Disabusing the Governmental System

1

Disabusing the Governmental System:
A Proposal to Protect Japanese Children from Abuse

This past April, Sora Yamazaki, who was 1 year old, passed away. His death
became a media topic because apparently he was abused by his mother. His mother left
him in his home and he starved to death. His brother, who was 4 years old at the time,staved off hunger by eating garbage (Morii, 2007). Their case is a tragedy, but is an
example of child abuse in Japan today and its shocking nature. This essay will discuss
the issue of child abuse and offer a proposal to make a governmental association which
specializes in child abuse and to give such an association more authority than thecurrent Child Consultation Center (called Jido-sodanjo in Japanese) has now.
Before outlining the particulars of my proposal, it is necessary to know thedefinition of child abuse. Without a clear definition, misunderstanding is quite likely.
American government offices, one of which is the Monroe County Department of
Human Services, define three types of child abuse: sexual abuse, physical abuse, andneglect (Monroe County, 2003). In this essay, I am not going to discuss sexual abuse. I
will focus mainly on physical abuse and to some extent neglect, but the difference
between physical abuse and neglect is not always clear.

Disabusing the Governmental System

2Once the types of child abuse are fairly clear, the next thing to discuss is the causeof child abuse. In fact, it is quite difficult to declare the causes of child abuse. However,
one likely cause is the parent’s loneliness. A Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry
survey said that too often just one parent is left to do child rearing (cited in “SurveyShows,” 1999). This kind of situation sometimes leads to child abuse.
However, such difficult situations are just one trigger of child abuse. A
governmental congress committee pointed out four intimate causes of child abuse: (1)The parent’s abused experience (2) The parent’s stress (3) The family’s isolation (4) The
child’s behavior (Healthy parent and child of 21 committee, 2000).

Child Abuse

Figure 1

The four main causes of child abuse

In addition to the parent’s problems, the reaction of the government to child abuse
is, surprisingly, also one of the causes of child abuse. If the government could react toevery case of child abuse soon, nobody would die because of child abuse. However, last

Disabusing the Governmental System

3year, 59 abused children passed away (National Policy Agency, 2007), which clearlyshows the present child abuse prevention system is not sufficient. Therefore, I can saythat the government’s response is one of the causes of child abuse, even though it is not
the direct cause.
The effect of these various causes is that children suffer because of their adults’
incompetence. Specifically where physical punishment by parents is concerned, afamous quote from public TV program host Mr. Rogers says, “When we don’tunderstand, we spank” (Rogers, 2007). What he means is many parents don’t
understand their own anger, their children’s feelings, the cycle of violence fromgeneration to generation, etc. Outside the family, as a country, the effects are not clear.
However, since abused children tend to abuse others around them (Kawasaki, 2006), we
can easily guess that the patterns we see on Japanese baseball teams, and with bullying
in schools, are connected to family life and physical abuse at home.
We, of course, cannot control how parents behave. However, we can affect thegovernment. The biggest government agency dealing with child abuse is the Child
Consultation Center (or CCC). The government now deals with child abuse through anetwork of all the governmental associations which may come into contact with anabused child (see Figure 2). The Child Abuse Prevention Law stated that the central

Disabusing the Governmental System

4association of this network is the Child Consultation Center, and the overall network
consists of schools, police, family courts, etc (Child Abuse Prevention Law, 2007).

Figure 2

Image of the present child abuse prevention networ k

However, some people argue that the network is not working well. In fact, agovernmental congress committee pointed out that the consultations of the child abuse
prevention association were not enough in some cases (Expert Committee on protection,2007). The biggest reason is that these associations do not deal only with child abuse,and even the central CCC deals with various kinds of child-related problems, such astruancy, bullying and juvenile delinquency. There is no governmental association which
specializes only in child abuse.
Another big reason why the CCC is not working well is its capacity. Although thisagency has local branches in every prefecture and main city, it is too small to deal with

Disabusing the Governmental System

5every case of child abuse. In 2006, there were only 2,147 child welfare commissioners
in Japan although child welfare centers across the nation handled a record 34,451 casesof child abuse in 2005, which is 31 times more than in 1990 (Ministry of Health, Labourand Welfare, 2005. “Abuse death prevention,” 2007). These statistics show that thesystem is inadequate and one wonders how many unreported cases are also out there.
While it is true that there are NGOs to fill the gap, none of these organizations arelegally powerful enough.

Figure 3
Despite the lack of CCC’s working competence, the government has begun toput in serious efforts to tackle the child abuse problem. In fact, the child abuse
prevention law was revised twice after it was created in 2000, and was reinforced togive more authority to CCCs. However, it is too soon to know if even more authority

Disabusing the Governmental System6

than this is necessary. If the recent changes are sufficient, the government agencies’
exercise of their authority is still too soft. In fact, a governmental congress committee
reported that there were 17 cases in 2004 which resulted in abused children’s death
despite the CCC’s notice. (The Expert Committee on protection, 2007). This data showsthat the current changes are not sufficient, and shows the weakness in the CCC’s
exercise of their authority. Therefore, I argue for a new organization that better serves
children.
Citizens are being let down when an important law is not fully exercised.
However, in the CCC’s defense, there are not enough welfare commissioners in Japan.
As mentioned above, the number of commissioners is small, and one commissioner has
to deal with an average of 16.4 cases a year. However, in these Child Consultation
Centers, commissioners have to deal not only with child abuse but also with various
kinds of child-related problems. Surprisingly, Yumiko Mami, director of the Hachioji
Child Consultation Center, stated that a commissioner has to deal with more than 200
cases a year (Child Abuse reporters from the Mainichi, 2002). This remark shows thatthese 2,100 commissioners have a great deal of work to do with reported cases alone,again not counting unreported cases.
Another big reason for the law’s insufficient implementation is that theseDisabusing the Governmental System7

commissioners are not fully trained. According to Diet member Kenzo Fujisue (n.d.),commissioners do not have enough training, and start work soon after their short
apprenticeship. The new law does not address this problem.
However, the biggest factor working against Japanese children is culturalbarriers. In Japan, culturally and legally, parental authority is positioned as a very
important civil right. In fact, Article 822 of Japanese civil law states, “A person whoexercises parental authority may discipline the child to the extent necessary” (TheJapanese Cabinet Secretariat, n.d., p. 20). Although this is not the right to abuse a child,and few people read the legal code, society assumes parents are in charge, not legal
courts. There is even a saying that says “Law does not enter homes.” The meaning
behind the written laws comes from cultural traditions in Japan, but these traditions
become barriers and sometimes hinder the CCC from helping abused children.
It can be concluded, from what we have seen above, that the governmental
system and the new law about child abuse is not adequate. It is too clear that the present
child abuse network is not working, and that the change of law has not changed thestatus quo.
In particular, my proposal calls for creating a new governmental association
called the Child Abuse Prevention Authority (or CAPA). The hierarchy will change

Disabusing the Governmental System

8from the current structure of a loose network to a single authority, just as the strong asthe police. All the information on reported cases will flow up to this authority (seeFigure 4). Such a system would be much better than the present one because reaction
time would be faster when there will be stronger central leadership than there is with alarge, dispersed network. And in addition, responsibility clearly rests in one place.

Figure 4

Plan for the ideal Child Abuse Prevention System

Another major point of my proposal is to give the CAPA stronger authority
than the current CCC has now. In extreme cases, the CAPA should have the right toenter a house forcibly to rescue children without the family court’s permission. Also, theCAPA should have the right to arrest an abusing parent instead of relying solely on thepolice. Some people might fear that giving too much authority to CAPA will cause an
abuse of power by commissioners. One can imagine a “big brother” type situation
where the government intervenes in people’s lives, rather than protects the populace.

Disabusing the Governmental System

9However, such a situation is far-fetched. Government intervention is the price we pay
when children are dying.
In addition to giving more authority to CAPA, it is necessary to change the roleof the child abuse prevention association. In my proposal, the Child Abuse Prevention
Authority will not only rescue abused children but also launch an advertising campaign
to raise awareness of child abuse. Nowadays, because of the campaigns by mass media,
awareness of child abuse has been rising (Teranishi, Nakamura, Fujita, & Mimura, n.d.).
However, few people know what to do when they have found an instance of child abuse.
According to a survey by Saitama prefecture, only one fourth of people know they havea duty to call CCC when they witness child abuse (Saitama prefecture, 2004). Thissurvey shows that public awareness of child abuse is not enough and that more
campaigns about child abuse are required. If we create the Child Abuse Prevention
Authority, they can launch an educational campaign and surely deaths from child abuse
will decrease.
Is Japan unique in its struggle with child abuse? What solutions have othercountries come up with? Many sources on this subject cite Canada as a model example.
Some of Canada’s advantages are to have school counselors available every day forstudents and to have a prescribed number of commissioners per district (Kawasaki,Disabusing the Governmental System102006. Ishii, Yamashita, 2006). This Canadian system is superior to other systems
because its reaction time is exceedingly fast and many cases of child abuse can besolved before they turn serious. However, it is almost impossible to create the samesystem in Japan. In order to create the same system, the Japanese government would
have to hire about 40,000 trained commissioners. It would cost too much, and it would
take quite a long time to properly train 40,000 commissioners. Therefore, it is quite too
difficult to adopt completely the same system of Canada. However, in Canada, family
courts have a great authority, and every other governmental association follow its orders.
Therefore, the hierarchy is similar to my proposal.
In conclusion, I can say that an idea like the Child Abuse Prevention Authority isnecessary to mitigate the problem of child abuse. From what we have seen above, it isobvious that the new association can address child abuse better than the present system.
In fact, my proposal addresses two points. One is that only having the current Child
Consultation Centers is not sufficient to help Japanese children. The other is that theCCC does not have enough authority. Consequently, a new organization can bothincrease the government's response to child abuse and educate the populace about theseriousness of the problem.

Disabusing the Governmental System

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