escape from abusive situations and their vulnerability makes them difficult toreport.
61

2. Caregiving/Assistance
Relating to sexual abuse is caregiving and assistance, which is another problem for
women with disabilities. Our survey discloses that opposite sex caregiving has a relatively
high level of problems, both in its seriousness and quantitative aspects.
Caregiving by same-sex does not mean that the problems will be eliminated just byproviding female caregivers should always be provided to females and male caregivers tomales. Yet, it does mean they should be assisted by someone whom women with disabilities
feel most comfortable with. A lot of women with disabilities request to be assisted by female
caregivers. The possible reasons are: caregiving frequently involves physical contact and those
who receive caregiving that involves such contact are at high risk of sexual abuse. It is truethat females are more likely to be sexually abused by males. Women with disabilities assisted
by male caregivers are more uncomfortable and at a higher risk of sexual abuse than men withdisabilities assisted by female caregivers. Women’s bodies are often seen as sexual objects orvalued as commercial products. Considering these characteristics of women, it explains why it
is such a threat and pain for women with disabilities to receive assistance that involve physicalcontact from men.
On the other hand, some men with disabilities request to be assisted by male caregivers.
Some of them claim that they are uncomfortable with female caregivers who act like a mother.
Among other types of occupations, there is a significant difference in the ratio of men
versus female caregivers. Research indicates that 80.6% of caregivers are female and 90.8% of
home-visit caregivers are female according to a Survey of Care Workers by Care WorkFoundation in 2007. The number of male caregivers at hospitals and other facilities are,however, on the increase. Although women with disabilities request to be assisted by female
caregivers at some facilities daily activities such as excretion care and bathing are conductedwith male staff assistance according to the workplace rules. This may be because hospitals andother facilities prioritize the job assignments of caregivers and labor management over therequest of those who receive the services.
3. Reproductive Health and Rights
Among the responses in our survey, there were of those who were forced to undergo
eugenic sterilization under the Eugenic Protection Law. There were other responses fromthose who were recommended hysterectomy in order to be free of assistanceduring menstruation. Although it has been argued about possible cases of hysterectomy
performed, official investigation has not been held. Thus, it holds great significance for this tobe reported as their own experiences.
To further supplement details, sterilization has been performed without consent of thereferred person under the Eugenic Protection Law which became effective in 1948 and wasrevised as the Maternity Protection Law in 1996. The law was made to “prevent the birth ofinferior offspring”. “Inferior offspring” means the disabled persons and sterilization has been
performed to those with genetic disabilities as well as to those with likelihood of having
disabled children. Sterilization is a surgery to disable reproductive functions. Based on theprovisions in Articles 4 and 12 of The Eugenic Protection Law, upon a medical doctor’s
application, sterilization may be performed without consent of the referenced person.

62Consequently, 70% of the operated individuals without their consent turn out to be women1.
In respect to this practice, during the 64th General Assembly of the UN Commission of Human
Rights in 1998, the Final Review of the Commission of Human Rights issued a final
recommendation to the Japanese government stating that “the Commission recognizes theneed to abolish enforced sterilization, regrets that the current laws do not contain provisions
for the rights to compensation for those women subjected to such procedure, and recommends
the government to take necessary legal measures.” However, provisions to “the rights tocompensations” as recommended as above have not been practiced yet.
4. Work and income
Our survey reveals that there are many women with disabilities who wish to work but are
not understood by others. The social norm in Japan is founded on a traditional gender role thatis men earn money for a living and feed women who engage in housekeeping. Because of thisgender role, unmarried women who are not supported by their husbands are likely to be
exposed to financial difficulties. Quite a few women with disabilities, since their childhood,
have made a determination to one day get a job and live independently because they thoughtthat they might not get married due to their disabilities. Regardless of their determination, thetypes of jobs women with disabilities can obtain tend to be low wage or unstable because they
are women. Given the uncertain work situation of women with disabilities, they are likely to
encounter workplace harassment.
Issues pertaining to a gender role society have been seen in other areas such as a gender
gap in compensation payments for accidents that cause disabilities. That is because the amountof the compensation for loss of earnings is calculated by the average wage of men and womenof the society at time.
Among different studies National Institute of Population and Social Security
Research conducted the Living Standards Survey of People with Disabilities at Inagi City,
Tokyo and at Fuji City, Shizuoka from 2005 to 2006. The survey further focused on disparities
of work and income between women with disabilities and other populations.
The key findings were: employment rates are 90% of men without disabilities, over 60%
of women without disabilities, over 40% of men with disabilities and less than 30% of womenwith disabilities. The average of single household annual income including pensions andallowances is 4 million yen for men without disabilities, 2.7 million yen for women without
disabilities, 1.81 million yen for men with disabilities and 920,000 yen for women withdisabilities. Additionally, data on labor income excluding pensions and allowances finds that
50% of women with disabilities receive less than 500,000 yen and 70% of them receive lessthan 990,000 yen. Even with pensions, income level would still be too low to live
independently2. This low living standards makes women with disabilities vulnerable and thatmakes them victims to sexual abuse.
1

The data is based on Isei 80 nenshi [80 years history of Japanese medical institution] and Yuseihogo toukei
houkoku [Statistics on the Eugenic Protection]. The number of sterilization performed without consent of thereferenced person based on the provisions in Articles 4 and 12 of the Eugenic Protection Law reaches 16,520
persons, of which men are 5,164 persons, between 1949 and 1994. This number covers only the cases reported in
the official statistics.
2“Poverty of Women with Disabilities”, DPI - A Voice of Our Own. Vol. 24-3.

63

5. Invisibility of women with disabilities in the policy for the advancement of women
Our survey evaluated whether or not the policies of the central and local governments are
sufficiently responsive.
Under the Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society, the central government issued the third
Basic Plan For Gender Equality (December, 2010) to address issues of individuals withmultiple challenges including women with disabilities and expressed the need for solutions.
The Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims (Domestic
Violence Prevention Act), which became effective in 2001, was revised in 2004 to additionallyincorporate basic policies including accommodations for victims with disabilities. Despite
such government plan, practical measures are scarcely present.
Some gender equality measures of local governments refer to women with disabilities,
but they are focused on training such as Daily Home Living Training for Blind Women thatmerely provides practical daily living skills within household settings. We are in doubt as towhether such measures are aligned with the goal of a gender-equal society where both womenand men shall be given equal opportunities to participate voluntarily in activities in all fields
as equal partners in the society, and shall be able to enjoy political, economic, social andcultural benefits equally as well as to share responsibilities (The Basic Law for a
Gender-Equal Society).
In the measures for domestic violence prevention, although victims with disabilities are
assumed to exist, there are no data to show their current status, and out of 47 prefectures, as
little as 4 maintain records on counseling and temporary custody for individuals withdisabilities. Overall, individuals with disabilities have not been provided the necessary
information and many of them may have no access even to counseling after encountering
domestic violence. In fact, DV counseling is mainly conducted by phone or face-to-facecounseling. 19 prefectures’ plans include descriptions on sign-language interpretations duringface-to-face counseling and 2 include descriptions on transcription services.
Additionally, our survey uncovered the fact that many prefectures are considering to use
social welfare facilities or day habilitation centers for the temporary custody of disabled andelderly individuals which lack the same quality of security systems as those of DV shelters.
Therefore, protection facilities including DV shelters are behind in removing both physicaland informative barriers.
In regard to the Persons with Disabilities Abuse Prevention Act which became effective
in October 2012, the definition of abuse is unfortunately too narrow to respond to the wide
range of violence women with disabilities are encountering.
Many of the difficulties women with disabilities face have not been socially recognizedor have been neglected Women with disabilities have been dealing with the issues on theirown so far, but it is necessary to highlight their issues so that the society as a whole will beaware of them and take actions.

64

T．
．The Role of Men and Boys
ITO, Kimio, Kyoto University
Overview
In order to realize a gender-equal society, reforms of different men-led institutions andchanges in the consciousness of men are also indispensable to the same extent as thepromotion of decision-making and social participation of women. Changes in the fixed
consciousness of men, which becomes an obstacle for the social participation of women, andthe fundamental shifts in men’s lifestyles are also necessary.
According to 1970 data, Japanese society had one of the highest women’s labor
participation rate among OECD member countries. However, the turn towards gender equality
which happened in the international community after the 1970s was not shared in Japan,
where the gender-related division of labor has only been strengthened with men primarily
engaging in long-term labor and women mainly engaging in housework and childcare and also
taking non-regular jobs under poor working conditions. At the same time, Japanese economic
growth continued and became the world’s top-class in terms of GDP per person.
This economic growth has been realized by the mechanism of gender-based division oflabor that got fixed in the middle of the 1970s, although it was accompanied by such negative
impacts as even more serious destruction of natural environment and restraints of social
participation of women.
In addition, for Japanese men long-time labor and the mechanism of everyday life
whereby they were estranged from the family and local community, as well as regulations
such as “fixed masculinity”, became even more severe during the middle of the 1970s. The
so-called karoshi (death from overwork) which became apparent after the 1980s, as well as anincrease in suicide death rate of middle-aged men became evident in the second part of the
1990s. These are all the evidences of this strengthened “fixed masculinity”.
Facing increasing serious problems caused by an aging society with a low birthrate thathave become evident around the 1990. The necessity to change the mechanisms of “fixedmasculinity” which were created in the middle of the 1970s has been recognized widely, and isrepresented by long-hour labor of men, while housework and child-rearing along with
non-regular part-time jobs are destined for women. But Japanese society could not manage toescape from its past economic success in the 1970-80s and lost an opportunity to change its
outdated mechanism of gender-based division of labor.
The Basic Law for Gender Equal Society was established under the influence of theinternational community in 1999, and the Basic Plan for Gender Equality was devised in 2001.
The Japanese government has started tackling gender problems. However, beginning around
2003, conservative political forces and citizen groups started protest movements against theimplementation of full-scale measures for gender equality by the central and local
governments. They have become huge obstacles towards gender equality 1 . The
1

Please refer Ito, K., “Emerging Culture Wars: Backlash Against 'Gender Freedom'” in Gender and Welfare States
in Eastern Asia Confucianism or Gender Equality, Macmillan, 201365

implementation of policies for gender equality that had just started became greatly delayed bysuch backlash movements.
By 2010, backlash movements had to some extent slowed down, and gender policy has
again gained momentum. The government’s Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality drawn up in2010 has become an even more profound gender policy and plans. They are still being devised.
In this plan, “men and children” have been set up among 15 policy spheres, in which thechanges in consciousness and lifestyle of men are proposed, and references were made for therights of sexual minorities. All these points did not exist in the previous plans. Special attention
need to be paid to the measures aimed at men such as the encouragement of men’s participationin their home life and promotion of men’s work-life balance, as well as the establishment ofpublic consultation facilities aimed at men and the promotion of consultation services.
Despite this progress, we should also admit the fact that such measures to change theconsciousness of men and the systems are interrelated. Implementation of measures for agender equal society needs a long way to go and we are now at the stage when only the firststep has been accomplished.
Below are the summaries of several discussion points.
1. Sphere of decision-making
The participation of women in decision-making in politics did not improve much within
the last 10 years. The percentage of women in managerial positions in companies also remains
low. The conventional view of women, which does not consider woman as an independent
work force, lies in the background of men’s continuous occupying of managerial positions inpolitics and economies and has impeded process. Changes in the consciousness of men,
especially those who are in leadership positions, and the institutionalization of positive action,
including the quota system are urgently needed.
2. Working sphere
No substantial advancement was made concerning the inequality of wages between men
and women, as well as the situation that women work on a part-time basis, which tends tofunction more disadvantageously for women. At the same time, the long-time labor of men is
not only the obstacle to labor participation of women, but also causes various problems of the
lives of men and their families. Especially, long-time labor of men in their 30s causes big
problem. According to the Labour Force Survey in 2012, around 20% of men in their 30s areforced to work over 60 hours a week. There is a need to regulate working hours for the fullachievement of work-life balance that will allow men to fulfill their family responsibilities.
3. Sphere of family life
Several campaigns have been held to stimulate men’s participation in child-rearing, andsocial interest in the participation in child-rearing has been drastically increasing. According toa survey conducted by the Cabinet in 2012, the percentage of men who want to take part in
active part in child-rearing reaches 60%. However, long-time labor of men does not allow
them to take an active part. The parental child-care leave for men does exist in Japan. However,
due to the discouraging working environment that requires men to prioritize their work, thepercentage of men who are able to take child-care leave constitutes only around 2% at present.
66

We can predict that elderly care will also become an even bigger problem for men in the
future, as people in Japan are getting older. A shift in direction toward men’s participation innursing and elderly care is needed.
4. Education sphere
Among the OECD countries, in only two countries – Japan and Turkey, men exceed
women in the ratio of students who proceed to university-type higher education institutions.
The problem of this gender inequality in higher education lies in the social awareness that
accepts men to continue their education into university even though their records are not good,but does not expect women to obtain higher education.
It should be highlighted that the urgent problem of the low academic ability of boys,
which is observed in OECD countries, also exists in Japan, although unlike the OECD
countries, this problem is invisible in Japan. The results of national academic achievements
test need to be announced officially for boys and girls separately (this is not being done now).
It is also necessary to provide gender education with the emphasis of gender-sensitivity
for boys and empowerment education for both boys and girls.
5. Sphere of violence against women
Policies and measures dealing with DV (domestic violence) have been to some extent
developed. However, the development of programs for perpetrators, including the correction
programs targeted at male perpetrators, has been delayed. According to Figure 1, womenconstitute more than 90% of DV victims. In the case of murders, men constitute a bit morethan 40% of victims possibly are DV, although we need to mention that many of these malevictims possibly are DV male perpetrators.
Figure 1: Victims of spouses (including common-law) crimes (homicide, inflicting
bodily harm, and assault (ratios to total number of arrests) (2011)

Total Number(3,091 arrests)
Homicide(158 arrests)

8.5%(262 arrests)

91.5% (2,829 arrests)

56.3% (89 arrests)

43.7%(69 arrests)

Bodily Harm
(1,451 arrests)

93.6% (1,325 arrests)

6.4%(90 arrests)

Assault(1,518 arrests)

93.2% (1,415 arrests)

6.8%(103 arrests)

male spousefemale spouse

Source: National Police Agency Survey, reprinted from White Paper on Gender Equality 2012

Attention has begun to be paid to the damages men suffered by DV. Of people who
experienced suffering from DV in Japan, about 18% of men reported suffering from DV with67

physical violence 13.3%, mental violence 9.5% and sexual violence 3.4%2. But there are no
facilities to protect male DV victims.
Not many things have been done on such problems as human trafficking, prostitution andchild pornography, in many of cases men are consumers.
6. Health (care) sphere
Japan is well known as a country with longevity; however, suicide rate is more thanglobal average. As we can see from Figures 2 the suicide rate of middle-aged men has jumped
after 1998. Obviously, this is the impact of recession. We can also say that men’s
consciousness that they tend not to tell other people about their worries is related to suchtendency.
Figure 2: Number of suicide by age groupMale(persons)

Female(persons)
6000

6000

45～54

35～34
5000

5000

4000

4000

3000

3000

2000

2000

1000

1000

0

0

70～
55～64

15～24

25～34

35～44

45～54

15～24

25～34

35～44

45～54

55～64

65～74

75～

unknown

55～64

65～74

75～

unknown

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Population Survey Report

Concerning gender-based medicine, the substantial developments have been made in thesphere of women’s medicine. However, medicine targeted at men has not been developed to
the full until now. It is necessary that medical policy takes into account the physiologicaldifferences between men and women as well as dealing with both mind and body.
7. Providing consultation services for men
There is an urgent need to promote consultation services aimed at men as developed
under the Third Basic Plan based on the deepened and precise analysis of the situation of men
from the gender-sensitive point of view. Along with making it clear the problems that men
face, there is also a need for men to promote their changes and to lead moves for a genderequal society.
2

Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office, The survey on violence between men and women (2011)
http://www.gender.go.jp/e-vaw/chousa/images/pdf/h23danjokan-6.pdf (in Japanese)

68U．
．Older Women:
Elderly Women in Poverty
HIGUCHI, Keiko, Women’s Association
for the Better Aging Society
In Japan, contrasting the increase in an aging population, fertility rate has been
continuously low. The total fertility rate in Japan was 1.43 in 2013, and the 25% of the
population was over age 65. In 2013, the average life expectancy of women was 86.6 years(highest in the world) and 80.2 years for men (4th). Both men and women, on average, live
over 80 years, marking the longest life expectancy in the world. If the current trend of
declining birthrates continues, the percentage of people over age 65 will be as high as 40% of
the total population by 2050. Japan will reach an unprecedented aged society in the world withlow birthrates. This implies the risk of the collapse of social security system is possible.
The low fertility rate in Japan cannot be seen as a result of women exercising theirreproductive rights unfortunately. The main reason for this trend is the persistent gender-based
division of work that has continued for decades; namely men work outside and women stay athome and do household chores and care work. As a result, young women tend to be reluctant
to get married and to have children while they work outside a home, although certain
percentage of women desire to get married and have children. Not only women, the Japanesesociety as a whole has failed to establish a lifestyle that values family life and family care ashigh as work.
1. Increasing low income bracket of aged women
In the sharply rising curve of an aging population, the female curve goes up sharply
because of the difference in average life expectancy between men and women. Among therecipients of public long-term nursing care insurance, 3% of people aged between 65 and 75
are assessed that they need nursing care, and the rate of those in need of nursing care increases
to 23% among those aged over 75, of which 60% are women.
In the medical insurance system, more than half of per capita lifelong medical expense,
which was 23 million yen in 2010, was spent by those aged 70 and over. The male to female
ratio of this population group, over age 70, is 9 to 13. Economic burdens for medical expenseand nursing care are enormous both for individuals and the government, and no doubt, they
are heavier for women. Thus, a larger proportion of elderly women are living in poverty as
their expenses for medical and nursing care are greater than their younger days and men in thesame age group. As women’s ratio is larger in elderly population, increasing medical andnursing care expenditures may lead the whole nation into poverty.
The relative poverty rate, the ratio of people below the national median level ofdisposable income is higher among women than men at all ages, and the gap between men andwomen widens at older ages. The relative poverty rates of people over 80 years old are 16.6%
for men and 27.1% for women.

69Relative Poverty Ratio among People over 80
Men

16.6%

Women

27.1%

2. Single elderly women in extremely poverty
Currently, the rate of single-person household of elderly households is 11.1% for men and20.2% for women. More women live alone.

Men 11.11%

Women 20.20%

The rate of people living below the poverty line is similar between men and womenamong people who live in single-person households, but the actual number is far greater for
women.
Table 1: Ratio of extremely poor among the single-person household by annual income

Single women(divorced)
Single men

Annual income
600,000 and below
600,000 – 1.2 million yen
6.5%
18.4%
(12.5%)(20.0%)
6.6%
10.7%

About a quarter of women in single-person households live below 1.2 million yen a year
and a third of them are divorced. It is easily inferred that they are caught in a vicious cycle ofpoverty and ill health.
The gap between average life expectancy and average healthy life expectancy is wider
among women than men; women at 12.68 years compared to 9.13 years of men (2010, White
Paper on Aged Society, Cabinet Office). This suggests that women live longer but they needmore nursing care. Because of their greater in number, elderly women’s healthy lives are latentsocial assets. Therefore measures should be taken to improve health services to elderly womenand to alleviate their poverty.

3. Exclusion women from the social security system and preferential treatment for
full-time housewives
Why are women poor in their old age? Women are not born in poverty, but they fall intopoverty as they live longer. The figure 1 shows the three stages women fall into thepoverty throughout their life.

70Figure 1: The three stages women fall into poverty throughout their life
20s ～ 30s
Birth of the first child

60 % of employed women leave their workplaces(Withdrawal from social security insurance)

Graduation
Employment
Marriage
30s ～ 40s
Working on a part-time basis

Majority of women workers are
non-regular employees

Wives leaving their jobs due to the job
transfers or career changes of their husbands
Divorce40s ～ 50s

Retirement time even for part -time work

Care giving duty preventing regular
workers from sustaining their jobs

Annually, 140,000 employees leave
their jobs to care for their parents

Fall into poverty (Aged 65 and over)The major income source for elderly households is employees’ pension insurance. Of
70% of elderly households in Japan, 80% of their source of income is public pension schemes.
The amount of average benefits is 170,265 yen per month for men, and 103,989 yen for
women (2011). A large gap exists between men’s and women’s income. This gap is a direct
result of women’s shorter period of employment. Women in their late 70s and over are thegeneration who had to leave their workplaces because the retirement ages for women
employees were set lower when they were employed, particularly in the private sector, and thesalary they received were less than men from the beginning of their employment. It was lessthan 60% of men’s salary in the early 1970s, and around 70% of men’s salary even today.
The universal national pension plan, to which every person is supposed to join, provides
66,000 yen a month starting at the age 65. As many women join the plan for less than thedesignated period (25 years at the minimum) to be eligible to receive the benefits, the amountof benefits they receive is smaller than 66,000 yen by about 10,000 yen. Around 70% ofrecipients of employees’ pension benefits are men, while 70% of those who receive only
public pension benefits are women.
After married, a great portion of women leave their workplaces for childcare, elderly careand other family affairs, and if they desire to return to work, the opportunities to work
full-time are extremely limited. Thus, they cannot choose but to work as part-time or as
temporary workers, who are almost excluded from employees’ pension plans and other social
71security programs. Women comprise 42% of the workforce in Japan, and among working
women, 58% are not in full-time employment (2013, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
The employees’ pension system is structured based on men being heads of household,and their wives are exempted from paying premiums of the national pension plan as long as
the payments from their part-time jobs are below 1.3 million yen a year.
Now, as the postwar baby boomers begin to receive employees’ pension benefits, thefunds for the contribution are bound to diminish, as a result, the amounts of benefits will
decrease. The decline in pension benefits affects both men and women, but women more
seriously.
The pitfall of the Japanese social system is that it regards women as a supplementary
workforce and a main player in household work, childcare and elderly care. This shortcoming
has been emerging in the form for elderly women in poverty.

72

V．
．Rural Women:
Promotion of Women’s Policy in Japanese Rural Areas and Related Issues
NAKAMICHI, Hitomi, Ehime University
Introduction: Expansion of the area gap, the progression of aging and depopulation in
Japanese rural areas, and the promotion of women’s policy
In 1999, the Basic Law on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas (henceforth, the new Basic
Law) was enacted through revising the Agricultural Basic Law (henceforth, the old Basic
Law). In rural Japan, issues such as the depopulation of youth, depopulation of communities,
and the aging population became more serious than ever. The number of agricultural workers
fell dramatically, while
le their average age continued to rise, and in 2010 the ratio of farmers
aged 65 and over had reached 61%, as shown in Figure 1. Conversely, the ratio of farmers
aged under 50 was only 12.4%. It is the senior people, those who would be considered to be"after
ter retirement age" in general working careers, who currently support Japanese agriculture.
This can be said that the agriculture, forestry, and fishery industries in Japan have reachedcrisis point.
Figure 1: Changes in the Number of Farmers by Age Group

Note: The author created this Figure using data from the source below:
Souce: Annual Statistics of Agricultural, Forest and Fishery Census(1970-2010)
Cens

Table 1: Changes in Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Workers andCorresponding Ratios of Female Workers
Wor
Year
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2,606
Agriculture Workers
5,653
4,140
3,891
3,353
1,300
Female Workers
3,403
2,372
2,171
1,788
Ratio of Females (%)
60.2
57.3
55.8
53.3
49.9
67,153
46,618110,017
84,072
68,930Forestry Workers
11,5407,015
17,994
13,773
8,710
Female Workers
12.6
Ratio of Females (%)
16.4
16.4
17.2
15.0
203
Fishery Workers
371
301
260
222
30
Female Workers
67
54
44
36
14.8
Ratio of Females (%)
18.1
17.9
16.9
16.3
Source：Agricultural,
Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Census, Fishery Census, Census
Note 1：Agricultural
Agricultural workers : mainly working on their own farm; unit = 1,000 persons
Note 2：Fishery
Fishery workers: working in sea surface; unit = 1,000 persons

73

Table 1 shows the situation of women in the agriculture, forestry and fishery industries.
The total number of workers is decreasing, and the number of female workers is also
decreasing. The ratio of female workers is decreasing in every industry. In agriculture, female
workers accounted for more than 60% of all workers in 1990, but now fewer than half are
women. In forestry and fisheries, only around 10% of all workers are female. Women are
disappearing from these industries as the average age of the population advances. This meansthat the shortage of agricultural successors is becoming more serious, and making conditions
extremely difficult for the continuation of these industries. The Japanese agricultural, forestry
and fisheries policy was changed for this very situation, and its policy for supporting women
was promoted.
1. Female participation in decision making in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries
In 1992, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) published its firstreport focusing on women, titled Women in the New Agricultural, Forest and Fishing
Communities Towards 2001 and known as the Vision. As a part of the promotion of female
policy, many women from agricultural, forest and fishing communities participated in the
Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and exchanged information with various
women from other countries. In 1999, when the Basic Act for Gender-Equal Society wasenacted, a special clause on female workers was also added to the new Basic Law of 1999.
Table 2: Changes in Women’s Participation in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
Year
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
Agricultural Committee
65,94064,08062,52460,91759,25445,37936,330Members
Female Members
41
40
93
203
1,081
1,869
1,792
Ratio of Females (%)
0.06
0.06
0.15
0.33
1.8
4.1
4.9
General Members of
5,635,000 5,536,000 5,537,547 5,432,260 5,240,785 4,997,797 4,707,348
Agricultural Cooperatives
Female Members
497,000 574,000 667,468 707,117 746,719 804,583 890,718
Ratio of Females (%)
8.82
10.37
12.05
13.02
14.2
16.1
18.9
Board Members of
81,05977,49068,61150,73532,003
22,79919,161Agricultural Cooperatives
Female Members
29
39
70
102
187
438
741
Ratio of Females (%)
0.04
0.05
0.10
0.20
0.6
1.9
3.9
General Members of
409,960 381,785 354,116 317,553 275,715 232,414 178,465
Fishing Cooperatives
Female Members
19,944
21,18020,425
18,337
15,655
15,830
10,111
Ratio of Females (%)
4.9
5.6
5.8
5.8
5.7
6.8
5.7
Board Members of
23,22422,56322,022
20,44917,974
13,861
10,305
Fishing Cooperatives
Female Members
10
13
22
29
43
45
38
Ratio of Females (%)
0.04
0.06
0.10
0.14
0.2
0.3
0.4
Board Members of Forest
13,094
10,086
Cooperatives
Female Members
25
41
Ratio of Females (%)
0.2
0.4
Source: Division of Access to Farms and the Female Farmer, Management Bureau of MAFF

2. Promotion of family management agreements in farming households74In 1992, in the same period as reported in the Vision, the MAFF reported the “New
Agricultural Policy Direction” that lead to the new Basic Law. Aimed at innovating farmmanagement, this new Basic Law promoted large-scale farm management based on the sameworking hours and the same lifetime income as other industries. It therefore promoted thecorporatization of farm and the conclusion of Family Management Agreements (FMAs)
establishing working hours and labor remuneration for family members. The Women and Life
Division in MAFF at the time not only promoted these Agreements with the objective of
eradicating unpaid female labor and enhancing women's participation in farm management,
but also tried to popularize these Agreements for household management in addition to farmmanagement. Thus, FMAs became a part of policy for women, to counter the serious shortageof agricultural successors, and support the need for policy to modernize and incorporate farmmanagement. The similar “Family Agreements” had been promoted in 1964, with the intentionof modernizing and incorporating family farm. These agreements were based on the Europeanand American farm succession contracts. In Hokkaido, many agreements on farm succession
were concluded with the objective of obtaining a high farmer’s pension for large scale farming,
while in Gunma Prefecture, many agreements on labor conditions were concluded with theobjective of preventing the outflow of agricultural successors to nearby metropolitan areas.
However, no consideration was given to the female perspective at that time, and theagreements spread to only a very limited area.
On the other hand, FMAs were introduced in South Korea, where the same problem asJapan was experiencing. Moreover, the Japanese government announced the FMAs as a part ofan original policy at the 56th session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in
2012, targeted priority theme of which was rural woman. As a result, FMAs are still politicallypromoted to this day, and statistics are taken continuously. However, the FMAs conductedhousehold ratio of all farm households is still very low even now, in spite of the increasing
number of total households after twenty years of promotion of FMAs, as shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Number of Households that Concluded Family Management Agreements
Year
1996
2000
2005
2011
2013
Households that Concluded FMAs
5,608
14,77732,12048,602
52,527
Ratio of All Farm Households (%)
0.21
0.63
1.64
3.11
3.61
Note: The author created this Figure using data from the source below:
Source: Division of Access to Farms and the Female Farmer, Management Bureau of MAFF

3. Promotion of women entrepreneurs
In contrast, more attention has been paid to female entrepreneurs in recent years. The
number of female entrepreneurs is increasing every year, and the individual management isincreasing much more rapidly than its larger counterpart, the group management, as shown in
Table 4. The enactment of the Law Concerning the Promotion of Settlement and Interchange
between Regions for Revitalization of Agricultural, Forest and Fishing Communities hashelped to politically strengthen the support for female entrepreneurs.
The activities of female entrepreneurs in rural areas are currently based on groups for better
living. Better Living Groups (also known as Life Study Groups) were promoted politically toorganize the welfare of farming households under the old Basic Law. Agricultural extension
workers with household skills took part in the promotion of better living. However, these75extension workers came to treat women as no more housekeepers but farmers in the new Basic
Law. After this, the support for women decreased sharply, as did the establishment of thesegroups. Most female entrepreneur activities are based on the processing of foods or otheractivities, such as a direct markets or agri-tourism. Better Living Groups were a starting point for
many current female entrepreneur activities. The reason why there were few female
entrepreneurs in forestry and fishery was related to the fact that there was only minimal support
for the establishment of Better Living Groups and their ongoing care. Many female
entrepreneurs earned very little income as they could not become financially independent. Moreoften, they worked not for income but for a variety of social missions. Therefore, we can say thatmost Japanese female entrepreneurs are social enterprises with social missions.
Table 4: Changes in the Number of Female Entrepreneurs
Year
1993
2000
2005
Total
1,255
6,218
8,667
Individual Management
241
1,495
2,956
Group Management
1,014
4,723
5,711
Agricultural Products
150
514
1421
Food Processes
770
4266
6816
Non-Food Processes
90
279
343
Sales and Distribution (Direct Markets etc.)
463
2811
3999
Interchange with Urban Areas (Agri-tourism, etc.)
76
479
995
Services
16
48
55
Other
0
20
42
Unknown
14
7

2010
9,757
4,473
5,284
1991
7334
326
5827
2002
164
88

Note: The author created this Figure using data from the source below:
Source: Division of Access to Farms and the Female Farmer, Management Bureau of MAFF

4. Issues regarding policies for women in Japanese agricultural, forest and fishingcommunities
The women in rural areas are still invisible, as demonstrated by the lack of data for
women in forestry. Decision-making in the management of farms, forestry, fisheries,
agricultural cooperatives, and in rural society in general, is still dominated by males, andwomen are excluded from virtually all decision making in rural organizations.
Many agricultural, forestry and fishing households in Japan are managed by families.
According to the 2010 data, 97% of Japanese farming households were family-managed.
Therefore, the dissolution of a patriarchal structure, the male-dominant structure of
agricultural, forestry and fishing communities is still an important issue.
Women are still restricted to obtain skills in agriculture, forestry and fishery. Housekeeping
skill does not support the participation of women in current rural society. Therefore, it isnecessary for women to learn agricultural, forestry and fishing skills. In addition, for women it isdifficult to be a board member of cooperatives with economic responsibility. Many women
begin to work in agriculture, forestry or fisheries because they marry into farming, forestry or
fishing families. Accordingly, these women do not have their own agricultural, forestry or
fishing property, and are therefore unable to take a part in management. Consequently, policies
need to ensure that women have the rights to participate in the joint management of farming,
forestry or fishing households equally with their husbands. This means that modernization andcorporatization of agricultural, forestry and fishing households are needed.
76

W．
．Minority Women
MOTO, Yuriko, International Movement Against
All Forms of Discrimination and Racism
1. Introduction
The Fourth World Conference on Women was an opportunity for minority women in Japanto realize that the common cause of the problems they faced was intersectional forms of
discrimination based on gender, “race”, ethnicity, class, disability, and so forth. Being inspiredby the accomplishments of the conference, minority women in Japan started to speak out andbegan to form a network based on solidarity beyond the boundaries of groups they belonged to,which was historic. They started to exchange information and ideas, to support each other and towork together on common agenda. Circumstances, however, can often be harsh anddiscouraging as discussed below.
For the purpose of this report, the term ‘minority women’ is used in a broader sense1 than
it is in the context of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Article
27. They are in a more vulnerable situation than those in the majority and tend to suffer more in
every aspect of life due to the intersectional discrimination against them. They are minorities
within minorities either in the category of women or groups they belong to. Evengender-specific policies and programs hardly cater to the specific needs of minority women.2
2. Situation of minority women in Japan: Overview
Actual social and economic conditions of minority women, let alone the realities ofintersectional discrimination against them, have never been surveyed by the government.3 The
government has not complied yet with the UN human rights bodies’ repeated criticism of thelack of information on minority women in its periodical reports.4
In such circumstances, the groups of Ainu, Buraku and Korean women5 took their own
initiative and launched a joint project of surveying themselves between 2004 and 2005. The
main aim was to collect data that would elucidate their actual conditions and lead to solutions to
the problems they faced by using the concept of intersectional discrimination as an analytical
tool. Actually they started to collectively advocate for policies that would effectively respond to
the problems identified through the survey. They have had meetings with the government
officials to express their views and urge the government to take effective measures necessary to
improve their situation. They also began to engage in lobbying activities in the international1

It refers not only to women belonging to ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities but those belonging to othersocially marginalized groups or categories.
2
For instance, the Third Basic Plan for Gender Equality.
3
For instance, in case of the Ainu women, a survey conducted every seven years by the prefectural government of
Hokkaido, the Ainu’s ancestral land, reveals very little about the conditions of Ainu women since it deals onlywith households.
4
See the UN Doc. CEDAW/C/JPN/CO/6, paras.42 & 51; UN Doc. CERD/C/JPN/CO/3-6, para.17; UN Doc.
A/HRC/8/44, para.36 and A/HRC/22/14, para.147.160; and UN Doc. CCPR/C/JPN/CO/6, para.9.
5
Ainu Association of Hokkaido, Sapporo Branch, Buraku Liberation League Central Women’s Division, andApeuro Women’s Survey Project.

77

forums. However, the minority women’s expectations have not received even token
acknowledgement of the government. For instance, despite repeated requests, the Gender
Equality Bureau has not agreed to meet them for a discussion of the results of the survey.
Several positions taken by the government are hampering minority women’s enjoyment of
human rights and advancement of their status in Japan. To begin with, (1) de-facto immigrants(foreign nationals registered as residents) are not recognized as such although consisting nearly
2% of the population. No notion or terminology of ‘immigrants’ exist in the government’s
official vocabulary, and there is no policy of integrating them as members of society.
Regardless of the length of their stay and their intentions, they are, in the government’s view,supposed to leave Japan sooner or later. (2) Moreover, the government does not admit its legal
obligation under international law of ensuring human rights equally to non-nationals in its
territory. It claims that only Japanese nationals are entitled to the full protection of their humanrights, while the level of protection of non-nationals’ human rights depends on the nature of theright in question. (3) The government used to maintain that there were no minority groups inJapan to be protected by the ICCPR Article 27. Faced with criticism and the growinginternational recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights, the government later recognized the
Ainu as a minority stipulated in Article 27. It still insists that no other groups, particularly
non-nationals such as Koreans, are minorities. Although these arguments contradict the existing
international human rights standards and the UN human rights bodies’ interpretation ofinternational treaties and other relevant instruments, the government argues that it is entitled tointerpret treaty provisions differently from the treaty bodies and it is not obliged to follow theUN human rights bodies’ recommendations that are not legally binding.6
3. Situations of minority women in Japan: Five groups7
The recent phenomena indicated below may be worth noting as the background for theworsened situation of women belonging to certain groups:
The Abe administration’s hostile attitude toward neighboring countries such as North andSouth Korea and China as well as some actions8 has stimulated a xenophobic tendency inthe population, particularly in the absence of correct history education.
Radical nationalists’ activities have increasingly become active and enjoy popularity inorganizing xenophobic campaigns on the internet, hate speech rallies and even committing
hate crimes. Their main target has been Koreans, who, in their view, should either leave
Japan or die, but Buraku people in the liberation movement and Okinawans opposing theplan of building another U.S. base have also been targets of their fury.
(1) Indigenous Ainu people of Japan
Ainu people and Ryukyu (currently Okinawa prefecture) people are indigenous peoples of
6

For instance, the Abe cabinet made an official decision and announced in June 2013 that it was not obliged toaccept and follow a recommendation made by the Committee Against Torture relating to the issue of Japan’s
military sexual slavery. See http://www.sangiin.go.jp/japanese/joho1/kousei/syuisyo/183/t...
7
Regretfully due to space constraints, only five relatively large minority groups will be discussed here.
8
For instance, Korean schools allegedly affiliated to North Korea have been excluded from the application of a
new scheme to make tuition free of charge for all high school students. See CERD UN Doc.
CERD/C/JPN/CO/3-6 of 6/Apr/2010, para.22(e).

78Japan recognized by the UN. 9 However, it was 2008 that Ainu people were officiallyrecognized as such. As a consequence of the invasion and deprivation of their home land, forced
assimilation by the Japanese government, institutionalized discrimination over centuries andwidespread prejudice, Ainu people, particularly women, are still suffering from a variety ofdisadvantages in every aspect of life, inter alia education, employment, income, marriage andpublic participation.10 Many tend not to disclose their ethnic origin.
Even after the openly discriminative law entitled Hokkaido Former Barbarians Protection
Act 1899 aimed at the Ainu people was abolished in 1997, the government’s focus has been on
the protection of Ainu culture, contrary to the Ainu people’s expectation to have acomprehensive policy that would effectively improve their economic condition and social
status. Public assistance, thus, is still limited and insufficient.
(2) Okinawa Women: Women belonging to the indigenous Ryukyu population
People of Okinawa (formerly Ryukyu) are still not recognized as indigenous people by thegovernment of Japan. Ryukyu was an independent kingdom until it was annexed to Japan in thelate 19th century. The most serious problem that has hampered economic development andseverely affected the Okinawans’ lives is the existence of huge U.S. military bases and related
facilities. Approximately 70 % of all the U.S. military bases exist in such a small prefecture,
which makes up only 0.6 % of the territory of Japan. From a human rights perspective, such aheavy concentration of military bases against the will of Okinawans amounts to discrimination.
Women and young girls have often been raped by the members of the U.S. military, who in mostcases enjoy impunity for the crimes they commit in Okinawa.
(3) Buraku Women
Discrimination based on descent since medieval times against Buraku11 may seem to havediminished to the majority of the population, but it still remains in clandestine forms relating toemployment and marriage.12 As a remarkable accomplishment of Buraku people’s organizedstruggle for nearly a century, the infrastructure and living standards of Buraku communities
have significantly improved with public funding. However, the above mentioned survey has
revealed that disadvantages caused by the persistent discrimination in education, employment
and marriage still remains particularly for elderly women.
(4) Zainichi13 Korean Women
Koreans as one of the largest groups of immigrants would not have existed if it had notbeen for Japan’s invasion and colonial rule of the Korean peninsula. The history of Zainichi
Koreans consists of systemic discrimination and oppression by the government of Japan.
9

See UN Doc.CCPR/C/JPN/CO/6, para.26.
For detailed information on the survey and its results, see the booklet “Minority Women Rise Up: A
Collaborative Survey on Ainu, Buraku and Korean Women in Japan” published by the International Movement
Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR) in 2009..
11
Although the term ‘Buraku’ literally refers to a small, generally rural, commune or a hamlet, historically it wasused for an outcaste community that was heavily and institutionally discriminated against.
12
Nearly 30% of the respondents surveyed in the joint project in the western part of Japan indicated that they had
experienced marriage discrimination.
13
The term ‘Zainichi’ literally means ‘living in Japan’. Therefore, it is not limited to Koreans but also applied toimmigrants from other countries.
1079

Although their economic condition has improved, mainly through their own efforts, anddiscrimination in employment and marriage seems to have decreased from some decades ago,
approximately 80% of them still use Japanese type of names to avoid discrimination. Since
Koreans including children attending Korean schools have been the main target of raciallymotivated offences including hate speech and racist propaganda on the internet and on thestreets, many Korean women, particularly mothers, have been living in agony, anxiety and fear.
(5) Women belonging to Sexual Minority
Half of the estimated two million LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) persons inJapan must be women. Although the level of understanding and tolerance has risen in the lasttwenty years, such women continue to suffer more than male compatriots due to intersectional
discrimination based not only on sexual orientation but also gender identity. They lack adequate
legal protection, support and recognition of their rights and the problems they face. Morewomen than men tend to make a painful choice of living without revealing their sexual
orientation due to the higher risk of negative reactions from people around them.
Comprehensive legislation against discrimination including discrimination based on sexual
orientation and gender identity still does not exist, while the existing laws are inadequate. For
instance, the Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims only
applies to opposite-sex couples despite the fact that LGBT people experience domestic violencefrom same-sex partners.14
4. Recommendations
As repeatedly urged by the UN bodies,15 the government of Japan should:(1) Conduct a comprehensive study on the de-facto situation of minority women in a sensitive
manner, by seeking their consent and cooperation;(2) Take effective measures, including the establishment of a policy framework and theadoption of temporary special measures to eliminate discrimination against minority women;such measures should include those to ensure minority women full access to resources andsocial welfare, and institute human rights education at school, awareness raising campaigns,
and the intensive sensitizing training of police officers and other civil servants;(3) Ensure effective participation of minority women’s representatives in policy- anddecision-making bodies and procedures relating to women in general and minority groups
for achieving (2) above and as an integral part of minority women’s human rights; and(4) Legislate against all forms of discrimination and condemn all propaganda and attempts to justify
or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form, and undertake to adopt immediate andpositive measures designed to eradicate all incitement to, or acts of, such discrimination.16
14

See a research paper prepared by International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and Gay
Japan News (https://iglhrc.org/sites/default/files/JapanCC_0.pdf), p.16 on this and also for other examples offlaws in the existing laws such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Law that fails to explicitly regulate
harassment and discrimination against LGBI in the workplace, and the Act on Special Cases in Handling Genderfor People with Gender Identity Disorder that sets five conditions for transgender individuals to be eligible toapply for changing sex entry on family registry.
15
See the concluding observations of the CEDAW, CERD, ICCPR treaty bodies and the Human Right Council’s
recommendations as cited in op cit 3.
16
As stipulated in the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Article 4.

80

X．
．Disaster Risk Reduction
HARA, Hiroko, JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch), Japan Women’s
Network for Disaster Risk Reduction (JWNDRR)
1．
． Introduction
This report describes how the Japan Women’s Network for Disaster Risk Reduction(JWNDRR) has been working after 3.11 in 2011 to improve risk reduction under the leadership of
Akiko Domoto, former Governor of Chiba Prefecture (2001-2009), and before that Member of theHouse of Councilors (1989-2001) and a journalist with commitment to humanitarian issues.
2．
． Disaster Prevention and Gender issues in JapanIn 1990, before the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, a voluminous book was published,
Nihon Bosai Hyakunenshi (Hundred years History of Disaster Prevention in Japan),examining the record of disaster prevention in Japan from 1868 to 1989. It mentions special
consideration for the elderly, infants, and physically handicapped people (although notpregnant, recently-delivered or lactating women), but it makes no mention at all of the need toinclude them, including women, in the decision-making processes. All of the authors andcontributors to the volume were in the national government and men.
2-1. The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, January 17, 1995
Since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake occurred on January 17, 1995, local/national
governments have begun to release gender/age-disaggregated data but the report is extremely
difficult to ascertain or calculate correct figures. Overall, the number of women who died was
greater than the number of men, and the number of deaths of elderly women was particularlyhigh because there are more elderly women than elderly men.
The theme “disaster prevention and gender issues” has been getting attention because of
the activities of an NGO, “Women’s Net Kobe.” It was able to provide extensive as well as
systematic support to the earthquake survivors, including an important support hotline fordomestic violence survivors after the earthquake.
2-2. Action taken by the Council for Gender Equality, Cabinet Office1
Regarding the Council for Gender Equality, Cabinet Office, in 2002, seven years after theGreat-Hanshin Awaji Earthquake, Kaoru Honoki, a professor at Kobe University (as of 2002)
and Reiko Masai, leader of Women’s Net Kobe, reported the situation of women victims at the
Earthquake at a meeting of the Cabinet Office’s Impact Survey Case Study Research Team(henceforth ISCRT). This report had such an impact on committee members and government
officials that disaster issues were included in the second (2005) and third Basic Plans (2010)
on Gender Equality.
We saw some progress in the government’s response to the Chuetsu Earthquake in1

Bureau of Gender Equality(2012) Disaster Prevention and Reconstruction from a Gender Equality Society
Perspective-Lessons from the Great east Japan Earthquake (From the White Paper on Gender Equality 2012
http://www.gender.go.jp/english_contents/about_danjo/whitepaper/index.html (accessed September 25,2014)
and Learning from Adversity http://www.gender.go.jp/policy/saigai/shishin/pdf/learning_from_adversity.pdf(accessed September 20, 2014)81

October 2004 and then the Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami in December 2004. Partly
because of, a lasting influence of the ISCRT of 2002, when the Chuetsu Earthquake occurred,a female officer from the Cabinet Office Gender Equality Bureau was dispatched to the
support and countermeasure office of the affected area in order to make sure that women’s
points of view were reflected in the support activities. This was the first time that government
responses had included the gender issue. When the Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami
occurred in December 2004, the Japanese government immediately made a donation of 1
million dollars through the United Nations agency, UNIFEM.
Following this, from 2004 through 2005, the Council for Gender Equality and the expert
committee on the Basic Plan on Gender Equality, began to discuss disaster prevention policies
from a gender perspective. In the Second Basic Plan on Gender Equality (2005) the
Government of Japan included a new field, “Priority field 12: Promoting gender equality infields requiring new initiatives.” The Third Basic Plan on Gender Equality (approved by
Cabinet on December 17, 2010) includes the disaster prevention field from the point of view ofgender equality, as a part of Priority field 14. Specifically, in the contents of this plan, Priority
field 14 is “Promoting gender equality in the area of regional development, disaster prevention,
environment and others.”
2-3. Special Committee on Gender Equality, National Governors’ Association (chaired by
Akiko Domoto, Governor of Chiba Prefecture) in 2008
The Special Committee on Gender Equality under the National Governors’ Association(NGA) deemed disaster prevention and gender as important issues nationally, and conducteda survey on the issue under the leadership of Akiko Domoto, then Governor of Chiba
Prefecture. When she became the Governor of Chiba Prefecture in 2001, surveys titled“Disaster prevention measures from the point of view of women and local residents” were sent
to all prefectures and municipalities in Japan. Responses were received from all prefecturesand 1,746 municipalities (96.6%)The results showed that most of the local governments were
not well prepared2.
In response to recommendations from the Prefectural Governors, many Prefectures
created a base to build a framework for integrating the local government’s policies on
women’s participation in disaster prevention into actions from the planning stages at townshipand village levels. Despite this base, it seems that many municipalities especially at thetownship and village levels failed to place emphasis on gender perspectives at the time of theGreat East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011.
2-4. UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) and the Asian Conference on
Disaster Reduction in 1994
The World Disaster Reduction Conference was held in Yokohama, Japan in 1994,
adopting the Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action for a Safer World. There was no specificmention of “gender” but one section which mentioned “women” in this Strategy. Later, in the
Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015 which was adopted at the 2nd UN Disaster Reduction
Conference held in Kobe, Japan in 2005, the word “women” appeared once and “gender”
2

Special Committee on Gender Equality, National Governors’ Association, “Disaster prevention measures fromthe point of view of women and local residents” (2008).

82appeared 5 times. This Framework mentions to pay attention to gender-sensitive disastercountermeasures. However, Japan’s Basic Act on Disaster Control Measures, last revised on
August 31, 2011, had no mention of gender and women’s issues.
3．
． Post-3.11 Law Reform Advocacy of the Japan Women’s Network for Disaster Risk
Reduction (JWNDRR)
Immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake (3.11 Earthquake), on the 1st of April,
the members of Japan’s Network for Women and Health (WHJ), Akiko Domoto, former
Governor of Chiba Prefecture, Dr. Keiko Amano, Japan’s pioneer in gender-specific medicine,
Miho Ohara, then of the Center for Integrated Disaster Information Research at the Tokyo
University Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and myself as the Secretariat of WHJ
visited disaster affected areas, Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures. During the visit, we saw
the lack of the gender perspectives in confronting the disaster:That gender roles were being hardened in an environment where domestic violence andsexual harassment were intensifying.
That women were not participants in decision-making processes.
That there was a lack of consideration for the caregivers of babies, the sick and disabled.
Furthermore, even when individual pregnant or nursing mothers, disabled, or elderly would
appeal to the shelter leaders, they would not listen, and the claimants were compelled to simply
endure.3 To respond the lack of the gender perspectives, we immediately formed a new NGO,
Women and Disaster Network Japan (up to September, 2011) (later renamed as the Japan
Women’s Network for Disaster Risk Reduction, JWNDRR), composed of activists withspecialization in various fields, and sought support from women’s groups and individuals
nation-wide, on 11 April, 2011. (On activities by various women, see Fumie Saito’s Article4.)
We generally proposed
Proactive Placement of women in decision-making bodies such as recovery andprevention councils and inclusion of gender perspectives
To increase number of members of the Reconstruction Design Council with gender
perspectives
The Reconstruction Agency and similar organization should reflect interests and opinions of
women, children disabled persons and sexual minorities with a gender equal perspectives.
As results of our lobbying, the perspectives of gender equality were included in the basic
philosophy of Basic Act on Reconstruction in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake(adopted on 24 June 2011), and the Basic Guidelines for Reconstruction in Response to theGreat East Japan Earthquake (decided by the Reconstruction Headquarters on 29 July 2011,
revised 11 August 2011). Furthermore, the women members in the Reconstruction Promotion
Committee were increased from one woman out of 15 members in April 11, 2011 to four
women among 15 members when the Prime Minister established of Reconstruction Promotion
Committee (formerly Reconstruction Design Council) in February 10, 2012.
In December 27, 2011, revision of the Basic Disaster Management Plan was released with
3

Japan Women’s Network for Disaster Risk Reduction (ed.)(2013) Disaster Risk Reduction: A Japanese Women’s
Perspective on 3/11 (Presentation to the Fourth Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction Geneva, May 19 to 23,2013) http://www.preventionweb.net/files/32983_32983insidetoprint1.pdf (accessed September 20, 2014)
4
Saito, Fumie (2012) Women and the 2011 East Japan Disaster, Gender & Development, 20:2, 265-279.

83some gender perspectives. We saw a certain progress but the texts which were added were more
focused on the specific ideas such as setting up a space for drying women’s articles or having
nursing rooms etc. And finally, on June 27, 2012, Disaster Countermeasures Basic Act (Law No.
41 in 1961) was revised with the gender perspectives. In the Act, what we proposed was partiallyreflected in this revision. Because of this revision, in 2013, the number and the percentage ofwomen in prefectural disaster management councils were increased, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Members of Prefectural Disaster Management Councils*Data as of April 1 each year

year
FY2007
FY2008FY2009FY2010FY2011FY2012FY2013
FY2014

total
2,362
2,426
2,417
2,429
2,419
2,484
2,715
2,717

women

men

67
76
77
100
87
114
291
320

2,295
2,350
2,340
2,329
2,332
2,370
2,424
2,397

women (%)

men (%)

2.8
3.1
3.2
4.1
3.6
4.6
10.7
11.8

97.2
96.9
96.8
95.9
96.4
95.4
89.3
88.2

Source: Cabinet Office, Japan (2014) Implementation status of policies on the formation of agender-equal society and women in local governments

4．
． Conclusion
Measures for disaster prevention and disaster response in Japan, at the national,
prefectural and municipal level must include not just the viewpoint of men but of women, theelderly and persons with disabilities and those who do not understand Japanese language fromthe stage of policy-making. Especially in some communities in Japan, mature-age men are out
at work for long hours during the day, leaving only elderly and family members withdisabilities in the home. It is necessary for these people to have a say in how to handle at thetime of disasters and it is mainly municipal units that must respond to these needs. For this tohappen, prefectural governors, local mayors, and local community leaders must have strong
awareness of the issues, including disaster prevention, immediate response to disasters,
management of evacuation centers, temporary housing design, medical and health services,
individuals and public opinion and reopening and rebuilding of businesses.
It has also been confirmed that the disaster prevention perspective has been included in
the amended Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities. On July 29, 2011, this amended law,designed to overcome cases of miscommunication of information to people with disabilities
during the Great Tohoku Earthquake, was passed in the upper house of the Diet, making it
compulsory for the national and local governments to set disaster prevention and crime
prevention measures that take into account the situation of people with disabilities (NHKNews, broadcast at 16:44, on July 30, 2011). There are a few scholars undertaking this type of
research, their number has been increasing but still is small and must be increased.
Through networking with NGOs and scholars internationally, we hope to emphasize moreon gender issues in the final document of Hyogo Framework for Action-2 (HFA2) in 3rd World
Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction by UNISDR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk
Reduction) to be held in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, March 14-18, 2015.
84

Chronology in relation to activities of
JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch)
1945
1956
1967

6/26
12/18
11/7

1975
1975

6/19-7/2

1976 - 1985
1979

12/18

1980

7/14-30

1985

6/25
7/15-26

1992

10

1993

6/14-25

7/12-15
11/16-20
12/20
1994

6/7-14

10/20-23

United Nations (UN) Charter signed (San Francisco)Japan becomes a member of the UN
Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
adopted by the UN General AssemblyInternational Women’s Year
World Conference of the International Women’s Year (1st World
Conference on Women, Mexico City, Mexico)
Plan of Action adopted; International Women’s Year Tribune held byNGOs
UN Decade for Women
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) adopted by the UN General AssemblyWorld Conference of the UN Decade for Women (2nd World
Conference on Women, Copenhagen, Denmark)
Programme of Action adopted; NGO Forum held
CEDAW ratified by Japan
World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the
UN Decade for Women (3rd World Conference on Women, Nairobi,
Kenya)Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women
adopted; NGO Forum held
Asia Pacific NGO Working Group (APNGOWG) established at the
preparatory meeting for 1995 Beijing Conference
World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, Austria)
Women rally under the slogan “Women’s Rights are Human Rights,
Human Rights are Women’s Rights”
Conference in Preparation for the Beijing Conference (Seoul, Korea)
by UNIFEM & APNGOWG
Asia-Pacific NGO Symposium on Women in Development (Manila,
Philippines) held by ESCAP & APNGOWG
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women adopted
by the UN General Assembly
ESCAP Preparatory Meeting for the Beijing Conference: High Level
Ministerial Conference on Women in Development (Jakarta,
Indonesia)
APNGOWG presents Key Recommendations to Governments fromthe Asia and Pacific NGO Symposium on Women in Development(Yellow Book) to the Ministerial Conference
1st East Asia Women’s Forum (Kanagawa & Tokyo, Japan)

85

1995

9/4-151996
1997

8/30-9/8
8/22-24
7/3-6

1998

1/7-11

1999

8/23-26
5/8
8/31-9/4

2000

10/26-29
10/29
6/5-10

9/4-7
11
2001

2/18

2003

2/20-242004

4th World Conference on Women: Equality, Development, and Peace(Beijing, China )Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) adopted
NGO Forum (Huairou, China)
2nd East Asia Women’s Forum (Seoul, Korea)
APNGOWG Workshop (Seoul, Korea)
APNGOWG changes its name to APWAPW Conference (Chandigarh, India)
3rd East Asia Women’s Forum (Ulan Bator, Mongolia)“Japan NGO Report Preparation Committee” established
Asia Pacific NGO Symposium (Kasetsart University, Thailand)
Asia-Pacific Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peacefor the Twenty-First Century (Asia Pacific NGO Report) compiled
ESCAP High Level Ministerial Conference (Bangkok, Thailand)
APW changes its name to APWW(Asia Pacific Women’s Watch)
The 23rd Special Session of UN General Assembly “Women 2000:
Gender Equality, Development, and Peace for the Twenty-First
Century”
4th East Asia Women’s Forum (Taipei, Taiwan)
Preparatory meeting for the establishment of the JAWW (Tokyo
Women’s Plaza, Japan)
JAWW (Japan Women's Watch) established and represents Japan to
the APWW
HARA Hiroko becomes the 1st President of JAWW
APWW Workshop and Preparatory Meeting for the Bijing+10
APNGO Forum 2004 (Chiang Mai, Thailand)

11/7-8
11/29-30

APWW Working Group Meeting
Preparatory Meeting for the Bijing+10 APNGO Forum 2004
(Bangkok, Thailand)

12/19-22
2/12-14

5th East Asia Women’s Forum (Hong Kong)
APWW Steering Committee Meeting and 1st Preparatory Meeting for
the Bijing+10 APNGO Forum 2004 (APWW Convener’s Group
Meeting, Bangkok, Thailand)

4/27-5/1

2nd Preparatory Meeting for the Bijing+10 APNGO Forum (Bangkok,
Thailand)5

Japan NGO Report 2004 for Beijing+10 (in Japanese) compiled

6

Japan NGO Report 2004 for Beijing+10 (in English) compiled

6/30-7/4
7Beijing+10 APNGO Forum (Mahidol University, Thailand)
APWW Steering Committee Meeting (Bangkok, Thailand)
Voices 2005 and Beyond: Proceedings of the Asia Pacific NGO
Forum on Beijing+10 compiled by APWW

86

9/7-102005

7/21-22
8/29

2006

3
2-7

7/18-19
5/10-11
5/16
2008
6/21-22
2008/9/11-2010/9/23
2007

2009

2
6/11-1410
10/22-24

2010

2011

2012

6

ESCAP High Level Governmental Conference and APWW Steering
Committee Meeting held (Bangkok, Thailand)
APWW Steering Committee Meeting (Bangkok, Thailand)
10th Anniversary Commemoration of the 4th World Conference on
Women (Beijing, China)
APWW Steering Committee Meeting (NY, USA)GEAR (Gender Equality Architecture Reform) Campaign
participated by APWW
6th East Asia Women’s Forum (Beijing, China)
APWW Steering Committee Meeting (Bangkok, Thailand)
the ECOSOC Special Consultative Status acquired by the APWW
APWW Steering Committee Meeting (Bangkok, Thailand)
HARA Hiroko becomes the Director of APWW; ASANO Mariko, theSecretary; and TANAKA Masako, the Assistant Secretary
Chronology of APWW published in CD form
APWW Steering Committee Meeting and Workshop (National
Women’s Education Center, Japan)
Japan NGO Report 2009 for Beijin+15 compiled by JAWW
Beijing+15 APNGO Forum (Miriam College, Philippines)

7

APWW Steering Committee Meeting and Workshop (Chiang Rai,
Thailand)HASHIMOTO Hiroko becomes the 2nd President of JAWW

1
6

UN Women established
TANAKA Masako becomes the 3rd President of JAWW

8APWW Steering Committee Meeting and Workshop (Colombo, Sri
Lanka)APWW Steering Committee Meeting (NY, USA)
APWW Steering Committee Meeting and Workshop (Colombo, Sri
Lanka)

3/1
8/17-18

87

JAWW NGO Report for Beijing+20
10 November 2014
JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch)Contact address: office@jaww.info
http://jaww.info/

This report is supported by the Mioko Fujieda Fund for Promoting Gender Equality.

88