JAWW NGO Reportfor Beijing+25

JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch)
December 2019i

We, the members of the JAWW, dedicate this Report to the late Hiroko Hara.

ii

Table of Contents
Preface

ASANO, Mariko

1

A.

Women and Poverty

ABE, Aya

3

B.

Education and Training of Women

KAMEDA, Atsuko

5

C.

Women and Health

TSUGE, Azumi
TAKAHASHI, Sakino

9D.

Violence against Women

KAINO, Tamie

11

E.

Women and Armed Conflict

MOTOYAMA, Hisako

13

F.

Women and the Economy

SAITO, Etsuko

17

G.

Women in Power and Decision-making

MIURA, Mari

19

H.

Institutional Mechanisms for the
Advancement of WomenIWAMOTO, Misako

22

I.

Human Rights of Women

OMI, Miho

25

J.

Women and the Media

28

K.

Women and the Environment

TANIOKA, Rika
SANO, Atsuko
DOMOTO, Akiko
ODA, Yukiko

L.

The Girl-child

ABE, Maki

34

P

Youth

KAWAI, Chihiro

37

Q.

Women and Work

40

R.

Migrant WomenNAITO, Shino
KOBAYASHI, Mitsuko
YAMAGISHI, Motoko
OGAYA, Chiho

S.

Women with Disabilities

DPI Women’s Network Japan46

T.

The Role of Men and Boys

ITO, Kimio

49

U

Older Women

KAMOZAWA, Saori

53

V.

NAKAMICHI, Hitomi

56

W.

Agricultural, fishing and forestry
Women
Minority

JAPAN Alliance for LGBT Legislation

59

X.

Disaster Risk Reduction

Japan Women’s Network for Disaster
Risk Reduction (JWNDRR)

62

List of Contributors

31

43

65

iii

Preface
Coming 2020 is a very special year for those involved in some form of gender equality andempowerment of women and girls. This is the 25th year since the 4th World Conference on
Women (Beijing Conference) held in 1995. From the end of the 63rd United Nations
Commission on the Status of Women (hereinafter CSW) held in March 2019 (New York),various assessment work is underway by governments, UN agencies, CSOs/NGOs and otherswith the key topics of “Bejing+25”.
Japan Women's Watch (JAWW) is an NGO established in 2001. We have been working i)to monitor the situation in order to achieve gender equality in Japan, followed by various
advocacy actions and activities, and ii) to implement the Beijing Platform for Action throughparticipation in the CSW with the aim of promoting the advancement of women and girls basedon gender equality in cooperation with domestic and overseas networks.
Considering that the predecessor of JAWW was the “NGO Report Writing Group” that was
active for the 23rd special session of the UN General Assembly, “Women 2000”, held five years
after the Beijing Conference, it was natural for the JAWW to make an NGO report in the 25th
anniversary year of the Beijing Conference. It would be a kind of “must” for the JAWW to do so.
However, for a group with less than 100 members, making an NGO report that covers all areasof the Beijing Platform for Action was more difficult both financially as well as in relation tohuman power than making regular reports on the priority themes of the CSW. However wemade it. Fortunately, we were able to have many collaborators this time again, and I am happy
to present everyone this “JAWW NGO Report: for Beijing +25”.
This report consists of 21 areas, including 12 areas (A-L) defined in the Beijing Platform
for Action plus 9 areas (P-X) added originally by the JAWW. It does not cover the views of theentire NGO community in Japan, but it is written by an expert in each area who consented towrite for a JAWW version of NGO report. We respected the views of the authors and thecorrections were made only for editorial purposes.
Our writing guidelines listed the issues in each area. The authors were asked to pick upsome issues from the list clarifying the reasons to do so, to refer to CEDAW recommendations
and SDGs, and to use numerical data and/or concrete examples as much as possible. We also
introduced the authors the NGO CSW NY’s “NGO Guidance for National Parallel Reports” fortheir reference.
The enthusiasm and the spirit of the people worked in the “NGO Report Writing Group”
who tried to include different opinions are passed on to the present JAWW. I do hope that thisNGO Report will not only examine the 21 areas, but also will help foster young generations
who are interested in and aware of gender equality and empowerment of women and girls.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to those who gave valuable comments andsuggestions as the planning committee members, and those who wrote the chapters in their busy
schedule and with many restrictions including the number of pages. Thank you very much.

1And last but certainly not least, special thanks would be extended to the late Hiroko Hara,
the former Convener of APWW (2008-2010) and the first Convener of JAWW (2001-2009),
who passed away on October 7th, 2019 for her dedication and contribution to gender equality forlife.
December 2019
ASANO, Mariko
Convener, JAWW (Japan Women's Watch)2

A. Women and Poverty
ABE, Aya, Tokyo Metropolitan University
1. Poverty rate of women in JapanThe relative poverty rate of Japan is 15.7% (MHLW 20171, 2015 value) and among 36 member
states of OECD, ranks at the 10th highest. The situation is even worse for women in Japan. A brieflook at the poverty rate calculated by sex and age group (Graph 1) reveals that during almost theentire adulthood, poverty rate of women is higher than the poverty rate of men. During a life courseof women in Japan, there are two peaks when poverty risk is particularly high. The first peak is theages 20 to 24 and spans the childhood to adolescent. At this stage of life course, the poverty rate isalso high for men, and the rates for both men and women are around 18%. During the middle-age
years, the poverty rate of women decreases slightly, but remains higher than the poverty rate of men.
However, the highest poverty rate is seen during elderly years of women. After age 75, the poverty
rate of women is higher than 25%, indicating 1 out of 4 women at this age group is poor. The genderdisparity is the largest during the elderly years. As discussed later, this is mainly due to the differencein effectiveness of public pension in alleviating poverty between women and men. Since the 1980s
when the public pension matured and the poverty rate of elderly men drastically decreased, yet, thedecrease in the poverty rate of elderly women was limited2.
Graph 1. Relative Poverty Rate of Men and Women, by age group
Poverty rate of women differs

30%
Men

Women

considerably by the marital

25%

status of women. The highest

20%

rate is for divorcees for both

15%

working age (20-64) and10%

elderly (over 65). For elderly,5%

it is more than 40% and for0%

working age, more than 30.
The widows also show highpoverty rate of about 30% forSource：Abe(2018)

all ages. Also, the single(never married) elderly women show the poverty rate more than 30%. In sum, women face high riskof poverty in elderly if she does not have a spouse. Also it should be mentioned that for all ages,
divorcees and widows have higher poverty rate than the never-married women, indicating thatmarriage can easily become a poverty risk if it is not continued. This is because many women facedwith marriage and raising children give up their career and thus loses her human capital. Another1

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2017) Overview of Results of Heisei 28 nen Kokumin Seikatsu Kiso Chosa.
The definition of poverty line is 50% of equivalized disposable income.
2 Abe, Aya (2018) “Japan’s relative poverty rate from 2012 to 2015” Grants-in-aid for Scientific Research(B) Report.

3point is that divorcees have higher poverty risk than the widows. The divorce rate of Japan is not ashigh as some of the countries, but is increasing. Currently, 8.9% of women in their 40s, 9.9% of
women in 50s, and 8.5% of women in 60s (Census 20153) are divorcees (and has not remarried),making 1 out of 10 women eventually becomes a divorcee.
Graph 2. Relative Poverty Rate of Men and Women, by marital status
50%
Men

17.7%
17.0%

10%

35.8%
32.6%

32.3%

29.7%
24.6%

30%
20%

40.3%

Women

40%

21.7%

20.7%

10.8%
9.3%

30.6% 30.4%

14.7%
14.1%

0%
MarriedNever Widowed Divorced Married
MarriedNever Widowed Divorced
Married

20-64

65+

Source: Abe(2018)

2. Policies toward alleviating poverty among women in JapanThe largest policy for poverty alleviation is the Public Assistance System. However, while thepoverty rate is 15.7%, the recipient rate (% of population receiving public assistance) is 1.65%(MHLW4, 2019 July figure) and covers only a fraction of the poor. For single-mothers, there is Child
Rearing Allowance (maximum of 42,910 yen in case of 1 child), but together with low earnings ofwomen, the poverty rate for single-mothers is very high at 47.6%. Also the allowance covers somecost of child rearing, it is only up to the time that the child is less than 19 years old, and it does nothave any effect on reducing destitute among single-mothers after children are grown up. For elderly,
the gender disparity of public pension is large. For the Employee’s Pension (earnings related public
pension), number of female recipients is only 49.6% of male recipients, and their average old-age
pension amount only amounts to 60% of men’s. Most women rely on National pension (fixedamount public pension), but the average old-age pension amount for women is 53,013 yen as
opposed to 58,754 yen for men5.
In sum, the reason that the gender disparity of poverty rate remains and does not seem todecrease is that Japanese social security system and labour market are designed for and mainly caterfor married couples. Together with the increasing divorce rate, the rate of never married women isincreasing and estimated to reach 18.4% by 20256. An overall reform of social security system which
is designed for individual women, not as a “spouse”, is needed.

3 Census 2015 in National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (2019) Population Statistics (2019)
4

MHLW(2019) Survey of Public Assistance Recipients (2019 July).
MHLW(2017) Employees’ Pension/National Pension Report (2017)
6 National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (2018) Household Projections for Japan: 2015-2040.
54B. Education and Training of Women
KAMEDA, Atsuko, Professor Emeritus, Jumonji Women’s University
In the Japanese education system, elementary and lower secondary school are compulsory
education, and the advancement rate to the upper secondary school is 96% for both girls and boys.
However, there remains old practices that separate girls from boys such as a name list by genderwith boys first. The number of female teachers is lower than that of male teachers, making school
gender unequal. The advancement rate to university and graduate school has increased, althoughboys are still dominant. Gender equality movements in school show little sign of growth as girls are
passive or even reluctant to choose the science courses or develop new ability. In 2016, the Women’s
Empowerment Act came into effect, aiming to raise the ratio of female managers to 30% as one of its
main goals. It also encourages girls to choose Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics(STEM) fields under the promotion named “Riko-Challe”. However, the result is yet to appear. In
2018, discrimination against girls in the selection process at medical schools came to light, a practicethat lasted more than a decade. Girls and women have been systemically blocked from advancing
into new fields, which contradicts the equal access to higher education stipulated in the SDG 4-3. Itis urgent to prepare and promote a variety of careers and encourage girl’s ability development fromupper secondary school to university, and from university to profession.
1.

Receding gender equality by the national curriculum standards
Around 2000, grass-root movements for gender equality at school gained popularity among

citizens and teachers. Later, fierce criticism against gender equality, so-called “gender bashing”,
intensified across the nation. In 2006, the Abe administration amended the Basic Act of Education inwhich “co-education” was deleted. Based on the amendment, the national curriculum standards wererevised to regulate the content and methods of education. “Moral education” became a subject, andthe textbooks were created. As a result, familism is likely to be reinforced. Issues in diversity andgender equality were not included in “Citizenship”, that a new subject at upper secondary school. A
young generation is purposefully kept away from knowing these issues.
2.

Re-examine reproduction of gender equality at school
Gender-segregated practices observed at elementary and lower secondary school was pointed

out as a “hidden curriculum” that would lead to fixation of gender roles in the late 1990s. A
mixed-gender name list emerged as part of the gender equality movement. After 2000, the movement
declined as a result of harsh criticism. Recently, some schools accept students’ proposals and allow
girls to choose either slacks or skirts for their school uniform, which used to be limited to a skirt.
Other schools changed gender-segregated arrangements to gender-free arrangements whileabolishing an entry column for a sex identity from their application forms, to accept a gender
diversity (Dear Girls, a serial article in Feb 2019, Asahi Shinbun).
On the other hand, sexual harassment by teachers to girls became apparent. Especially, sexual5harassment from male instructors to girls at extracurricular activities became a social issue (White
Paper: Sexual Harassment at School, 2001). Some civil groups criticized schools for infringing onchildren’s human rights, such as forcing their students to dye their hair black. “Peer pressure” is sostrong and prevalent at school that children with gender identity issues often find it difficult to adjust
themselves to the environment.
3.

Girls’ reluctancy to choose science course and development of a new program based on the“unconscious bias" of teachers
According to “White Paper on Gender Equality 2019”, Japanese female students scored morethan OECD countries on average in the PISA science test (Average score in science: Japanese girls
532 and boys 545 / OECD girls 491 and boys 495. Source: “White Paper on Gender Equality 2019”,
p.24). Nevertheless, the number of girls advancing to higher education is low, and the ratio of female
scientists remains low (Iceland 47.2%, Japan 16.2%). The fact that less girls advance to science
careers is considered not because of their academic performance but because of the lack of rolemodels and parents’ and teachers’ support.
To encourage girls to pursue the science careers, the government focuses on alleviating theeffect of “unconscious bias” of teachers that reinforces gender roles. In 2018, it started to develop
various training programs for teachers to promote education that would allow more choices forstudents. This is a new approach from previous programs and is expected to have a fruitful result.
4.

Higher education that prioritizes male students and lower financial returns for a woman
Enrolment to university level for female students was 31.5% compared with 47.5% for malestudents in 2000. In 2018, the ratio of female students increased to 50.1% compared with 56.3% formale students although male students were still dominant. Female students tend to attend schoolfrom their home while male students are more likely to be allowed to live by themselves, by theirparents. On the other hand, advancement to graduate school was 6.3% for female and 12.8% formale students in 2000. The ratio barely changed in 2018 with 5.8% for female and 14.8% for malestudents. The ratio of advancement to higher education in Japan is lower than other countries.

Table1: Enrollment rate to higher education(%)
Junior College
University
Woman Man
Woman Man2018 8.3
1.0
50.1
56.3
2013 9.5
1.1
45.6
54.0
2000 17.2
1.9
31.5
47.5
Source:MEXT, School Basic Survey

Graduate School
Woman Man
5.8
14.8
6.0
15.0
6.3
12.8

In Japan, a woman attaining tertiary education gets lower financial returns than a man with asimilar level of education. OECD data (Education at a Glance 2018, 2016) depicts private net

6financial returns7 for a man are USD 284,600, thirteen times greater than the returns for a woman
USD 21, 000. Across OECD countries, the gender gap is the largest in Japan. And returns for awoman in Japan are about a ninth part of OECD average (USD 192,300) returns for a woman.
Higher levels of education attainment not yield higher financial returns for women in Japan.

Table 2: Private net Financial returns on attaining tertiary education(equivalent USD)OECD average
woman

Japan

man

woman

man

2015 192,300

267,100

21,000284,600

2012 167,600

258,400

33,600244,000

Source: OECD(
OECD (Education at a Glance2018,2016)5.

Lower ratio of female teachers and managers with few role models“The Fourth Basic Plan for Gender Equality” stipulates an increase in the ratio of female

managers to 30% by 2020. However, the goal is far from attained. The Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) merely lowered the goal to 20%, showing little
motivation to change the status quo. In 2018, the ratio of female teachers was 22.9% at elementary
school, 9.7% at lower secondary school, 8.8% at upper secondary school, and 16.7% at university(professor or higher). The board of education that determines an educational system for regional
governments has set a goal to eliminate “0 female board member by 2020”. The present situation
poses difficulty to both female students and teachers when they choose their careers because women
have less chance to develop their leadership skills and become role models to others at school.
Support and scholarship projects were set to begin to increase female researchers at university and tocreate an environment where they can focus on their study. These projects need more attention andenhancement.
6.

Lifelong learning to develop academic and professional careers
There is a discrepancy between school and “society/profession”, resulting in young generations

workers quitting their jobs out of disappointment. In 1999, career education began at lower
secondary school, which later allowed students to take internships at companies. It is important toconnect education with professional careers. It is even more important for women who havedifficulty continuing their jobs to receive vocational training from the perspectives of careerdevelopment and life planning. Outplacement for women, support for female managers, andrecurrent training that promote career enhancement and regular employment for women are taking
place at local women’s centers, universities, and the National Women’s Education Centre (NWEC).
NWEC is important social educational organization for achieving gender equality, plays central part7

Private net financial returns attaining tertiary education by gender as compared with adults attaining upper
secondary education, in equivalent USD converted PPPs for GDP.

7

nationwide various opportunities for lifelong learning and career training for women. Based on SDG
4-4, career development for women needs to produce tangible results through vocational trainingthat helps them to attain the skills and knowledge necessary for job performance.
An overall challenge is how to empower women to develop their careers and encourage them toadvance to new fields. It is important to acquire certificates in the nursing and care field where
women have been a dominant workforce. However, it is more important to encourage them to obtaincertificates in ICT technology and data science so they can open a new frontier as described in SDGs
5b and 5c. Filling a gap between education and the new era for women will lead to the creation of agender equal society.

8

C. Women and Health
TSUGE, Azumi, Meiji Gakuin University
TAKAHASHI, Sakino, Translator, Ochanomizu University
1. Introduction
Japan has experienced population shrinkage for about a decade and rapid aging of society isunder way despite various measures taken by the government. In 2018, total number of new bornbabies was around 900,000 with total fertility rate of 1.42. Percentage of young-age (0 to 14),working-age (15 to 64), and old-age (65 or older) population in the total population was 12.2, 59.7
and 28.1%, and average life expectancy for women and men was 87.32 and 81. 25. This social
situation had both direct and indirect influences on the "women and health" issue.
In 2015, Government set new Outline of Measures to Cope with Society with Declining
Birthrate with the premise that the low birthrate was the result of delayed birth and reduced numberof children due to the delayed marriage, and support of the childcare and child-rearing was deemed
insufficient as the countermeasure. "Marriage and first child birth at younger age" and "education of
medically and scientifically correct information on pregnancy and childbirth" at high school werefeatured, and a brochure for high school student emphasizing pronatalist policy was distributed. This
brochure, however, included numerous incorrect statistic handlings and inappropriate descriptions
with pronatalist bias. As a result of prompt action against this brochure, the government issued a newedition deleting the contents that had been pointed out (Nishiyama and Tsuge eds. 2016).
2. Adolescents and minors
One major health issue among girls is eating disorders caused by intense fear of gaining weight,
and typical consequence of the weight loss is amenorrhea. Death by suicide is also a serious issue
and Japan has ranked one of the worst in the developed countries with the suicide remaining first in
the death cause in the age of 15 to 39. While number of sex transmitted diseases (STD) patientsamong young women that had increased at or after the turn of the century had declined to theoriginal level or lower, exception is the skyrocketing syphilis cases including pregnant women.
3. Pregnancy and child birth
Japan has kept low maternal mortality rate at the level of 3 to 4 in 100 thousand births.
However, medical cost of giving birth is not covered by public health insurance except for livelihood
protection households, and lump-sum allowance for childbirth is paid from the public healthinsurance organization if at least one of the parents of the child is enrolled in a public healthinsurance program. Delivery in one's locality has become difficult in some districts by the shortageof obstetricians and integration of maternity facilities to general and university hospitals.
4. Infertility treatment and increase of ART
In the 2010’s, two activities, namely, “nin-katsu” the women’s activity for seeking pregnancy

9and “ran-katsu” the women’s activity for stocking her eggs in liquid nitrogen for use in later life
received attention. Infertility treatment is associated not only with physical and mental anguish but
also with economic burden while subsidies are partly paid from local government. Recently, in thecase of higher age women, treatment is often started from assisted reproductive technology (ART)including in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Japan is a country withthe highest rate of IVF treatment in the world while the success rate is limited. The cases where maleis first evaluated considering the possibility of male infertility are increasing.
5. Job and healthLong working hours have caused karoshi (death from overwork), depression, and various otherserious problems irrespective of gender. Women's rate of non-regular employee, however, is muchhigher with lower income and inferior health insurance coverage. Such poverty of women has
serious influences on health issues.
6. Recent issues on reproductive rights
Despite decrease in overall number, abortion rate in late teens and twenties is higher comparedto other age groups, and contraception in these age groups is important. The main method used forthe abortion in Japan is still curettage and vacuum aspiration (Tsukahara 2014), lagging far behind
the global standard where the abortion is induced by administration of medications as recommended
by WHO. Crime of abortion is still present in Penal Code despite legalization of abortion by theMaternity Protection Law, and in 2018, Japanese Government was advised by CEDAW for several
issues including amendment of the Penal Code and Maternal Protection Act to ensure thelegalization of the abortion. So far, the Government has not responded to this advice.
7. Infringement of reproductive rights
Under the Eugenic Protection Law (1948-1996), more than 16,000 people were forciblysterilized by eugenic reasons. Some of those people demanded national apology and compensation,and in 2019, a district court judged the Eugenic Protection Law to be unconstitutional because of its
infringement of reproductive rights to the pursuit of happiness while the court denied compensation
to the victims. Several lawsuits are ongoing. Also, in 2019, legislation was enacted to pay
compensation to those who underwent forced sterilization under the nation’s now-defunct eugenic
protection law. The compensation and the apology, however, are both insufficient.

Nishiyama and Tsuge eds. 2016 Demagogies of High School Nin-katsu Brochure by MEXT (inJapanese) Ronso-sha.
Tsukahara 2014 Abortion Technologies and Reproductive Rights (in Japanese) Keiso Shobo
Minister of Health, Welfare, and Labor, 2019.

10

D. Violence against Women
Change of Law System after 2015 and the Problems
KAINO, Tamie, Professor Emeritus, Ochanomizu University
On July 2017, big reforms of criminal provisions for sexual crime were carried out for the firsttime in 110 years. There was some progress such as the creation of sexual offences by guardians;
however, no review of the requirement of ‘assault and threat’ as well as a lack of examination of
victim’s ages of consent for sexual intercourse. Therefore, these reforms are defective as well as
leaving problems for future revisions of the law.
Yet, in 2017, the ‘# me too movement’ in USA and its waves brought some effect, such as somepeople’s action against high official’s sexual harassment. However, the government’s poor support
and criticism towards accusers were very strong. On the other hand, so called “JK business”, as well
as young women’s forced appearance in adult videos were increasingly revealed, which resulted insome governmental action, although a belated one. In March, 2019, Japanese courts acquitted
several sexual violence cases in a row, which delivered a shock to many people. However, women
immediately organized action such as ‘flower demonstration’ to voice their protest. This report will
focus on the revision of the Penal Code which is fundamental to punish sexual violence and theDomestic Violence Prevention Act which is the core means to prevent violence against women in theprivate sphere.
1. Limitation of criminal offences provision and enactment of law for the protection andsupport of victims of sexual violence
Sexual Crime provisions were made in 1907, but not amended so as to be subjected to the ideaof the post-war Constitution of Japan which embodied the equality of men and women and the
dignity of individuals. Penal Code reform owed to the strong will of the then female minister, but not
to women’s movements, although we should not forget the steady efforts of support activities for thevictims of sexual violence after the 1980s, as well as the precious contribution of UN Committee on
the Elimination of Discrimination by its repeated recommendations (2009 and 2016) for reform of
the Penal Code. Also, the “third Basic Plan for Gender Equality (2007)” wrote clearly about thenecessity of amending the provisions for the crime of rape offence by 2015. What is worthy ofrecognition is that those persons who are the victims of sexual violence had a voice saying that “Nodrafting without hearing their voices” had pushed the Members of Diet to legislation activities.
The 2017 reform of the Penal Code defined the offence of rape as forced sexual intercourse andexpanded it to similar sexual violence as well. In addition, this law was applicable to the act withoutcomplaint from victims, applicable to both sex (sex neutrality) and it also introduced forced sexual
offences by the guardian. However, there was no reform for rape by spouses or partners, ages ofconsent for sexual intercourse etc., changes in length of prescription for criminal prosecution andrape to spouses. Elastic requirement for rape was not included in this reform.
The 2017 reform had some provision of review after three years, the most important point of

11this review is requirements of forced sexual intercourse i.e. “violence and threat”. As regards this,the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women’s General Recommendation
No.35 “Violence against Women based on Gender” is very important. First, the Committee
suggested that gender shall play socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities attributes in a given
society appropriate for women and men disproportionately. Therefore, it is a problem of society
itself, not just that of individuals, and that measures should integrate and enhance the scope of rights
of victims as a whole: .i.e. it is necessary to take comprehensive measures.
Secondly, rape defined as a criminal offence “based on lack of freely expressed consent” raising
the necessity of consideration of the forced situation. And the Council of Europe Convention on
Prevent and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) of
2011 declared and defined that sexual violence is a crime based not on consent and the consent shallbe given voluntarily as a result of free will in the context of the situation relating to free will (Article36). Refinements of the concept of “violence against women based on gender” means a change oforder of gender and targeting realization of de facto equality; punishment of sexual violence should
be depend on consent or non-consent is now an international standard. Therefore, in the next reform,“no consent sexual intercourse” should be examined.
2. Institutional fatigue of Prevention of DV Act and the direction of its reform
Three points could be mentioned as new trends after the 2015 Prevention of Domestic ViolenceAct. First, core institute, i.e. temporal protections and protection order users are decreasing soquickly, and institutional fatigue has become evident. Secondly, the “Diet Members League for thePrevention of the Rift between Parents and Children” was established which aimed at enablingparents to meet and visit their children who they did not live with after separation or divorce. Thislegislation implies a ‘watering down’ of the Prevention of DV Act, since the DV Act is for theprotection of victims of DV who escape with children. Thirdly, the fact that child abuse and deathcases in 2018 and 2019 also involved DV brought to light that there was not sufficient connection
between the Child Abuse Prevention Act and the DV Prevention Act in order to save the lives ofchildren. And these applications for protection orders should include mental violence. This isnothing but one example of the need for amendments to the DV Act since this law had no proper
remedies or measures to support DV victims. The law only converts the clauses of Chapter 4,“protection and rehabilitation”, clauses of the Anti-Prostitution Act (Care Facilities Services, whose
legal bases come from ‘protection and rehabilitation’ of this Act). For the present, movements toenact the new law for the support for women are just starting.

12

E. Women and Armed Conflict
MOTOYAMA, Hisako, Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center
1.

General situation: increasing militarization
Tensions between states and militarization in East Asia has worsened in recent years, as shownin 140% increase in defense budgets in the region between 2012 and 2018 according to StockholmInternational Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The Japanese government has not done sufficient
diplomatic efforts to ease the tensions but rather helped increase it by accelerating militarization
itself.
Japan has increased its military spending from 4,753.8 billion yen in 2013 to 5,257.4 billion yen
in 2019, while also taking measures to further accelerate militarization such as: forceful legislationof Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets and the establishment of National Security
Council in 2013, which may seriously deter freedom of press and civil society as well as civilian
control over military by way of putting wide range of information under state control in the name of
security; lifting the ban on arms export in 2014 and promoting military cooperation with othercountries; allowing military use of Official Development Aid (ODA) funds by revising theDevelopment Cooperation Charter in February 2015; and forceful legislation of the security bills
which would lift the constitutional ban on the exercise of collective defense despite large public
opposition. These militarizing measures taken by Japan which is one of the world-largest economies
may have impacts beyond the region.
Fig.1 Defense-related Budget of Japan
5,300
5,200
5,100
5,000
4,900
4,800
4,700
4,600
4,500
2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

(billion yen)

Source: Annual reports of defense of Japan

2.

Impacts of militarization on local communities and womenConstruction of military bases and military deployment on South-eastern islands, such as

Ishigaki, Yonaguni, Amami, Miyako, Shimoji, as a response to increasing military tensions in theregion has increased concerns in local communities of those small islands and pressure on opponent

13

political leaders and residents. For example, in Miyako Island, a female member of the local council
faced huge pressure and harassment after she voiced concerns over social impacts of the missile baseof Japanese Self Defense Armed Forces, including sexual violence against local women by a large
number of Armed Forces members deployed to the island.
Also in the islands of Okinawa, where many US military bases concentrate, constructions to
relocate the bases are forcefully underway despite clear opposition of local communities. There are
an increasing number of reports of disinformation as well as hate speech against the opposition
movement, which are often based on ethnic discrimination.
Human rights violations by US military service members including sexual violence have notceased. In April 2016, a civilian worker at a US military base in Okinawa killed a local woman in an
attempt of sexually assaulting her. While the Japanese and US governments have taken somemeasures to discipline the military members, they have not taken effective measures to address thisserious gender-based violence such as strengthening monitoring and reporting systems.
3.

The “comfort women” and other issues related to the imperial past
One of the causes of increasing tensions in East Asia is denial by the Japanese government of

its responsibilities over human rights violations during the imperial wars and colonization in the past.
Especially the disputes between Republic of Korea over individual compensation for the victims
have worsened political, economic and cultural ties of the two countries.
The issue of the imperial Japanese military sexual slavery or the so-called “comfort women” isespecially serious cause of conflicts. While the Japanese government insists that the Korean
government should stick to the agreement of 2015 to “permanently solve the issue”, it has taken
increasingly aggressive measures to counter international criticism, including the official demand torevise the texts on the “comfort women” in the 1996 report of the UN special rapporteur on violenceagainst women in 20148; official demand to revise a history textbook of an American publisher in
20149; pressure on domestic and foreign media reports critical of the Japanese government, and anumber of cases in which overseas Japanese embassies putting pressure not to build or exhibit
memorial statues in Korea, the Philippines, US and European cities.
Such aggressive attitude of the government to deny responsibilities over the sexual slavery
system also puts increasing pressure on civil activities and freedom of expression in Japan, as shownin the forced closure of exhibitions depicting the issue.
4.

Formulation of National Action Plan to implement UNSC Resolution 1325
Formulation of Japanese National Action Plan (NAP) to implement UN Security Council

Resolution 1325 in 2015 is expected to the first step to incorporate gender analysis and to promote

8“Government requests revision of 1996 U.N. sex slave report.” 16 October 2014, The Japan Times.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/10/16/national/history/government-requests-revision-of-1996-u-n-sex-sla
ve-report/#.XcetiNVUtPZ
9 “Japan urges US publisher to remove comfort women from textbooks.” 15 Jan 2015. The Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/15/japan-urges-us-publisher-delete-references-comfort-women14

women’s participation in decision-making related to peace building and post-conflict development
supported by the Japanese government. On the other hand, however, roles of the civil society has
been seriously weakened in monitoring and evaluation process, and some of most critical issues thatthe civil society insisted to be incorporated in the NAP, including the “comfort women” issue and the
US military sexual violence, were dropped off from the finalized NAP. Also, the government has
lifted the ban on military use of ODA and arms export which contradicts with the government’s
commitment to human security and women’s rights. The government has also been very reluctant toaccept asylum seekers including those seeking refuge from gender-based violence.
Concluding remarks
Even though Japan does not face with any armed conflict, accelerating militarization,nationalism and increasing tensions over the past imperialism affects women’s and minority rights invarious ways. Especially women of ethnic minorities, islands close to national borders and thoseengaged in anti-militarism and peace movements are increasingly targeted. Focus should be given to
militarism and gender relations, rather than conflict management, as well as intersectional feminist
approach to peace.

15

F. Women and the Economy
SAITO, Etsuko, Ochanomizu University
1. Unpaid work still falls disproportionately on women
The issue of unequal gender distribution of unpaid work was raised in the 1995 Beijing Conferenceon Women, and it was pointed out that the disproportionately long hours spent on unpaid work by women
was one of the essential problems deterring women from economic resources. Figure 1 shows the trends
in time distribution between paid and unpaid work across gender since 1995. Although hours spent on
unpaid work has shown slight increase in men and slight decrease in women since 1996, women still
spend 4.5 times more hours on unpaid work than men, as of 2016.

When considering hours spent on unpaid work as time one opted not to work in the labormarket, the wages foregone (lost profit) as a result of spending time on unpaid work were valuatedas 1,971,000 yen per woman in 201610. When all unpaid work is calculated in terms of money, thetotal of unpaid work done in Japan in a year amounts to 143.1 trillion yen (Cabinet Office 2018),
which is more than a quarter of the nominal GDP. This practice of visualizing unpaid work by
converting to money values has been conducted since 1996, demonstrating that unpaid work still
falls disproportionately on women.
10

The figure was obtained by adding together the monetary values of housework (1,935, 000 yen) and volunteer
activities (36, 000 yen) in accordance with the opportunity cost method, based on Monetary Valuation of Unpaid
Work (2018) issued by the Regional and Satellite Accounts Division, Department of National Accounts, Economic
and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Cabinet Office.

16

2.

Although single mother households and single female households have lower income, theirsocial insurance premiums are of the same level as male breadwinner households. Hereagain, income redistribution is not working to benefit the poor.
When looking at household economy status by type of household (Table 1), the income ofsingle female households and single mother households is as low as 70% of that of single males.
Moreover, the level of wages and salaries of single mother households is even lower than that ofsingle female households. Non-consumption expenditure, in other words obligatory payments suchas tax and social insurance premiums, is highest in dual-income households. This is because thesehouseholds need to pay more income tax as they have a higher income and they also pay social
insurance premiums for the two earners of the household. When looking at the percentage of social
insurance premiums against the amount of wages and salaries, all household types are paying morethan 10%. Even single mother households with low incomes are paying 11.5% and single female
households are bearing the highest burden among all household types listed in the table. Although
single mother households receive about 41,000 yen as social security benefit, they must pay 32,000
yen as non-consumption expenditure, meaning that less than 10,000 yen are left for them to spend.
What maintains the dominance of male breadwinner households is this inadequacy of income
redistribution, which is attributable to the current government’s tax/social security systems.
Tableof Monthly
and Disbursements
Type of Household (2018)
Table１ 1 Average
Average of Monthly
ReceiptsReceipts
and Disbursements
by Type of Householdby(2018）

Unit:Yen

IncomeWages & salaries
Other current income
Social security benefits

Single male
householdSingle female
householdSingle motherhousehold

Dual income
household

Full-time housewife
household380,148 % of

258,842 % of

266,420 % of

630,360 % of

492,256 % of

Wages &
369,408 salaries

Wages &
236,312 salaries

Wages &
208,592 salaries

Wages &
598,108 salaries

Wages &

437,213 salaries

7,299

2.0

16,8087.1

51,60224.7

20,854

3.5

45,027

10.3

7,092

1.9

15,563

6.6

41,64020.0

20,034

3.3

43,586

10.0

Expenditures

258,306

216,342

Consumption expenditures

183,686

Non-consumption expenditures

242,315447,656

396,58649.7 171,924

72.8 209,350 100.4 331,859

55.5 301,938

69.1

74,62020.2

44,41918.8

32,96515.8 115,797

19.4

94,647

21.6

Direct taxes

30,281

8.2

15,578

6.6

9,038

4.3

46,595

7.8

42,6589.8

Social insurance premiums

43,981

11.9

28,702

12.1

23,884

11.5

69,11911.6

51,910

11.9

Disposable income

305,528

214,423

233,455

514,563397,609

Wages & salaries -Expenditures

111,102

19,970-33,723

150,452

40,627

Source: Statistics Bureau in Japan "Family Income and Expenditure Survey" (2018) Single household of man and woman refer Table 2, Single mother household refers
Table 3-6(with under 18 years old unmarried child), Dual income household refers Table 3-11, Full time housewife household referes Table 3-9(one earner and the rateof working of woman spause 0%)

17

3.

Access to financial services is complicating gender issues
According to MHLW Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions Report, households without any

savings accounted for around 10% of all households during the 2000’s, but the ratio has been rising since2010, and in 2016, approximately 15% of households did not have any savings. In particular, around 40%of all single-mother households did not have any savings. Table 2 shows the average and median ofbottom and top quartiles for savings amount of single male/female households by employment status.
Current amount of savings was larger in men than in women in all groups of regular employees. The
bottom quartile of savings amount of non-regular employees was less than 1 million yen for both men
and women, with women in the bottom
quartile having only 400 thousand yen
in savings.
Looking at the liabilities amountsof single workers by annual income
level (Figure 2), we can see that women

Table 2

Savings Amount of Single Male and Female Householdby Status in Employment
Unit: 1000Yen
Non regular
Regular employment
employment
Savings
Men
Women
Men
Women

have more debts than men in the annual

Average amount oflower quartile

2,350

1,800

800

400

income level of less than 2 million yen.

Median

6,000

4,660

4,000

5,450

Average amount ofhigher quartile

14,100 12,600 63,010 20,660

In annual income levels of 2 million yen
or more, men tend to have higher debt
amounts

with

some

exceptions.

Generally speaking, much of household

Source:: Statistics Bureau in Japan(2014) "National Income andExpenditure Survey for One-person Households" Table18.

debts consist of loans for purchase of land/home. The lower level of debts in women suggest that it ismore difficult for women to obtain ahousing loan than for men. Even womenwith an annual income of 6 million yen
or more have less than half as muchdebts as men with the same level ofannual income. This situation shows thatwomen’s access to financial services has
been limited. However, with the declineof bank earnings due to the easy-money
policies since 2016, financial institutions
are now turning to female customers forthe first time and developing financial products and services designed for women (such as housing loans
for women). These loans are often bundled with insurance covering non-repayment risks. Burdened byhigh interest rates and insurance premiums, it is not easy to pay back the debt principal and the debtor will
have to continue to repay the loan over a long period11. This new approach by financial institutions
targeted at women will drag women into the financialization of economy and affect women’s economic
activities in a different way from the past, causing new and complex aspects of gender issues.
11

For details, see Mariko Adachi, “Monetary Easing and Gender in Abenomics,” Journal of Feminist Economics
Japan Vol. 3 (2018): 43-57.

18

G. Women in Power and Decision-making
MIURA, Mari, Sophia University
Women’s participation in decision-making is extremely low in Japan, which has adversely
affected the country’s ranking in the Global Gender Gap Index (GGI). Japan was ranked 110th
among 149 countries as of 2018. Although the ratio of women in decision-making is on the rise
partly due to the enactment of the Women’s Empowerment Law and the Gender Parity Law,however, both laws do not institute compulsory quotas. They only provide incentives to companies
or political parties to compete over women’s advancement. It is thus necessary to deepen thediscussion for the introduction of the women’s quota.
1. Women's political participation
Women comprise 10.1% in the House of Representatives and 20.1% in the House of Councilors.
According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Japan is ranked 165th out of 193 countries as of January
2019. The figures in the local councils are also low, with the prefectural assemblies being at 10.0 %,the ordinance-designated city councils 17.2 %, the city councils 14.7 %, the special ward
councils 27.0 %, and the town and village councils 10.1 % (as of 2018).
The Gender Parity Law was enacted in May 2018 to increase the number of womenlegislators. This calls for political parties to aim at fielding an equal number of male and female
candidates. Although not binding, it is nevertheless groundbreaking as the first legislation which
considers the gender composition in the parliaments.
In order for the Gender Parity Law to take effect, it is crucial for the legal norm of the equal
number of male and female candidates to be enforced. For that purpose, monitoring by the media
and civil society is indispensable. If competition between political parties over women's recruitment
is triggered, an increase in the ratio of women can be expected.
In the year following the enforcement of the law, the unified local elections and the House ofCouncilors election were held, and some effects were observed. The shares of women among thecontesting candidates were 12.7%, 21.2%, 17.3%, 26.5%, and 12.1% in the elections to theprefectural assemblies, city councils of designated cities, city councils, special ward councils, andtown/village councils, respectively; all of these constituted record-highs. The shares of elected
women officials were 10.4%, 20.8%, 18.4%, 31%, and 12.4% respectively.
The House of Councilors election was held in July 2019, which resulted in females accounting
for a record 28.1% of the total candidates. Of these, 28—the same number as in the previous
election— were elected. As the total number of seats in the House of Councilors had increased, theshare of women elected decreased from 23.1% to 22.6%; the 56 women representatives (elections
are held for half of the seats every three years) constituted 22.9% of the House of Councilors—arecord high.
As the Gender Parity Law requires political parties to aim at gender parity in candidacy, weneed to examine the ratio of women candidates by parties. At the level of prefectural assemblies, the19share of women among the candidates was 46 % for the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), 26.0 %for the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), 18% for the Social Democratic Party(SDP), 12% for the Democratic Party for the People (DPFP), 8% for the Komeito, 7% for the Japan
Innovation Party (Ishin), and 4% for the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP). Table 1 shows
women’s share among the candidates and elected officials of the major parties in the House ofCouncilors election. The low shares for women in the LDP and Komeito had an impact on theoverall trend.
Table 1 Women’s Shares by Political Parties in the election of House of Councilors
LDP

Komei

CDP

JCP

DPFP

CDP

Ishin

Reiwa

Candidate

14.6

8.3

45.2

55.0

35.7

71.4

31.8

25.0

Elected Officials

17.5

14.3

35.3

42.9

16.7

0.0

10.0

50.0

Source: Created by the author based on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications“Results of the 25th House of Councilors General Election”
Article 4 of the Gender Parity Law encourages voluntary efforts such as setting numericaltargets for political parties. In fact, the Democratic Party for the People has set a numerical target of
30% of female candidates, and the Constitutional Democratic Party has set a numerical target of
40% for the party list of proportional representation in the House of Councilors’ election. Bothparties ran more female candidates than their respective targets, which confirmed the effectivenessof the numerical targets. The Japanese Communist Party did not set the numerical target, butsometimes its share of women candidates exceeded 50%.
2. Women's shares in managerial positions
There has also been a gradual improvement in women’s advancement in companies. As of 2018,
women’s ratio was 18.3 % among chief staff, 11.2 %, among managers, and 6.6% among directors.
As of 2010, it was 13.7 %, 7.2 %, and 4.2% respectively. Although the ratios have definitely
improved over the last eight years, the past three years marked stagnation—the ratios being 18.6 %,10.3 %, and 6.6%, as of 2016.
The Women’s Empowerment Law was enacted in 2016 as a temporary legislation for ten years,
which obligates national and local governments, as well as large companies employing more than
301 personnel to investigate and analyze the current status of female employees, formulate actionplans, and disclose relevant information. The government revised the law in 2019 to coversmall-and-medium companies and extended the range of information disclosure.
Despite the enactment of the Women’s Empowerment Law, the ratio of women in managerial
positions have not increased dramatically because it relies on the mechanism of “visualization” andthe recognition of excellent companies performing good practices. As of 2015, women’s ratio at theentry level of companies was 22.2% in the managerial track and 82.1% in the secretarial track. Thesefigures indicate that women receive less opportunities for career development from the beginning of
their careers itself.

20

In order to increase the number of women in managerial positions, it is essential to reduce thehours of unpaid care work that women have been carrying out. In Japan, the duration of engagementin unpaid care work for men, on an average, is 1 hour 17 minutes, which is considerably less than the
4 hours 14 minutes for women. Among the G20 countries, Japan ranks third from the bottom afterIndia (31 minutes) and South Korea (39 minutes), and is similar to Turkey (1 hour 27 minutes). Not
surprisingly, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey are countries with a lesser percentage of female
managers (the corresponding data from India is missing). In order to increase the ratio of women in
managerial positions, it is thus essential to foster awareness of equally sharing unpaid care work
between men and women in addition to reducing working hours and encouraging men to takechildcare leave.
With respect to the board members of the listed companies, the female ratio is extremely low,
3.7%, in Japan, which is in contrast to 30% in Europe and 40% in the United States. The government
revised the corporate governance code in 2018, which mentions to ensure diversity of corporateboard members with respect to gender and nationality. Certain effects are likely to occur, albeit to alimited degree.
The government actively promotes women’s empowerment and has strengthened the legal
foundations, which has led to women's further participation in decision-making. However, drastic
improvements cannot be expected due to the uneven sharing of unpaid care work and the lack ofcompulsory measures such as quotas. Further institutional reform is thus necessary in this regard.

21

H. Institutional Mechanisms for the Advancement of Women
Law and System, Central and Local Government
IWAMOTO, Misako, Mie University
This report focuses on the national machinery for gender equality and gender mainstreaming,
which are the main institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women.
1.

The national machinery for gender equality
The national machinery for gender equality in Japan consists of three organizations:➢

Headquarters for the Promotion of Gender Equality (hereafter Headquarters)➢

Council for Gender Equality➢

Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office

The headquarters, chaired by the Prime Minister and comprised of one women minister tasked
with gender equality and 19 male ministers, (now 2female and 17male ministers) promotes thesmooth and effective implementation of gender equality measures. The Council for Gender Equality
submits their opinion on the Basic Plan for Gender Equality to the Prime Minister. This council
comprises 12 ministers and 12 experts and arranges all the measures taken to promote genderequality. Expert committees under the Council for Gender Equality assist with the functioning of theCouncil in this respect. Finally, the Gender Equality Bureau’s Cabinet Office serves as the secretariat
for the Headquarters, the Council for Gender Equality and the Liaison Conference for the Promotionof Gender Equality. In October 2014, the government established the Headquarters for Creating aSociety in which All Women Shine at the Prime Minister’s Office. It is chaired by the Prime Minister,comprises all ministers, supervises the issue regarding “important guidelines to accelerate of
women’s empowerment,” and bypasses the Headquarters, which has a traditional impact on genderequality.
The national machinery has been located at the highest level of the government, which makes it
dependent on varying levels of political commitment by the Prime Minister and the ruling party.
Shinzo Abe was one of the leaders promoting gender backlash as the Secretary General of the
Liberal Democratic Party (LPD) under the Koizumi administration (2001-2006). The second Abeadministration (2012-) put women’s empowerment as the 3rd pillar of his economic policy,“Abeno-mics.” The government does not emphasize equality and human rights, but rather utilizes
women as economic resources. The headquarters of SDGs, chaired by the Prime Minister andcomprised of all government ministers, are located in the Cabinet Office. “Plan of SDGs 2019” has
444 items, with only 20 comments on gender.
At the local level, authorities are required to enact an ordinance on the promotion of a genderequal society. All prefectures, except one, and all designated cities have enacted the ordinances. In
this one prefecture, the backlash against gender equality promotion has prevented a woman governor
from implementing the ordinance on the promotion of a gender equal society. 97.0% of cities and22special districts and 52.6% of towns and villages have the ordinances.
After the Koizumi administration, the LPD-Komei coalition lacked the will to promote genderequality policies. The administrations led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), comprised ofsome enthusiastic ministers but did not concentrate on promoting gender equality as a whole. As aresult, recognition of gender equality as a term has not improved. Whereas 64.6% recognized theterm in 2009, 61.6% and 66.3% of women and men, respectively, recognized the term in 2013. The
Japanese Headquarters, with the help of NGOs, cannot overcome the lack of government will in theaftermath of the gender backlash. Japanese ministries do not intervene in matters that are under theauthority of other ministries. Reproductive rights are covered strictly by the Minister of Welfare andthe Minister of Justice, and education by the Ministry of Education. Regarding domestic violence,protection orders are issued by the courts, and the Ministry of Welfare provides protection for thevictims. As a result, only the provision of statistics and public relations remains under thejurisdiction of the Gender Equality Bureau. The Headquarters need to inquire and advise on thematters of other ministries in this respect.
The gender ratio of political representatives is referred to in the section G; with regards to thegender of ministers and the judges of the Supreme Court, the Koizumi administration once included
five female ministers, after which one or two female ministers have been more common. DPJ
administrations (2009-2012) included between zero and two female ministers. The 2nd Abeadministration once had five female ministers, although two of them resigned soon owing to thescandal. The Japanese Supreme Court consists of 15 judges. The first female judge was nominated in
1993. Abe nominated female judges in order to have three female judges at the same time.
Nonetheless, after the retirement of these female judges, he nominated male judges, with only one
female judge remaining. After the retirement of a male judge, a female judge was nominated for theSupreme Court, resulting in two female Supreme Court judges today.
2.

Gender mainstreaming
Gender mainstreaming promotes policies in all areas that concern gender in all policy area. The

role of the headquarters needs to be clarified so that measures, including gender mainstreaming andgender budgeting, are promoted effectively.
(1) Basic Plans for Gender Equality (2000, 2005, 2010, 2015)
The government formulates the Basic Plan for Gender Equality every five years, whichfunctions as a coordinating process for gender mainstreaming. It has so far issued four Basic Plans in
2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. The second Basic Plan was regressive as it was formulated when theruling party, LPD, was orchestrating an anti-gender equality campaign. In contrast, the third Basic
Plan is the richest because it was formulated under DPJ administration. Terms such as gender,
reproductive rights, and unpaid work, which were removed from the second Basic Plan, reappearedin the third basic plan. It also included “the benefit of gender equality for men and children,” and set
the goal of women occupying 30% of leadership positions in all areas of society. This goal has been
adopted by the Fourth Plan as well . In the Fourth Basic Plan, formulated after 2nd Abe

23administration, “the benefit of gender equality for men and children” disappeared, with “changes tomale-centric labor customs and women’s empowerment” now included. While this new addition
stresses measures to fight prejudice, current systems, such as allowances for wives of low income
and pensions for wives without payment, need to be changed. Under this Plan, comments on gender,
reproductive rights, sex education, and the media are limited.
(2) Gender budgeting
The Japanese government has not yet implemented gender budgeting. The Gender Bureau puts
together the amount that each ministry considers necessary for promoting gender equality. Itamounted to 7.7 trillion yen in 2014 and 8.3 trillion yen in 2018. The increase is caused by thewebsite system at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which visualizes 1) the ratio of
women and men in each ministry, local public organizations, and private enterprises; 2) differences
between women and men’s length of service; 3) working hours; and 4) the number of womenadministrators in each ministry, local public organizations, and private enterprises with over 100
employees. These statistics reflect the progress of the women’s empowerment policy.
(3) Gender statistics
The Statistic Bureau issued statistics on gender till 2012. And the National Women Education
Center published a data on gender equality, however, stopped publishing in 2015. The Fifth Planshould include a policy promoting the collection and publication of gender statistics.
3.

Future task
The gender backlash in Japan has not ended yet. Conservative lawmakers, which include

female lawmakers, have criticized the examination in Geneva by the Committee on the Eliminationof all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as a Marxist conspiracy to suppress
Japanese traditions. Headquarters and NGOs need to make efforts to resolve misunderstandings
about the Committee, and to make CEDAW’s recommendations commonly known.

24

I. Human Rights of Women
OMI, Miho, Kanagawa University, JAWW
1.

Revising discriminatory provisions against women
Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) requires governments to ‘promote and protect the humanrights of women, through the full implementation of …the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (hereinafter, the CEDAW Convention)’ (Strategic objectiveI.1). However, despite repeated recommendations made by the Committee on the Elimination ofDiscrimination against Women (hereinafter, CEDAW Committee) and other international humanrights bodies, discriminatory provisions remain in Japanese law. The most basic obligation of a stateparty under the CEDAW Convention to ensure legal (formal) equality for women has not been
fulfilled.
Civil Code Article 750 stipulates that a couple ‘shall adopt the surname of the husband or wife’
forcing a couple to choose a surname upon marriage. The couple cannot legally marry if they retain
their own surnames. On December 16, 2015, the Grand Bench of the Supreme Court upheld theconstitutionality of the article, saying that freedom from being forced to change one’s surname at thetime of marriage cannot be regarded as part of personal rights. It recognized the function of asurname to identify a person with her accomplishments and credits acquired before marriage but
stated that the meaning of a surname as ‘an appellation for the family’ had greater importance.
According to the Specific Report of Vital Statistics in FY2016: Marriage Statistics carried out by the
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), 96% of couples who married in 2015 chosehusband’s surname upon marriage12. Reasons for this considerable gap may include a traditional
thinking that a woman “enters” the family of her husband when she marries and the power
imbalance still exists between men and women, especially concerning financial means. However,there are many women who want to retain their own surnames today, especially among professional
and working women. Even in the above Supreme Court decision, all female judges (3 out of 15
judges of the Grand Bench) joined the dissenting opinion to support the unconstitutionality of thearticle. Another survey on the legal system concerning the family conducted by the Cabinet Office in2017 showed that 42.5% of the respondents agreed to revise the article so that a couple can retain
their own surnames, comparing to 29.3% who considered not necessary to revise the provision and24.4% who agreed to a revision but to recognize the use of bynames or common names (or maiden
names, in this case)13. The government should introduce a system for a couple to be able to keep
their surnames if they so choose, as the CEDAW Convention requires a State party to ensure “thesame personal rights as husband and wife, including the right to choose a family name, …” (Article
MHLW, “2 Multidimensional Analysis of Marriage Trends” , p.10,
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/database/db-hw/dl/vs06_2_Multidimensional_Analysis_of_Marriage_Trends.pdf,
accessed on November 4, 2019.
13 Cabinet Office, “Opinions about Introducing a System Allowing to Choose Separate Surnames for Married
Couples” (in Japanese), (9),https://survey.gov-online.go.jp/h29/h29-kazoku/2-2.html, accessed on November 4, 2019.
1225

16(1)(g)). On September 30, 2019, the Tokyo District Court dismissed a new case on this matterstating that the plaintiffs’ claim could hardly be regarded unconstitutional.
Also on December 16, 2015, the Grand Bench of the Supreme Court decided that the part ofCivil Code Article 733 (1) to prohibit women from remarrying for a period exceeding 100 days
violated the Constitution and found it reasonable to keep a 100-day waiting period. Article 733 was
modified in 2016 in accordance with this decision. The reason to uphold a 100-day waiting-period
constitutional was Article 772 of the Civil Code, which provides that a child born after 200 days
from the marriage or within 300 days from the divorce shall be presumed to have been conceived
during marriage. However, as it is possible to scientifically decide paternity of a child today, there isno need to restrict the freedom of marriage of a woman and her partner. Moreover, this provision ispreventing a child from being registered because, especially when domestic violence is involved and
it is difficult to get a divorce from the husband, the mother may not submit a birth notification sinceshe does not want to have her child registered with the abusive husband as her/his father. Therefore,
Civil Code Article 733 (1) along with Article 772 shall be revised.
The provisions of the Family Registration Act discriminatory against children born out of
wedlock, including the one requires discriminatory statement in the birth notification, should be
removed in order to protect those children and their mothers. Provisions criminalizing women who
obtain abortion and medical personnel who provide or assist it (Penal Code Article 212 to 214)
should also be abolished.
2. Ratification of the Optional Protocol to CEDAW Convention
Individual complaint procedure is indispensable to implement the CEDAW Convention in eachstate and there are already 113 states ratified the Optional Protocol to the CEDAW Convention(hereinafter, OP-CEDAW). Despite the numerous petitions submitted to the National Diet bywomen’s and other NGOs in Japan as well as the repeated recommendations made by the CEDAWCommittee to ratify the OP-CEDAW, Japanese government has not moved towards its ratification.
The government keeps saying that they are considering how to construct the system to respond to theprocedure. The government needs to recognize that individual complaint procedure does notinterfere with the independence of the judiciary; it rather strengthens the autonomous decision
making by the judiciary, using international instruments. Furthermore, the government should set a
clear time frame for ratification as well as to have the legislature, jurists, and law-enforcement
officers learn and understand the commitment of the Convention and its Optional Protocol.
3. Human rights of minority women
Racial and gender discriminatory statements have been propagated against ethnic and otherminority women, especially Korean Japanese women, through the internet and social networking
services. Although the Hate Speech Regulation Act came into force in 2016, it does not have any
provision providing criminal sanction. In addition, it protects residents who were born abroad andtheir descendants only so that it cannot regulate hate speeches against Ainu, Buraku, and Okinawan
people who are minorities born in Japan. Acts of hate can be harshest against women who voice their26

concerns showing that they are not only discriminatory against minorities but also based on genderstereotypes. Further as well as cautious efforts are necessary to counter such acts of hate in order toprevent and eliminate gender discrimination and violence against women.
4. Conditions of female prisoners
Since female prisoners are small in number in Japan (about 10%), treatment of prisoners has
been developed mostly with male prisoners in mind. Recently, additional female prisons were built
and, therefore, over-crowdedness of female prisons has been solved to some extent. However, it does
not mean the prisons are operated with gender perspectives. Issues requiring further measuresconcerning female prisoners include the treatment system of drug dependency prevalent amongfemale prisoners in their 20’s to 30’s; the relationship between female prisoners and damage causedby domestic violence; the interests of children and intra-institutional child-rearing by female
prisoners; and the increase of elder female prisoners, especially repeated thieving by 70 year old andolder offenders. In order to deal with these matters, it is necessary to take measures consideringsocial and economic conditions surrounding female prisoners outside prisons in addition to thetreatment within the institutions.
5. Comprehensive measures for the protection of women’s human rights
Introducing a comprehensive definition of discrimination against women based on Article 1 of
the CEDAW Convention into domestic legislation and establishment of an independent national
human rights institution based on the Paris Principles are necessary to protect human rights ofwomen and promote gender equality. They are also indispensable to prevent and respond to indirect
and/or intersectional discrimination against women. However, neither has realized yet in Japan. It istruly hoped to have comprehensive measures to eradicate gender stereotypes entrenched in Japanesesociety in order to realize human rights of women.

27

J. Women and MediaTANIOKA, Rika, Tokai University
SANO, Atsuko, Japan Society of Social Design Studies
translated by OSEKI, Yukari
These five years have marked a significant time for women and media as the reality of sexualassaults of women working in media have been uncovered. Moreover, while women have more
opportunities to speak out on SNS networks as such with the development of digital technologies,
bashing in the cyberspace have become social issues. It is an urgent need to take measures to thoseharassments with gender perspectives, that are applicable not only to the real society but also to thedigital space.
1. Women’s participation still below 30%
Women’s participation in mass media has been far behind compared to other countries in theworld. In Japan, we don’t have the professional organizations like other countries, and new graduates
are collectively employed by one organization and work there for life. The media annually
publishing the data on women’s participation are newspapers, NHK and commercial broadcastings.
In 2019, there are 1922 female workers in NHK (non-commercial broadcasting) which is 18.6%of all workers and 9.5% of all managerial staffs are female. It has been only 11% increase in about
25 years since 1993 when survey was made for Beijing conference. Female correspondent ratio in
Newspapers and news services is 20.2% which is below 30% in 2018. According to the survey in2019 made by Women’s Committee of the Federation of Japan Commercial Broadcasting Labor
Union, there is no female senior managerial staff in broadcasting and production division ofcommercial broadcasting companies in Tokyo.
On the other hand, in new Internet media companies the ratio of female correspondents is rather
higher and they (including male correspondents) tend to write articles related to gender and diversity
willingly.
2. #Me Too movement of workers in media and bashing
The big issue regarding women and media in these five years is that the sexual harassments tothe women working in media have been revealed. Female journalists have set up ‘Women’s Network
Working in Media’ and started to take actions to make the reality of sexual assaults open to publicwhich might lead to change the society. It has been required to build the society-wide consciousness
not to forgive sexual harassments and to enact the comprehensive law to criminalize harassment. The
cases of sexual harassments are listed below.


In 2017, a female journalist in her 20s was interviewed under her own name, in a press
conference held by the Foreign correspondents’ Club of Japan, and she revealed that she had
been raped by the male journalist of a major broadcasting bureau, and made an appeal to havesocial discussions and law enactment against sexual assaults.

28



In 2018, when it was surfaced that the assistant finance secretary has been sexually harassing
the female correspondent of a broadcasting bureau, the Ministry of Finance said “there is no
crime called sexual harassment.”, which seemed to be defending the harasser. It revealed thelack of awareness of sexual assault in the society.



In this situation, in 2019, famous male journalist was accused of sexually assaulting female
staffs of his own magazine repeatedly for a long time, by the victims having kept silent.

3. Diverse female and male figures on TV dramasThough not many changes have been seen in the gender roles in news or information programs
that a male plays the main role and a female supports him, female figures in the TV dramas havebeen diversified compared to that time in 1995 and it can be said that stereotype has been decreasing.
As LGBT themselves appear on the media and have more opportunities to speak out, it seems thatthe understanding in diverse sexuality in the society has been better. The TV drama, whose main
character is a gay has been popular whereas there is hardly any lesbian on such dramas.
Some new trend has been seen in kids anime program. ‘HUG to! Precure’ has put out messages
in 2018 that “the girls can be heroes” and “the boys can be princesses”, which shows the diversity.
Though the video-clip network companies utilizing the Internet have been increased, there is no
deeply involved research on how the female and male figures have been described in those
programs.
4. Internet videos ‘under fire’
With the growth of the Internet, the movement to say “no” to the expression of women on theInternet has been prominent. In particular, there have been many cases in which local governments
used the female figures as sexual objects in their commercial video clips and those were ‘under fire’receiving a flood of criticisms. Other than the advertisement of local government, there were morecases in which the products advertisements with fixed gender role or only featuring youth havereceived a lot of criticisms and ended up in the cancellation of advertisement or the apology bysponsor companies.
5. Possibilities and risks of the transmission on SNS
While every person can easily transmit message on SNS and various opinions are sent out,
mainly the teenagers have been increasingly involved in the crimes triggered by SNS. In addition,
anonymous people have been bashing women speaking out on SNS. The followings are the major
cases.
In 2016, the personal blog titled “Couldn’t enter the nursery school. Death to Japan!!” had been
widely referred in mass media. Mothers have sympathetically spoken out on the Internet about
the unsolved issue of waiting lists for nursery schools and moved the Diet discussions.



According to the release by the National Police Agency in 2018, the number of children under
18 who have been the victims of the crime like forcing them to send indecent image of‘self-photo’, were up to 1,813 which is the worst since 2008 when the first statistics recorded.

29

In 2019, the woman who developed the #KuToo movement (kutsu (shoes) and kutsuu (pain))on the Internet to request the remediation for the company rule forcing only woman to wear
high-heels, has received bashings as well as a lot of approbation.

6. For protecting individual dignity on cyberspace and ICT to truly help women’s
empowerment
There is no sufficient legal countermeasure to deal with the above cyber bashing and sexualassaults and harassment. To protect the individual dignity not only in the real society but also incyberspace, the prime task is the general legal system development including the ‘comprehensive
definition of discrimination against women’ which has been repeatedly requested from Committee of
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
In the cyber space, it is more likely for the individual dignity to get infringed through the strong
relations between JK business and SNS, the leakage of fake video like a montage of nude scene andso on. While there have been the amendment of sexual assault law and enactment of Revenge Porn
Prevention Act, laws and legislations with more comprehensive gender viewpoint are required.
Collaterally, in consideration of AI prevailing and promotion of Society 5.0, the system
structuring for the benefit of digital technology to prevail equally irrespective of gender has beenrequired; for example, more active actions for women in STEM sector to increase, providing training
for women, who rarely have chance to improve their ICT skills as non-regular worker or having left
their job due to childbirth or child care, and education for improvement of ICT, media literacy
aiming for safe access and usage and so on.

30

K. Women and the Environment
DOMOTO, Akiko, Japan Committee for the UN Decade on Biodiversity
ODA, Yukiko, JAWWThe environment has been identified as important area to achieve gender equality andwomen’s empowerment in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA). The 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) regard theachievement of gender equality and empowerment of women and girls as crucial for progress
across all goals and targets of the SDGs. The SDGs also has Goal 5, which specifically focuseson gender quality and the empowerment of women and girls. In contrast to the close relationshipbetween gender equality and environment and sustainable development in internationalframeworks, they can sometimes be found at different ends of the spectrum in Japan. The
language of gender equality and women’s empowerment are often absent in policies andmeasures for the environment and the environment is frequently on the periphery in the policies
and measures in promoting gender equality.
1. Three strategic objectives of the BPFA
The BPFA identifies three strategic objectives in section K. Women and the Environment:
K.1. Involve women in environmental decision-making at all levels; K.2. Integrate genderconcerns and perspectives in policies and programs for sustainable development; and K.3.
Promote gender-based impact assessment of development and environmental policies. Section
K. will be reviewed based on these three strategic objectives.
First, women’s participation in decision-making on the environment and sustainable
development is relatively low. The participation rate of women on national advisory councils
and committees in the Ministry of Environment (MOE) is 33.6%, ranking second to last among
14 ministries in Japan.14 The proportion of women in managerial positions at the MOE is16.3%, a figure that is lower than the average of 19.3% in all ministries.15 Another example ofwomen’s low participation in decision-making is the SDGs Roundtable Meeting, which
comprises representatives from multi-stakeholder groups set up by the government in 2016 topromote the 2030 Agenda. The female ratio of members in this roundtable is 28.5%, only 4 out
of 14 members.
Secondly, gender perspectives are noticeably absent in Japan’s environmental strategies
and policies. Gender- and women-oriented language cannot be found in the Annual Report on
the Environment, the Sound Material-Cycle Society and Biodiversity in Japan 2019 (Annual
Report on the Environment). The ongoing Fifth Basic Environment Plan emphasizes theimportance of involving stakeholders from all areas of society in building a “Circulating andEcological Economy”, but no attention is paid to gender differences in interests, priorities and1415

http://www.gender.go.jp/policy/mieruka/pdf/saiyou_201812.pdf (in Japanese)
https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/gaiyou/jimu/jinjikyoku/files/181102_followup.pdf (in Japanese)31

opportunities among stakeholders.
On the gender equality side, the Fourth Basic Plan for Gender Equality designates one
small section to the environmental field in which two actions are identified: 1) increasing
women’s participation in decision making and 2) taking actions to integrate gender perspectives
into environmental measures in accordance with international frameworks to solve planetaryenvironmental issues, such as climate change, and to promote sustainable development. Despite
these promising plans of actions, no indicators to measure achievements have been identified
nor a budget allocated. Furthermore, the Intensive Policy to Accelerate the Empowerment of
Women, an annual action plan for women’s empowerment, does not include a section on theenvironment and the White Paper on Gender Equality narrowly focuses on Education for
Sustainable Development (ESD) in its review of environmental activities, in contrast with thecomprehensive actions in the Basic Plan for Gender Equality.
Japan’s SDGs Implementation Guiding Principles (SDGs Guiding Principles) is anotherdisappointing example that reveals an indifference to gender equality and gender perspectives.
Although the SDGs Guiding Principles recognize that mainstreaming gender perspectives iscritical in realizing the objectives of the SDGs, no gender perspectives are expressed inenvironmental goals. While the SDGs Action Plan, an annual plan on the implementation of theSDGs, emphasizes women’s empowerment and has included it as one of three pillars inpromoting the SDGs, its contents heavily focus on drawing women into the labor market andneglect removing obstacles to their full participation in the workplace, such as gender-based pay
gaps, sexual harassment and the burden of care that falls on women.
Thirdly, there are no gender statistics in environmental issues or they are barely visible. For
example, the Annual Report on the Environment by the MOE includes the results of a survey on
people’s behavior, such as using personal shopping bags or separating garbage at source inorder to reduce, reuse and recycle waste. However, this data is not disaggregated by gender.
Similarly, data on how many people are cognizant of the name and existence of the Aichi
Biodiversity Targets and National Biodiversity Strategy 2012-2020 is not broken down bygender. It is regrettable as these are one of only a few questions on human behavior, as mostquestions focus on plants and biodiversity. At the same time, marginalization of theenvironment is seen on the gender equality side. The Gender Statistics Database published by
the National Women’s Education Center (http://winet.nwec.jp/toukei/) lacks data on the MOE,
even though 13 other ministries are listed.
These anecdotal examples indicate gender equality and the environment and sustainable
development are mutually relegated to the margin in each other’s field.
2. Gender perspectives in selected environmental issues
The Paris Agreement adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change acknowledges the importance of gender equality and empowerment of women in taking
actions to address climate change. In spite of such international recognition, gender- andwomen-specific language is missing in Japan’s policies as well as in adaptation and mitigation32

measures to stop global warming. Some measures in this field often require scientific,
technological and engineering knowledge, but the ratio of women in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) areas is disproportionally low in Japan, which may leadto the omission of gender perspectives in Japanese policies on climate change. Furthermore, few
women’s organizations address the issue of climate change. Found neither in government
policies nor advocacy activities, gender perspectives and women’s concern are thus renderedinvisible.
Contrary to this lack of interest in the domestic arena, the Japan International Cooperation
Agency (JICA) applies the Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations, which
includes gender considerations, to its international cooperation projects. Japan also contributes
to the Global Environment Facility and Green Climate Fund that develop and promote tools forgender mainstreaming to encourage actions mainly in developing countries. These examples
suggest Japan has a double standard between domestic and international efforts in terms ofgender mainstreaming and furthermore, its progress within the country lags far behind its
activities overseas.
Chemicals often have different impacts on health depending on sex. The Japan
Environment and Children's Study (JECS)16 is a nationwide, long-term study on the impacts ofchemicals on children’s health conducted by the MOE. In the study, pregnant women are a focus,
but there is no mention of the gender of children in data collection and analysis. This suggests
the study assumes that although women are important as mothers, gender is irrelevant tochildren’s health. A similar tendency to focus on women as mothers can also be seen in the
Booklet to Provide Basic Information Regarding Health Effects of Radiation studied after thedisastrous accident at the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)'s Fukushima Daiichi
Nuclear Power Station.17 More studies are needed from a gender perspective on a wide range ofenvironmental issues, not only limited to chemicals.

16
17https://www.env.go.jp/chemi/ceh/en/index.html
BOOKLET to Provide Basic Information Regarding Health Effects of Radiation
https://www.env.go.jp/en/chemi/rhm/basic-info/1st/pdf/basic-1st-vol1.pdf

33

L. The Girl-child
ABE, Maki, Empowerment Kanagawa
The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United Nations General
Assembly 30 years ago and it has been 25 years since Japan ratified the convention. Even afterincorporating the convention, situations of protecting the rights of girl-child in Japan has not
improved.
1. Child abuse
In 2019, a cruel incident of child abuse occurred in Noda city, Chiba. Although the victim, a10-year old girl, was sending SOS signal at school, her abusive father still killed her. According to
the report of Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in 201818, 49 children were killed by child abusein 2016. Among the number of deaths by child abuse, 26 of them were boys and 22 were girls.
Although the number of boys’ death exceeded girls’ number, the girl victims seem to haveencountered many more brutal situations. Not only did the murder case of the 10-year old girl from
Noda city; but also the case of 5-year old girl in Meguro, Tokyo (Mar.2018); a 2-year old girl in
Hokkaido (Jun. 2019); and 4-year old girl in Kagoshima (Aug.2019), stand out for its brutality.
At one time, the victim of the Noda case was separated from her parents and put under theprotection of the child consultation center. Even though the girl confessed to the staff of childconsultation center that she was often forced to take off her underwear in front of her father, she wasimmediately released to her parents. In order to guarantee the rights of the child, the Japanese
government must take immediate action to improve the quality of work that can be done by childwelfare workers.
2. Sexual abuse
In 2017, the Penal Code was reformed to enable punishing suspects of sexual abuse againstchildren under 18-years old, including the guardians and parents. This change might be considered
as one of the big steps forward to handling the sexual abuse case for girls. However, the minimum
age of sexual consent remained at 13-years old, which is extremely low compared to other countries
and leaves a bigger issue. Jun Yamamoto, who has made a significant contribution to the revision of
the Penal Code, wrote in her book that she had been sexually abused by her father from the age 13to 20-years of age. When her father started abusing her sexually, she had no idea what was
happening to her.
The Sexual Abuse Relief Center in Tokyo issued a report19 that they had consulted 197 youth
under 19-years old in 2018. One fourth of them were sexually abused by their father or a sibling.
Youth victims were threatened to not tell anybody and had some difficulties telling others because

1819https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000173329_00001.html (Last accessed on Oct. 29, 2019).
https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASM915QZYM91UTIL01M.html (Last accessed on Oct. 29, 2019).

34

they were afraid of breaking the family dynamic by doing so. It is believed that the actual number ofsexual abuse victims would be enormous. The biggest and most urgent problem for Japanese society
is to create a system for the victims of sexual abuse, where they could easily receive proper care andprotection.
3. Dating violence
In 2016, Empowerment Kanagawa conducted the firstnational survey20 of dating violence among youth. The survey
was collected from 2,868 students of junior high schools, highschools and colleges, who received the prevention education ofdating violence.
In the survey, examples of dating violence were broken

Under 20 withdating experience

At least one or moretypes
As a victim

As anassaulter

Total

Ｎ＝118637.90%

21.00%

FemaleＮ＝771

43.80%

21.40%

Male

Ｎ＝415

26.70%

20.20%

Souce:Dating Violence Hakusho Vol.5

down into 30 different categories. 1,186 students, who were
under 20-years old, answered that they were or had been in a romantic relationship. 37.9% (female
43.8%, male 26.7%) of youth with dating experience answered that they experienced at least one ormore types of dating violence. 21.0% (female 21.4%, male 20.2%) of them answered that theyassaulted their partner.
There were more victims of sexual violence among the girls between 12- to 15-years old withdating experience. 11.0% of them were forced to have sex without their consent; 8.2% neglected theuse of condom; and 11.0% of them were forced or asked to send their partner some sexual pictures.
Considering the fact that these numbers were higher than the data taken by the youth over 16-years
old, the importance of providing sex education and dating violence prevention education is clear.
4. Increase in the victims of child pornography
According to Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications21,
the possession rates of smartphones in 2018 was 31.0% (6~12 y) and 76.6% (13~19y). The rate ofutilization of Internet was 67.1% (6~12y) and 96.6% (13~19y).
The Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and theProtection of Children was revised in 2014, to prohibit any possession of child pornography. Yet,even after its revisions, the National Police Agency reported22 the victim of child pornography had
been increasing year by year. There were 541 child porn cases (239 junior high school students, 237
high school students) in 2018, in which sexual images were taken by the children themselves. This
number of child pornography cases grew twice as large from five years ago. Based on my experienceat schools, some adults reach out to teenagers via social media, pretending to be teenagers bystealing and using younger boy’s images from the Internet. Some teenagers were asked to send their
Empowerment Kanagawa, Zenkoku Dating Violence Jittai Chosa.
https://notalone-ddv.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ddv_hakusho_vol5.pdf
21
http://www.soumu.go.jp/johotsusintokei/whitepaper/ja/h30/html/nd142110.html (Last accessed on Oct. 29, 2019).
20

22 https://www.npa.go.jp/safetylife/syonen/no_cp/newsrelease/kodomonoseihigaih30-2.pdf (Last accessed on Oct. 29,2019).

35

sexual pictures via these fake accounts. The number of victims for these types of cases must be muchlarger than the number provided by National Police Agency. We have to teach children how to use
the Internet and social media safely. Moreover, teachers and parents should make more effort to keep
up with how social media and the Internet are being used by the teenagers.
5. The need of sexuality education and human rights education
In order to stop making girl-children victims of sexual abuse, sexuality education and humanrights education hold true potential. In 2018, there was a controversial argument for the sexuality
education for junior high school students in Tokyo. Eventually, after multiple NPOs and citizens kept
making the plea to change the guidelines of sexuality education, the educational committee of Tokyo
revised it for the first time in 15 years. Despite the improvement on sexual education, not every
child’s rights to have access to the proper knowledge on sex, is assured.
As much as providing the proper sexuality education to protect children from sexual abuse, I
believe providing the human rights education to children is just as important and effective. The Child
Assault Prevention (CAP) program which started in 1995 in Japan is suitable to convey the principal
human rights to children. In the CAP program, children get to learn they have the rights to be “safe,
strong and free” through theatrical skits. And when those rights are taken away, they can say “no.”Even if they cannot say “no,” it is not their fault and they can go tell adults to get help. The CAP
program includes a private talking/counseling session with students after the workshop. Somechildren open up about their experience in child abuse or sexual abuse, which they’ve never told
anybody else. Through the CAP program, not only can they effectively encourage children to noticeand own their human rights, they also encourage them to trust and open up to adults nearby. The
CAP program could be vital in protecting more children from becoming victims of sexual abuse.

36

P. Youth
KAWAI, Chihiro, Girl Scouts of Japan
According to a public opinion poll23, 66% of people agree that boys and girls are treated equallyand fairly at school, and students also feel there is very little gap between boys and girls at school.
However, the ratio of female students enrolling at university is lower than that of male students, andthe number of female students majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics(STEM) subjects has remained significantly low for years24. It has been shown that a ‘hidden
curriculum’ 25 impacts on young people’s attitudes and behaviour and causes the unconscioustransmission of gender-biased traditional values and perceptions to younger generations. Therefore,
it is important to listen to young people and understand their perspectives on and experiences ofgender, so that society can be responsive to their needs and nurture the next generation who will playa significant role in building a gender-equal society. Meanwhile, we are also seeing the appearanceof young people themselves advocating for equal rights, and their actions are beginning to have an
impact on society.
1.

High school girls experience sexism and gender-based violence in everyday life
In Japan, 62% of high school girls face gender inequality and violence in daily life, according

to a survey26 conducted in 2019. Respondents said that most of the violence takes place in the media(49%), online (46%), in public places such as streets and transportation systems (30%), and at school(18%). Girls have seen that the media treat women negatively and unfairly and give them fixed
gender roles, and that women are sexualised and threatened online; this harms girls and can haveserious physical, sexual, emotional and psychological effects. The survey revealed that girls andyoung women internalise their experiences and the messages they receive; that this may cause
anxiety, fear, unwillingness to take on new challenges, and low self-esteem; and that this could be
one of the main reasons preventing girls and young women from achieving their potential.
The survey also revealed the existence of many aspects of a ‘hidden curriculum’ in the
supposedly gender-equal space of school, with girls reporting that the roles and duties of students at
school are affected by their gender; that there are fewer female teachers in school leadership
positions and teaching STEM subjects; and that teachers often give different levels of
encouragement and have different expectations depending on students’ gender. In Japan, the conceptof a ‘hidden curriculum’ is not widely acknowledged, and the limited use of sex-disaggregated dataand gender analysis make it difficult to identify the core of the problem. This is particularly
important in order to establish an effective strategy to develop the next generation in line with the
Cabinet Office (2016). ‘Public opinion poll about gender equality’ (Sep 2016).
Ministry of Education (2018). ‘School Basic Survey’. University enrolment ratio of female students is 49%, 7
points lower than male students. 27% of students in science are female, 15% in engineering.
25 Hidden curriculum refers to the unwritten, unofficial, and often unintended lessons, values, and perspectives thatstudents learn in school, while the ‘formal’ curriculum consists of the lessons and learning activities, as well as theknowledge and skills teachers intentionally teach to students.
26 Girl Scouts of Japan (2019). ‘Survey of high school girls’ perceptions and experience related to gender inequality’.
23
24

37

targets set out in Goal 5—Gender Equality—of the SDGs. It is worth noticing that the percentages ofJapanese girls who responded ‘I don’t know’ to several questions in the survey are significantly
higher in comparison with results from the U.K.; it is also clear that girls are not always aware ofgender-based discrimination taking place around them. These findings indicate a serious need for
media literacy and gender education.
2.

Dating violence
Dating violence is one aspect of gender-based violence which female students of high school

and university frequently face. A survey27 conducted in 2017 shows that 44% of teenage girls withpartners experienced dating violence, and 10% of them were forced to send sexual photos ofthemselves. The Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims does not
apply to couples who do not live together. Thus, appropriate laws urgently need to be implemented
to respond to this form of violence. Local governments understand the need for adequate support foryoung people, and have created and distributed information packs to raise awareness of the problem.
Some schools also organize educational programmes to tackle this issue.
3.

Early pregnancy and violation of the right to education
In 2016, a prefectural high school in Kyoto asked a girl who became pregnant to take temporary

absence. The school also insisted on her participating in PE lessons if she wished to graduate. (Thegirl in question decided to take temporary absence from school on Jan 2016). According to theministry of education,28 2098 high school students became pregnant in 2015-2016, and 37% of themwere able to complete their course, whereas 49% left school due to pregnancy. Furthermore, in 32
cases, students were asked to leave school because of their pregnancy. Needless to say, it isunacceptable that their schools infringed upon these girls’ right to receive an education. At the rootof this issue lie the absence of effective sex education, and ignorance of women’s sexual andreproductive health and rights.
4.

Sexual harassment while job-hunting
There have been increasing reports of cases in which female students are sexually harassed

while job-hunting. In Japan, it is common for students looking for jobs to contact alumni of their
university to seek advice about companies where they are interested in working, and this often
involves meeting in person. A survey29 found that 12.5% of women in their twenties had sufferedforms of sexual harassment such as sexual jokes, being asked out for meals or on dates, andinappropriate physical contact during this process. Seniors’ persistent requests for personal
relationships and behaviour exploiting their position impact on female students’ motivation tocontinue job hunting and on their mental health. Urgent and effective action is required to confront
this issue as preventive measures against sexual harassment in the workplace are not legally
Empowerment Kanagawa (2018). ‘White paper on dating violence’.
Ministry of Education (2019). ‘Response on pregnant students’.
29 Japanese Trade Union Confederation (2019) ‘Survey on harassment at work’.
27
28

38

applicable to job-hunting students.
5.

Sexual consent
With club activities, drinking parties and many opportunities to start dating, universities areafflicted by a particular type of sexual violence called ‘campus rape’. The problem results from alack of awareness, and to respond to this issue, some university students have taken action toincrease understanding about sexual violence and the concept of ‘consent’. They have organized aseries of campaigns, such as creating handbooks about sexual consent and gathering together todiscuss gender issues, in an attempt to end this abuse. Through their activities, they have succeededin getting the topic of sexual consent included in mandatory classes as part of the orientation
programme for new students in an increasing number of universities.
6.

Campaign against sexism in the media
In December 2018, a weekly tabloid magazine, SPA!, published an article ranking five

universities on how easy it was to persuade female students to have sex at drinking parties. The
article, which objectified and sexualized women, prompted outrage among female university
students. They launched an online petition protesting about the article, which gathered over 40,000
signatures in six days, and continued discussions with the editorial team until they understood thematter: they had initially apologized for ‘using misleading words’ but had not apologized for themain point of the article. The students publicized their actions online and called for the prevention ofsimilar incidents in future and fair portrayal of women in the Japanese media, not just an apology.
This incident was reported by international media and generated people’s attention.

39

Q. Women and WorkNAITO, Shino, The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training
KOBAYASHI, Mitsuko, JAWW
According to ‘Public Opinion Poll on a Gender-equal Society’ conducted by the Cabinet Officeof the Japanese government in 2019, the number of respondents who answered that ‘women should
continue working even after having children’ has increased to 61%. The figure suggests that public
opinion on working women seems to be changing. Nevertheless, working conditions for women in
Japan remain difficult and women face many obstacles.
1. The Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace andgender wage gap
The Act on Promotion of Women’s Participation and Advancement in the Workplace wasenacted in 2015. This act aims to encourage employers to collect and analyze data on issues ofgender and employment in the workplace and to openly disclose their current company status. Afterthe enforcement of this Act, the ratio of female executives or women in managerial positions made aslight increase. However, the ratio of female executives and women at the department manager level
still remains extremely low at 15.4% and 5.1%, respectively30.
Although the gender wage gap is decreasing, there is still a huge gap; when compared to a malefull time worker, a female full time worker only receives 73.3% of his wage31. The main reason for
the gender wage gap between full time female and male workers is the difference in years of service
and job position32. In order to redress the wage gap, employers should be aware of and obligated todisclose information on their gender wage gap. It is also problematic that the judiciary in Japan does
not find gender wage gap as sex discrimination as can be seen in the case of the Chugoku ElectricPower Co., Inc. where the Supreme Court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim for sex indirectdiscrimination in 2015.
Furthermore, when comparing the hourly rate which includes bonuses between male andfemale workers in the entire labor force including part-time workers, the average hourly rate of afemale worker was only 65.2% of that of a male worker33. The gender wage gap in the entire labor
force is down to the wage differences between regular (permanent) workers and non-regular workers(temporary/fixed contract based workers). A regular worker tends to have long working hours which
can become an obstacle to maintaining balance between work and childcare. This is the primaryreason for many women to work as non-regular workers in and after child rearing stage. 56.1% of
the female workforce are non-regular workers. This amounts to 68.6% of the entire non-regular
workforce34 and the percentage remains the same for the past few years.
The figure according to the ‘Basic Survey of Gender Equality in Employment Management 2018 (Ministry of
Health, Labour and Welfare)’ for private companies with 30 or more workers.
31 ‘Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2018’ Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
32 ‘Guidelines for Reducing the Gender Pay Gap 2010’ Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
33 From the Mainichi Newspaper online article (9 Jul 2019).
34 ‘Labour Force Survey 2018’ Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication.
30

40

2. Women’s employment at the stage of childbirth/childcare and harassment regarding
pregnancy, childbirth and childcare leave etc.
More women continue to work after giving a birth or during child rearing by taking childcare
leave. Despite this, 46.9% of women resigned after giving a birth to their first child35. This results
partly from a lack of childcare facilities. As of April 2019, despite variations according to different
areas of Japan, a total of 16,772 children were on a nursery waiting list due to lack of placement,36.
On the other hand, in 2018, the percentage of men taking childcare leave has increased slightly
but remains low at 6.16% (82.2% of women took childcare leave) and the period of leave taken isshort37. There is a survey indicating that almost 80% of male new recruits want to take childcare
leave38. However, due to reasons such as ‘difficult to find a replacement worker’, ‘the officeatmosphere does not allow men to take childcare leave’, ‘fearful of negatively impacting their careerpath’, ‘the boss does not understand the need’ and others, are making it difficult for male workers totake childcare leave39. Not only is it difficult for Japanese male workers to take childcare leave,among married working couples, men only spend 46 minutes per day on average on housework andchildcare due to long working hours in the office. This is an extremely short period, compared tofemale workers who spend much longer time of 4 hours 54 minutes on average on housework andchildcare40, placing Japan at the bottom among developed countries41. It is important to create abetter working environment so that both men and women can shoulder the housework and childcare
equally.
Disadvantageous treatment such as dismissal or disadvantageous personnel relocating byreason of pregnancy, childbirth or taking childcare leave etc. are already prohibited under Equal
Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) or Child Care and Family Care Leave Act. Furthermore,cases of harassment against pregnancy, childbirth or taking childcare leave etc. had reported.
According to a survey conducted by the Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training in 2015,
47.0% of female workers received negative comments such as ‘you inconvenience us by taking
leave’ or ‘why don’t you just quit?’ which made it uncomfortable for them to pursue their rights
related to pregnancy, childbirth and leave42. To improve this situation, amendments were made on
EEOL and the Child Care and Family Care Leave Act in 2016 which obligated employers to takeaction to prevent harassment by managers or colleagues related to pregnancy, childbirth and taking
childcare leave etc. At the same time, amendments were made to the Child Care and Family Care

‘15th National Fertility Survey 2015 (A national survey on issues on marriage and childbirth)’ National Institute ofPopulation and Social Security Research.
36 ‘An annual report on the status of childcare facilities (1 April 2019)’ Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
37 According to the ‘Basic Survey of Gender Equality in Employment Management 2018 (Ministry of Health,Labour and Welfare)’ 36.3% of male workers took childcare leave for less than 5 days and 35.1% took between 5days to under 2 weeks. Whereas 31.3% of female workers took 10 to under 12 months childcare leave and 29.8%
took 12 to under 18 months.
38 ‘Survey among new recruits 2017 autumn’ Japan Productivity Center.
39 ‘Report on the survey on gender equal opportunity in employment 2017’ Bureau of Industrial and Labor Affairs,
Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
40 ‘Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities Sept. 2017’ Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication.
41 ‘Databook of International Labour Statistics 2019’ The Japan Institute for Labour Policy and Training.
42 ‘Survey on disadvantageous treatment by reason of pregnancy etc. and sexual harassment’ The Japan Institute forLabour Policy and Training.
35

41

Leave Act to expand the scope of fixed-term contract workers who are entitled to take childcare
leave etc.
3. Harassment at work
In December 2015, Matsuri Takahashi, a new recruit of one of Japan’s leading advertising
agencies Dentsu Inc., committed suicide due to overwork from long working hours and harassment
at work. Following this incident, Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) and Japanese Trade Union
Confederation (Rengo) agreed to introduce an overtime cap and measures to prevent harassment in
the workplace in March 2017. In the same month, the government also announced ‘Action Plan for
the Realization of Work Style Reform’ which included discussions on preventative measures against
harassment in the workplace. In April 2018, a former administrative vice finance minister resigned
because of sexually harassing a female journalist which also sparked a #MeToo movement in Japan.
Following discussions held in 2018 in the Labour Policy Council attended by representatives ofworkers, employers, and the public interest members (Government), in May 2019, the Labour Policy
General Promotion Act was amended which makes it mandatory to take necessary measures toprevent “Power Harassment” in the workplace. EEOL already makes employers legally obliged totake necessary measures to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, but there have been calls forstricter measures to prohibit the conduct of sexual harassment itself. Nevertheless, in terms of
measures against sexual harassment, only the following revisions were introduced: 1. non-legallybinding provision which states employers, executives and workers should pay attention to prevent
sexual harassment; 2. prohibition of disadvantageous treatment against workers who make sexual
harassment complaints in the workplace; 3. employers to endeavor to cooperate in other employer’s
investigations when their employee sexually harass a worker of the other employer.
In June, the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted Violence and Harassment
Convention 2019 (No.190) and Recommendation (No.206) and the Japanese government supported
for its adoption based on the request from the National Diet. Comparing the standards in thisConvention with the current Japanese laws, various shortcomings are found. For example: 1.
Japanese laws do not prohibit the conduct of harassment; 2. definition of harassment is too narrowsuch as limiting the occurrence within ‘dominant - submissive relationship’; 3. only ‘employees’ canclaim harassment, excluding people who are not employed (including persons working irrespectiveof their contractual status, jobseekers, job-hunting students and persons in training); 4. definition of‘workplace’ is too narrow; 5. there is no public support system for victims and so on. Although there
are regulations for employers to take measures to prevent and respond to harassment in theworkplace, the problem is that there are no penalties for the violation of the law therefore many
employers do not observe the law (40.8% of employers did not any measures to prevent sexual
harassment). And the current administrative remedies conciliate or resolve disputes and theirfunction is not to judge whether a case is harassment or not. This does not address the needs ofharassment victims, thus utilization rate is low and incidents remain unreported. It is high time that
we discussed radical measures to eliminate harassment which meet global standards.

42

R. Migrant WomenYAMAGISHI, Motoko, SMJ Women’s Project
OGAYA, Chiho, Ferris University
According to the most recent statistics of the Immigration Control Bureau of the Ministry ofJustice, as of the end of 2018, out of 2,731,093 foreign residents in Japan, 1,403,200 (or 51%) are
women. Their residential status includes permanent resident: 475,677, special permanent resident:
161,793, students: 149,278, Technical Intern Training Program (TITP): 142,884, and dependent:
120,199.
Major issues regarding migrant women in Japan can be categorized as follows: One is mainly
for the women who have settled in Japan for longer period through intermarriage. The other isrelated to the women workers who are staying in Japan on a temporary basis such as TITP . Overallsituation where migrant women are prone to multiple discrimination and human rights violation
based on gender and ethnicity has not been changed in the past five years. Since the 2nd Abeadministration declared to “utilize foreign human resources” in 2012, the new program to accept
migrant domestic workers in the national strategic special zones and the expansion of TITP for
elderly care sectors have launched. Since then, increasing cases of labor exploitation and humanrights violation against migrant women have been reported. TITP and student visa scheme aresometimes used for de facto human trafficking. Japanese Filipino Children (JFC), who had become
eligible for Japanese citizenship after 2009 amendment of Japanese nationality law, and their
Filipino mothers have also become a new target of trafficking. This report will focus on the situationand some remarkable cases since 2014, in light of CEDAW Recommendation of 2016 and CERD
(the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination) Recommendation of 2014 and 2018 forJapanese government.
1. Marriage migrant women and domestic violence (DV)
Since 2000, from 20,000 to 40,000 couples, which comprise 3-5 % of all marriages in Japan,
have been international marriages. Including the case of remarriage and divorce, approximately
400,000 marriage migrant women are currently living in Japan. Without national support policy for
their settlement, marriage migrant women have been suffering from language and cultural barrier,isolation in the local community, and domestic violence (DV) due to their vulnerable position in
their household. These situations have not been drastically changed up to now.
In Japan, while the revised Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection ofVictims in 2003 was able to include the phrase which requires to “respect their human rights
regardless of their nationality, disabilities” (Article 23-1), responsibilities for protection and support
for migrant women DV victims were mainly dealt with in the local government units. Thus, bigdifferences among the cities and towns have remained.
UN organizations have repeatedly expressed concerns regarding the deterioration of the rightsof migrant women and the possibilities of more serious DV cases following the 2012 revision of43

Immigration Control Act which strengthened the control of migrants with longer period of stay inJapan and the introduction of the cancelation of the spouse visa. CERD Concluding Observation in
September 2014 recommended the Japanese government to reexamine the visa cancelation system
for spouse of Japanese in Article 22 Paragraph 4-1 in Immigration Control Act in order to preventthe immediate deportation of migrant women who are spouses of Japanese after divorce. It also
requested to submit the follow-up report on this paragraph after one year as the item of special
concern. However, Japanese government had not addressed this recommendation sincerely, and
CERD repeated this recommendation in 2018.
2. Human trafficking and migrant women
Until 1990s, the main channel of human trafficking in Japan was the sexual exploitation which
forced Thai and Filipino women who entered Japan as tourists or entertainers to work at night clubs
and to coerce them into prostitution. However, since 2000s, many cases of labor exploitation of TITP
female workers in garment industry have been reported. Many of TITP workers are heavily
debt-bonded in their origin country and forced to work extremely long hours with underpayment in
the workplace in Japan. Most of them are exposed to exploitation by sending agency and supervisingorganizations. Human rights violation such as passport confiscation and surveillance of private life
in dormitory are regularly exercised against TITP workers.
Although many female TITP workers have experienced serious sexual harassment, they areusually forced to go home once those human rights violations become publicly exposed. This is a
structural problem where workers cannot claim those problems, being afraid of being sent backhome. UN and U.S. Department of State have referred to this TITP system as “hotbed of humantrafficking” and “modern slavery”. However, Japanese policy against human trafficking has nocomprehensive legal procedures and number of victims officially recognized is limited to double
digits every year. Among them, labor exploitation cases are only a few.
Under this situation, so-called “Gifu Case” where 31 victims were recognized in 2015 wasremarkable. In this case, victims were JFC who came from the Philippines in hopes of acquiring
Japanese citizenship/nationality and their Filipino mothers who were promised to be employed inJapan. Contrary to their expectations, they were forced to work as hostesses in night clubs in Gifu
Prefecture and Nagoya City to pay back their debt to the recruitment agency for three to four years.
Their lives were totally under surveillance without a single day-off, yet they only received 80,000 to
100,000 yen for monthly salary. Police arrested 11 club owners and recognized 31 mothers and JFC
as the victims of human trafficking. However, similar human trafficking which targets JFC has been
continuing. As CEDAW has repeatedly recommended a holistic legislation against human trafficking
to Japanese government, intensified countermeasures and expansion of support for the victims arestrongly needed.
3. Migrant women’s rights as workers
Migrant workers in Japan have been contributing to the economy mainly in the unskilled labormarket, which has been suffering from labor shortage since the 1980’s bubble economy period.

44However, the Japanese government didn’t take any measures to accept unskilled migrant workers
from the “front door,” but only opened the “side door” which only allows, aside from Japanesedescendants and marriage migrant women with long-term or permanent resident visa, migrants under
TITP or those with student visa to enter Japan to work as de facto cheap labor. Those de facto
migrant workers have not been paid equally as Japanese nationals and their rights as workers havenot been protected. They are suffering from long working hours and underpayment. Recently, thecases of sexual harassment and violation of women’s reproductive health have been increasingly
reported to migrant-support organizations. In one of such cases, a pregnant TITP worker was forced
to decide either having an abortion or going back to her home country. In March 2019, Ministry of
Health, Labor and Welfare and Ministry of Justice issued a statement to protect the rights of TITP
workers to continue their internship (work) with pregnancy and after giving birth.
Many of migrant women with long-term or permanent residency in Japan are working inunskilled labor market with irregular employment. With lack of support system, those migrant
women’s employment opportunities are quite limited with low level of working conditions. Theirrights as workers have been rarely protected, unless they have specific skills.
After three decades of accepting migrant workers under the bubble economy, and with the newscheme of “Specified Skills” under which 340,000 migrant workers in 5 years are expected, it is anurgent issue to reexamine the legal system for protecting and promoting the rights of migrant women
as workers.

45

S. Women with Disabilities
Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI) Women’s Network JapanThe Beijing Platform for Action recognizes that women with disabilities face barriers to gaining
full equality as well as achieving advancement. Similarly, Article 6 of the UN Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes that women and girls with disabilities are subject tomultiple discrimination and calls on signatory countries, including Japan, to enact appropriate
measures to eliminate such discrimination and to ensure the full development, advancement andempowerment of women with disabilities.
1. Awareness in Japan of the multiple discrimination faced by women with disabilities
In Japan, efforts have been made to ratify and bring Japanese laws in line with the Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The multiple discrimination faced by women withdisabilities was discussed as a part of these efforts. As a result, in the 2011 revision of the Basic Act
for Persons with Disabilities, “sex” was added to the list of items to be taken into consideration as
basic policy for the measures to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability.
In addition, although the newly established Act for Eliminating Discrimination Against Persons
with Disabilities does not contain provisions on multiple discrimination, its supplementary resolution
recognizes the fact that women with disabilities are subject to multiple discrimination and stipulatethat their human rights should be protected. That said, as in the past, neither the principles nor thebasic plans of either the Basic Act for Persons with Disabilities and the Act for Eliminating
Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities contain language regarding multiple discrimination
or intersectional discrimination.
At the same time, domestic awareness of multiple discrimination faced by women withdisabilities is steadily increasing. This is evidenced by the fact that local government regulations
related to the elimination of discrimination based on disability—including those of Kyoto Prefecture,
Sendai City, the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, and Shiga Prefecture—have started to incorporate explicit
language regarding multiple discrimination of women with disabilities, ahead of the central
government.
2. Paucity of gender statistics required to assess the current state of discrimination
Efforts to eliminate multiple and intersectional discrimination against women with disabilities
first requires an assessment of the current state of this discrimination. However, the gender statistics
needed to assess multiple and intersectional discrimination against women with disabilities is lacking.
In addition, no mechanisms exist for comprehensively and systematically implementing measuresand policies to assess and eliminate this discrimination.
Although provisions related to women with disabilities have been incorporated into the basic
policy based on the Act for Eliminating Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities and the
Fourth Basic Plan for Gender Equality, which sets forth domestic measures aimed at promoting46

gender equality, concrete plans of action involving specific numbers and measures have not beendeveloped.
In July 2016, the Japanese government submitted its first report to the UN Committee on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CPRD). Of the 42 statistics included in the report, the only
gender statistics provided were for the total number of persons with disabilities and that related to
employment.43 What the statistics reveal is that, for all categories of disability (physical, mental, andpsychological), men account for more than 60% of employed persons with disabilities, that men are
employed at higher rates as regular full-time employees than women, and that women are employedat higher rates as fixed-term employees than men.
3. Violence against women with disabilities
According to the Report on the Protective Care of Women (2016), 47.3% of the womenentering protective care facilities had a disability or suffered from an illness of some kind; of these
women, 26% were in possession of an official disability ID. Despite evidence of such circumstances,
no data exists on the proportion of female and minor victims of domestic violence who havedisabilities, and no policies or measures addressing the need to assess and deal with this issue havebeen implemented.
Regarding the Act on the Prevention of Abuse of Persons with Disabilities and Support for
Caregivers, the 2016 annual report issued by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare found that
64% of victims of abuse by caregivers are women and that 13% of the caregivers are spouses.
However, the Act on the Prevention of Abuse of Persons with Disabilities and Support for
Caregivers does not contain any mention of gender. In addition, data indicate that the proportion of
persons with disabilities seeking consultations regarding domestic violence (DV) has been
increasing in recent years.
That said, information regarding DV support and consultation services is, in many cases, notavailable in a form that is accessible by women with disabilities. Although the Act on Prevention of
Spousal Violence and Protection of Victims mentions victims with disabilities, it cannot be said that
adequate support exists at any level, from consultation to protection and self-reliance support, forwomen with disabilities who are victims of DV.
Although all individuals involved in healthcare, medicine, welfare, education, public safety, andthe administration of justice need to receive training to be able to recognize the multiple andintersectional discrimination and attendant challenges faced by women with disabilities so that they
can carry out their duties appropriately, no policies or measures to promote such training exist.
4. Participation in planning/policy making by women with disabilities
Regarding the composition of various advisory committees and expert committees involved in
the formulation of national and local government policies, although “positive action” such as a quota
43

Proportion of employed persons by gender, proportion of employed persons by industry and gender, proportion of
employed persons by employment type and gender, proportion of employed persons by fixed number of working
hours per week and gender, and proportion of employed persons by occupation and gender.

47

system can partially be seen, the Commission on Policy for Persons with Disabilities, for example,
comprises 30 members, only two of whom are women with disabilities or some kind of illness. As aresult, the implementation of any efforts including “temporary special measures” is not being
explored.
5. The reproductive health and rights of women with disabilities
In Japan, 16,500 individuals (of which approximately 70% were women) were subjected toforced sterilization under the Eugenics Protection Law, which was in place from 1948 to 1996.
Extralegal hysterectomies and radiation therapy of women with disabilities have also been carriedout. The reproductive health and rights of women with disabilities have been grossly violated
through such actions.
Despite the issuance of numerous recommendations by the UN Human Rights Commission and
the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Japanese government, formany years, did nothing to address the problem. The filing of the first ever lawsuit demanding state
reparations for victims of forced sterilizations under the Eugenics Protection Law in 2018 resulted indeliberation on the issue in the National Diet and ultimately led to the adoption of the Law on the
Payment of One-time Reparations for Victims of Eugenic Sterilizations under the Eugenics
Protection Law in April of 2019.
However, the one-time reparation amount is extremely low (3.2 million JPY). As of September
2019, twenty plaintiffs have filed lawsuits asking for an apology and reparations in six district andone high courts. Even after establishment of the law, the issue continues to be tied up in the courts.
The reproductive health and rights of women with disabilities remain an issue even after theabolition of the Eugenics Protection Law. Particularly essential are guarantees of opportunities forsex education, full implementation of support services for persons with disabilities raising children,and training for welfare and healthcare workers.

48

T. The Role of Men and Boys
ITO, Kimio, Kyoto Sangyo University
In 2018, during a university entrance examination, a sexual discrimination case was uncovered.
Tokyo Medical University excluded many female examinees, using the demerit system because they
were women. After this scandal, Japanese media reported that other medical universities weresuspected for conducting similar treatment of female students. In Japan, we can find many similarcases even now.
This is one example of the male-dominant and female-excluded structure of the Japanesesociety which is still prevalent today. It is necessary for Japan to have a more diverse and genderequal society.
1. Male-dominant workplace discourages women’s aspirations
According to the panel research on “new employees’ career plan and aspiration for promotion”
conducted by NWEC (National Women’s Education Center) from 2016 to 2019, at the beginning of
their career, relatively high aspiration for promotion among female workers declines drastically after
one year of working. This suggests that male-dominant Japanese workplaces discourage women’s
vocational aspirations.
At the same time, men’s aspiration for promotion also decreases although to a lesser degreecompared to women. Therefore, we can imagine that it isn’t comfortable to be in a Japanese workplace
for men, either.
2. Long working hours
The biggest problem of the work environment in Japan is the long working hours. "Men of theirthirties and forties who work for long hours equal to or greater than 60 hours per a week" are said tomake up approximately 25 percent of the workforce at the turn of the century. This number has been
decreasing recently -- by around 15% by 2010(figure 1), but it is a fact that the working hours of men
in the prime of their lives is still too long. At the same time, the problem of "conforming pressure" in aworkplace dampens women's mind and restricts the way of men as "work-only human beings(Shigoto-ningen)". 'Conforming pressure' means pressure from colleagues to work under the sameworking conditions. For example, if your colleagues work long overtime hours, you are expected towork the same.
It is impossible to improve the problem of man's childcare leave acquisition as the case of"conforming pressure" to the men by a workplace still exists. In Japan, both men and women areentitled to take childcare leave since the 1992 Childcare Leave Law was enacted. Moreover, there is asystem which makes it possible to extend the child care leave by 1 to 2 months per year, too, if childcare leave acquisition is taken as a couple: PAPAMAMA parental leave plus. Even though there issuch a good system, Japanese men's child care leave acquisition percentage is only about 6%. It is said
that there are “cold eyes against a man taking child care leave" by their workplace in a background.

49

Figure 1: Percentage of workers who work more than 60 hours per week (men, by age range)
30 (%)
25
20

18.7
17.7

15
10

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

20s
40s

1996

1995

1994

1992

1991

1990

5

1993

Overall
30s

Remarks: 1. Compiled from data from the "Labour Force Survey" Ministry of Internal Affaires and Communications
2. The figures represent percentage of the total number of non-agriculture and forestry workers(excluding persons on leave)

3. Masculinization of deprivation
There is a situation that has been developing since 1997 as a result of decreasing male office workers’
annual income with relation to such a severe working environment (figure 2). The decrease of real
wages produces a feeling of weakness from the viewpoint of a man as the former breadwinner.
Moreover, the switch from a society which was formerly led by a "manufacturing centered industry" toan information and service centered industry. Moreover social change to the 4th Industrial Revolution
by AI and IoT has produced big changes to the Japanese industrial structure. However, Japanesesociety hasn’t handled this change sufficiently with respect to gender and diversity.
In the face of such social change, many men seem to be tired with the unconscious feelings of"something being robbed" in their homes, workplaces and local communities where they formerly
maintained their superiority through economic power. Many men are beginning to feel dissatisfied andunstable. I want to call this situation, "Masculinization of Deprivation". Now we need gender policies
for men to prevent the socio-pathological phenomena that men possessed by (toxic) masculinity fromcoming about.

50

Figure.2: Compound Annual Growth Rate of Average Annual Earnings by Education by Typeof Employment (2005-2013)
0.4

0.4

0.4
0.3

0.3

0.1
- 0.1

- 0..2
- 0.1

- 0.1

- 0.2

- 0.3
- 0.4

- 0.6
- 0.8

□Female■ Male- 1.0

University

Junior college

Upper secondary school

Lower secondary school

University

Junior college

Upper secondary school

Lower secondary school

Non-regular staff

Regular staff

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Basic Survey on Wage Structure

4. Increasing domestic violence consultation
In European and American society, the move that considers "ferocious indiscriminate murdercases" from the viewpoint of toxic masculinity spreads. It is possible to think that there is the
Masculinization of Deprivation described above in the rear of the brutalization of toxic masculinity. It
is manifested as DV and sexual violence when such toxic masculinity is turned against woman. Indeed,also, even if it places in Japan, a DV consultation number is increased in victim support center, too,even with point of running to the police.
However, present Japan's DV and sexual violence handling by the governments is completely
insufficient, and the perpetrator rehabilitation education program is dependent on private Non-Profit
Organisations. Proper support and rehabilitation programs need to be created.
5. Gender equality policy for men and boys that doesn't quite progress
The field of "men and children"' was set to government "the Third Basic Plan for Gender
Equality" and was decided in a Cabinet meeting in 2010 among all 15 fields. Gender policy for men
was established for the first time, including development of a comprehensive consultation program forman. However, five years later in the 4th plan (cabinet decision in 2015), the policy that narrowed
down the target to men specifically disappeared. It will be necessary that a gender equality policy formen and boys be set to the 5th plan to be decided in a Cabinet meeting in 2020 once again.

51

6. Men's ability of care
It is the 21st century, and the United Nations and EU are both releasing a policy proposal basedon the investigation about "role of men and boys" toward a gender equal society. Among all these
efforts, the key word is Caring Masculinity.
Most men are weak in the power of the consideration for others (and moreover themselves). Menlack the "ability of sympathy" to others. Even if under bad body condition, men often manage to work
hard because they lack the power of care for themselves. For men, it is necessary to have the power tocare for others’ (and their own) life/body/character/thought (there is even an argument to be made thattraining the ethics of man's care is important for peace-building in the world). Taking care comes to becentered around child-care in European society. However, in Japan, “care” often means elder-caremore than child-caring. So, I want to paraphrase “caring masculinity “ into “the men’s ability of care”
for adapting to Japan.
The reason why I use the concept of "men’s ability of care" is because I want to highlight theimportance of the men’s ability to take care of children and elders, and at the same time the ability to
be cared for. When they come to be cared for, elderly Japanese men sometimes cannot accept andappreciate the care they receive from others in gratitude. They sometimes refuse dependency on others(that might rob them of their powerful masculinity) and at the same time they think unconsciously thecare from others (especially from women) as too “natural”(so they cannot say thank you for another’shelp) Therefore, I emphasise that a men’s ability to accept care is an indispensable problem in an aged
society in the future.
International society has been turning its eyes to men's gender problem little by little. However, inJapanese society, this problem is still invisible and nameless. We must work toward the realization of apolicy for gender equality for men and boys whole-heartedly.

52

U. Older Women
KAMOZAWA, Saori, Nihon University, JAWW
Japan is confronted by the challenge of an aging society and elderly women form a highpercentage of the population aged 65 and over. Recently, issues around elderly women havecome to the front as a multiplex of problem created by the social system related to genderinequality. For example, wage differentials by gender, employment discrimination against
women and inequality in the social security systems.
In the Standard Model, elderly women are considered to be mostly married women whose
lives are guaranteed by their husbands’ income and pension. Therefore, elderly women’s
multiple issues are thought of as minority issues. Additionally, a lack of data and understanding
about their actual situation means that there is no clear awareness of the problems of elderly
women within Japanese society.
To promote gender equality as SDG5, which is related to SDG1.2, in the first instance it isnecessary to measure and reduce poverty amongst elderly women.
1. Increasing numbers of elderly women who live alone
Japan is facing a super-aged society, the ratio of the population aged 65 and older to thetotal population has exceeded 21%, which is the highest of any other country in the world.
According to the Annual Report on the Aging Society (Cabinet Office 2019), thepopulation aged over 65 is 28.1% of the total population of Japan, the highest ever. The
breakdown between men and women is 15.46 million men and 20.12million women, meaningthat the sex ratio is 76.8 men for every 100 women. Moreover, The National Institute ofPopulation and Social Security Research (2018)44 estimated that the ratio of women aged over
65 who live alone will increase from 21.8% in 2015 to 24.5% in 2040.
2. Poverty amongst elderly women who live alone
In 2008 The Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office set up an investigative commission
into men and women who have difficulties. Their report published in 2010 presented the relative
poverty rate by gender and age. For most age groups the poverty rate for women was higher
than men, and the gap between men and women became wider with age. Consequently, 15.1%
of elderly men and 22.1% of elderly women live in relative poverty. Moreover, amongst elderly
women who live alone, the poverty rate was 44.6% which is highest recorded. The Ministry of
Health, Labour and Welfare45 announced that half of households who receive income support
were elderly ones and the gender ratio between ages 65 to 75 was almost the same as those who
receive income support. However, over the age of 75 women’s households need public
assistance twice the rate as men. The reason being that the population of women in that age
44
45

National Institute of Population and Social Security Research (2018) Household Projections for Japan: 2015-2040.
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2017) Annual Survey on Public Assistance Recipients.

53

group is larger and after their husbands die, widows’ monthly income is reduced. Because
women’s average life span is longer than men, this situation will be continue and poverty
amongst elderly women will get worse.
3. People living without or on a low pension
Most pensioners who used to work at large companies receive, in addition to their basic
pension, an employee’s pension. However, 14.7% of elderly women who live alone receive only
the basic pension and the annual income of 91.7% of women who live alone without anemployee’s pension was less than ¥1.5 million ($1,650)46. The basic pension was ¥65,000 amonth if paid at the full premium in 2017. Therefore, their actual annual income is presumed tobe less than ¥1million ($1,100)47.
While, the annual income of 45% of women who have both an employee and basic
pensions was less than ¥1.5 million. The employee pension’s amount depends on how long theywork, or how much they earn; therefore women often receive less than men. In 2016, thepension system was modified and part-timers can apply to join the employee’s pension scheme,
but it is often not enough to cover this gap. The 2012 Act48 which related to public pensions
aimed to support the elderly who don’t have a pension or live on a low pension. To qualify
recipients need to pay a premium for at least 25 years which has changed from 10 years. These
measures are not enough to fully address issues around the poverty of elderly women.
4. Health and care amongst elderly women
The healthy life expectancy in Japan, which is defined as the period a person can enjoy life
without any limitations to daily activities resulting from health problems is 72.14 for men and74.79 for women. While life expectancy is 80.98 for men and 87.14 for women, the gap period
between two are 8.84 years for men and 12.35 years for women. During this period individuals
are likely to need care or medical treatment. Care givers at home are mainly spouses (58.7%)
and 66.0% are wives who provide care for their husbands at home, while only 34% of husbands
give care to their wives.
In 2019, 4.5 million women received services from the care insurance system, twice thenumber of men. In order to receive these services, a long-term care insurance premium isdeducted from the over 65’s years-old pension. In addition, service users also have to pay acontribution by themselves. Basically this is 10%, but it is dependent on income. Whilemeasures for those on low income were implemented, the elderly who face financial difficulties
tend to restrain their spending to pay for care. It is necessary to conduct more research with agender perspective in order to determine how the economic gap leads to a care gap.
5. Damage from fraud and abuse
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2012) Survey on the Recipients of Old-age Pension.
¥109 = $1 (December 2019).
48 Act to Partially Amend Public Pension Act, etc. for strengthening of Financial base and Minimum Guarantee
Function of Public Pension System (2012).
46
47

54

The Metropolitan Police Department announced that the number of victims of billing fraudin 2018 has increased, with elderly women aged over 70 comprising half the total. Especially
important was, the ‘ore ore swindle’ so called because a swindler makes a phone call and starts
the conversation with "ore ore (me, me)",pretending to be the victim’s son—77% of victims are
women aged over 70 who must be the targets of the crime, because the elderly women’s
population is bigger than men and most live alone.
Research about elderly abuse by The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2017)49,
showed that 70% of victims of abuse reside in care institutions and 76% of victims at home areover 65 years-old women. According to this research, 40% of abusers at home were sons and
20% were husband. Generally speaking, younger men tend to abuse the elderly.
6. Guarantee of human rights for elderly women
The United States promotes a human rights approach for the elderly, pointing out violationof human rights as ‘poverty and inadequate life condition’, ‘age discrimination’, and ‘violence
and abuse’, with the U.N. being presumed to take legal action for them. However, there is little
discussion of this topic in Japan, especially about the elderly women are behind the statistics.
The guarantee of fundamental human rights for elderly women is important and it is necessary
to active to engage this issue from a gender perspective.

49

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2017) The Report of the research relating to ‘The Act on the Prevention
of Elderly Abuse, Support for Caregivers of Elderly Persons and Other Related Matters’.

55

V. Agricultural, Fishing and Forestry Women
NAKAMICHI, Hitomi, Kyoto Women's University
1. Current status of women in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, as seen in statistics
Japan's farming population has decreased to about one-fourth over the 25 year period from1990 to 2015, while the female agricultural working population is now less than half, at 48%. The
fishery industry has also decreased to 13%, with more and more women leaving the industry. The
percentage of women in forestry is still low, however in recent years this has increased slightly(Table 1).
Table 1. Changes in female workers in agriculture, forestry and fisheries
Year
Female working population in agriculture
Ratio of females
Female working population in forestry
Ratio of females
Female working population in fisheries
Ratio of females

1990
3,403
60.2
18,0
16.4
67
18.1

1995
2,372
57.3
13,8
16.4
54
17.9

2000
2,171
55.8
11,5
17.2
44
16.9

unit: thousands, %

2005
1,788
53.3
7,0
15.0
36
16.3

2010
1,300
49.9
8,7
12.6
30
14.8

2015
1,009
48.1
9,1
14.3
22
13.1

Source: Agricultural and Forestry Census, and Fishery Census, by year; forestry population taken from the
National Census

Although the participation rate of women in the main organizations of agriculture, forestry
and fisheries has increased, agricultural cooperatives have the highest organizational female
participation rate at 21%, while less than 10% of participants in fishing cooperatives and forestry
cooperatives are women. The number of agricultural committee members and agricultural
cooperative officers involved in making important decisions on regional agriculture is less than 10%
each, while the number of fishing cooperatives and forestry cooperatives officers is less than 1%
each (Table 2).
Table 2. Changes in the female participation ratio in major organizations in agriculture,
forestry and fisheries
unit: %
Year
Agriculture committee members
Agricultural cooperative members
Number of agricultural cooperative officers
Fishery cooperative members
Number of fishery cooperative officers
Forestry union full members
Number of forestry association officers

1990
0.15
12.1
0.10
5.8
0.10

1995
0.33
13.02
0.20
5.8
0.14

2000
1.8
14.2
0.6
5.7
0.2

2005
4.1
16.1
1.9
6.8
0.0
6.6
0.2

2010
4.9
18.9
3.9
5.7
0.4
8.2
0.4

2015
7.4
21.2
7.2
5.6
0.5
9.4
0.4

Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries, Bureau of Economic Affairs, Administration Division;
Agricultural Cooperatives Division; Fisheries Agency Cooperative Division

56

The 2015 Agricultural Census asked respondents about the “gender of the agricultural manager”
and “gender of participants in management policies, if any” and found that there were still fewer
than 10% female managers (Table 3).
Table 3. Gender of the Manager

Unit: thousand, %,Male manager Female manager Female ratio (%)
7.2
1,241
89
Source: Agricultural and Forestry Census 2015

In this way, women's participation in agriculture, forestry and fisheries has not progressed, andwomen are moving away from these industries. Furthermore, it is difficult to accurately grasp thenumber of women working in forestry from the Agricultural and Forestry Census statistics.
2.

Women’s new activities in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and issues in women'sorganizations
New activities aimed at women have begun to appear in recent years. The “Agricultural
Women's Project” was launched in 2013 in the field of agriculture, while the “Forestry Girl's
Association @” was launched in forestry in 2010.
The “Agricultural Women's Project” is a project of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and
Fisheries, and aims to increase the number of young female farmers who choose agriculture as aprofession combining knowledge cultivated in farming with corporate technologies. According to a2018 summary of the Secretariat, the number of participants had increased from 37 to 715, while thenumber of participating companies had increased from 9 to 37, and the number of educational
institutions had increased to 5 (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries website). In the same
year, the “Sea Treasure, Fishery Women's Vitality Project (‘Umi-no Takara, Suisan Joshi-no Genki
Purojekuto’)” was launched by the Fisheries Agency, with 39 members (Fisheries Agency website).
Conversely, “Forestry Girl's Association @” was established in various regions around Japan,
inspired by the first “Forestry Girl's Association @ Kyoto”, as a place for women who are interested
in forests and forestry to share and spread the best aspects of forestry. Currently, these associations
are being run in 25 regions, and the activities differ in each region. These are voluntary organizations
with members comprising students and members of local society, who act together to create aloosely linked organization called “forestry girls @”.
These young women’s activities are characterized by the use of the Internet and social media.
The pioneer “Forestry Girl's Association @” smoothly combines the virtual world with reality, suchas by bringing together information on the internet at its monthly meetings and local activities. In
addition, “Forestry Girl's Association @” and “Agricultural Women's Project” are focusing strongly
on their cooperation with other related industries.
Although these new initiatives and organizations are being established, note that conversely, the
Rural Women Empowerment and Life Improvement Association, a former national externalorganization that had been supporting agricultural, forestry and fishing women for many years, has

57

disbanded. Similarly, the Female Farm Managers’ Board dissolved after completing its mission.
Extension workers (women) for farm life improvement, who had fostered female agricultural
entrepreneurial groups and worked closely with women, were also abolished. As a result, there is
now only weak support for women who have finished raising their children and who are expected toundertake various other activities, and they are delayed in their organization accordingly. Due to thedeclining birthrate, aging population and privatization policies in agricultural and fishing villages,
women's organizations in agriculture, forestry and fisheries have not yet been able to fully link all
generations, from the young to the elderly people.
3. Improving the status of women in agriculture, forestry and fisheries
In rural areas, gender roles in housework, childcare and nursing care have been strongly
retained. In addition to these tasks, women are expected to be engaged in agriculture, forestry andfisheries, as well as entrepreneurship. Being involved in up to 5 layers of work means that it isdifficult for agriculture and entrepreneurship to become the main businesses for these women as longas they still need to take care of their homes and families, and they are also unlikely to become themain managers. In addition to the establishment of preschools and nursing homes nearby, above all,men’s cooperation is needed in the home.
In forestry, the number of female workers has increased slightly. Women are now able to takeover men’s jobs if they can master the technology, such as mechanized logging machines. Career
paths that enable women to acquire skills are being opened at various training centers, andgovernment support is also substantial. Support for young women is increasing gradually, but there
are still a number of issues, such as farmland inheritance and asset building, due to the insufficient
policies for women over middle age.

58

W. Minority
Issues Surrounding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Japan Alliance for Legislation to Remove Social Barriers based on Sexual Orientation
and Gender Identity (SHIMODAIRA, Takeru, Vice Executive Director)
The 2014 recommendations of the United Nations Human Rights Committee pertaining toissues of sexual orientation50 and gender identity51 in Japan included the following: 1) adopting ananti-discrimination law unequivocally prohibiting discrimination; 2) preventing and alleviating theharm caused by prejudice and harassment; and 3) enabling same-sex couples to live in public
housing. Similarly, recommendations made in 2008 advised: 1) adopting an anti-discrimination law;and 2) providing cohabitating same-sex couples and cohabitating unmarried hetero-couples equal
treatment. Despite identical recommendations being made repeatedly over the years, not only has
there been absolutely no reduction in the number of the recommendations to be taken and enacted,
the number of recommendations has actually increased.
Chief among these is the issue of harassment. According to an opinion poll about Sexual
Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI52) conducted by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation(RENGO) in 2016, 60 percent of respondents who were close to someone from the LGBT
community answered that they knew someone who had either experienced SOGI harassment in theworkplace first hand, or had witnessed or heard about such harassment . On the other hand, thepercentage of respondents who answered that they were not close to anyone from the LGBT
community, but knew someone who had either experienced SOGI harassment in the workplace first
hand, or had witnessed or heard about such harassment, remained at a low 20 percent. This suggeststhat unless people know and are around someone who is a member of the LGBT community, they
don’t really understand nor recognize SOGI harassment.
As background information relative to this problem, it may be useful to note that those with aheterosexual sexual orientation, who feel no incongruity between the gender assigned at birth andthe gender with which they identify (i.e., for example, a man, assigned male at birth, who identifies
as a man and is attracted to women) are considered by society to be the normal, typical majority,
while other genders and sexualities, which have long been unrecognized and invisible, are forced tobe the object of discrimination and oppression. Sexual minorities, most especially the “women” ofthese sexual minorities, are in an extremely difficult, untenable situation in a society in which even“ordinary” women, assigned female at birth, identifying as women and attracted to men, suffer froma gender gap resulting in a clear disparity between their wages and education level and those ofmen53.
Sexual Orientation refers to one’s emotional, romantic and sexual attraction to people of a particular gender.
Gender Identity refers to the gender that a person perceives themselves to be and with which they self-identify.
52 SOGI is an acronym for Sexual Orientation and Gender identity.
53 “Man” here refers to a person who does not feel any contradiction or incongruence between assigned gender atbirth and gender identity, and is attracted to women.
50
51

59

Relative to the above, our organization received reports of complex, difficult, serious cases54
centered around the intersection of gender and sexuality:“When I came out as a lesbian, someone said, ‘I can fix that for you. You’ll change your mind,
once you have more experience with men and get to know us better.’ and then I was raped.”
And the list goes on. Sexual minorities have been made invisible and subjected to oppression
and discrimination for so long that even though they suffer undeniable harassment, they find it
difficult to speak out against such harassment for fear of having their gender and sexuality revealed
which, they have good reason to believe, is very likely to result in further harassment andmaltreatment.
Nevertheless, some local governments are not waiting for national legislation to be enacted totackle the aforementioned problems and make progress addressing these issues. In March of 2019,
the Toshima Ward of Tokyo passed an ordinance not only prohibiting discrimination, but also SOGI
harassment and the outing of others. This ordinance explicitly prohibits forcing an individual tocome out. Moreover, in 2017, amid the growing excitement and enthusiasm in both the public andprivate sectors relative to hosting the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, the “Sustainable
Sourcing Code for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020” was announced. This Coderequires all Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic suppliers of goods and services to comply withregulations prohibiting SOGI discrimination and harassment. In addition, in 2018 “The Model Rulesof Employment” of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, was amended to incorporate a newprovision adding “the prohibition of all other forms of harassment” which expanded and clarified thedefinition of prohibited harassment by including SOGI-related discriminatory speech and conduct
among its examples of prohibited harassment. Furthermore, both employer associations and labororganizations are advancing initiatives to tackle SOGI issues while the government, employers andemployees are each taking concrete measures to address these issues in the employment arena.
I would now like to introduce several categories of SOGI harassment.
[Five Categories of SOGI Harassment]
1.

Discriminatory actions, ridicules and the use of pejorative language such as “rezu (les inJapanese)” or “homo”55

2.

Bullying, ignoring and acting violently toward members of the LGBT community.

3.

Gender Coercion: forced to live, work and dress as an undesired gender with which one does
not identify.

4.

Unjustified personnel reassignments and dismissals; unjust refusals of school admissions andtransfers.

5.

Announcing someone’s SOGI without their permission (“outing”)

Cited from “A List of Difficulties We Confront in Society Due to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (3rd
Edition)” a list our organization compiled utilizing information obtained from various other SOGI organizations,
support groups and experts.
55 Words such as “homo”, “okama (fag; faggot)”, “les (les; lesbo)”, “onabe (bull dyke)”, and “otoko-onna (she-male,chick with dick)” are discriminatory, derogatory terms which, historically, have had pejorative connotations.
54

60

As further regards the issue of harassment, the Labor Policy General Promotion Law, which
includes a provision for the prevention of “power harassment”, was unanimously revised, in May
2019, to require the guidelines for power harassment prevention measures56 to be amended to
expand the definition of power harassment to include the following categories of harassment: (1)
SOGI; and (2) unwanted outing in the workplace. As companies are now obligated to prevent power
harassment in these two new categories, measures to protect privacy are also required in light of the
newly instituted outing protection provisions. We feel these legal reforms represent tremendous
progress and we rate them highly.
Despite the progress made, however, efforts to pass a comprehensive, nationwide,anti-discrimination law, as the United Nations has repeatedly advised Japan and described above,
have fallen woefully short and, to date, no such legislation has been enacted. We will, nevertheless,continue to strongly demand that the Japanese government enact a truly effective anti-discrimination
law which not only contains provisions preventing harassment, but also explicitly prohibits
discrimination.

56

It should be noted, #3 and #4 in the list of Five Categories of SOGI Harassment mentioned, might not fall intoeither of the newly added harassment categories, 1) SOGI; 2) unwanted outing in the workplace, of the amended
guidelines for the power harassment prevention measures of the revised Labor Policy General Promotion Law

61

X. Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction
DOMOTO, Akiko, President of JWNDRRTANAKA, Yumiko, Vice-President of JWNDRR
1. Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) and Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs)
The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake brought our attention to the importance of formulating
and implementing disaster risk reduction (DRR) policies and programs by taking into considerationdifferent needs of people. Accordingly, the SFDRR (2015-2030), adopted at the Third UN World
Conference on DRR (Sendai, 2015), emphasized the importance of disaster preparedness, disasterrisk reduction, building back better (BBB) with people-centered approach, participation of women,
the elderly and persons with disabilities in the decision-making processes, and leadership of womenand youth in DRR. The SFDRR was then included in the Goal 11 and 13 of the SDGs (2015-2030).
The SDGs emphasize that the Goal 5 on achieving gender equality and empowerment of all womenand girls is prerequisite to achieve all the other 16 goals, thus promoting DRR with a gender
perspective is not an exemption.
2. Progress made by the government of Japan and remaining challenges
The government of Japan made strenuous efforts for promoting DRR, however the gender
perspective has not yet been fully integrated into the Disaster Countermeasure Basic Act and related
policies. The Cabinet Office has promoted the development of Local Disaster Management Plans(LDMPs) based upon the national-level Basic Disaster Management Plan. As a result, 984 LDMPs
have been formulated as of April 2017. However, the gender and diversity perspectives need to befurther integrated into these plans.
The Fourth Basic Plan for Gender Equality (2015) stipulated that gender differentiated needs
should be considered at all the disaster management cycle of preparation, emergency, restoration andreconstruction. And women’s participation in decision-making processes in the cycle should bepromoted. It is necessary to promote gender mainstreaming in DRR by all the stakeholders,
including Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office, line ministries concerned with DRR,
women’s groups and CSOs.
The female ratio of the Disaster Management Council, headed by the Prime Minister, was 6.9%
in 2018. The female ratio of Prefectural and Municipal Disaster Management Councils was only
2.1% in 2004, but increased to 14.9 % in 2017, as a result of lobbying made by the women’s groups
such as Japan Women’s Network for DRR (JWNDRR). However, the female ratio of local
community DRR councils is still 8.1% in 2017. Despite the commitment made by the Fourth Basic
Plan for Gender Equality to increase the female ratio for such councils up to 30% by 2020, it still has
a long way to go. The female staff ratio at the departments concerned with DRR in the local
governments is 9.7% at the prefectural levels and 6% at the city/village levels.
The Gender Equality Bureau published the Guidelines for DRR and Reconstruction from a62

Gender Perspective in 2013 and distributed them to local governments. The Guidelines were madebased upon the experiences of women who were unable to obtain emergency goods they needed andthe space for nursing and changing their clothes at emergency shelters in 2011. They also faceddifficulties with the management of emergency shelters which were mostly controlled by local
elderly males. The Guidelines, therefore, emphasized that the female ratio in the local DRR councils
should be increased, and the integration of gender perspective into the development and revision of
local DRR plans should be promoted. It was reported that the Guidelines were useful at the time of2016 Kumamoto earthquake. However, they are not yet well-known and utilized in other local
communities. Six years has passed since the inception of the Guidelines, therefore, they need to be
updated, with a broader perspective, to further promote women’s participation in thedecision-making processes on DRR and pay due attention to specific situation of Fukushima.
Women’s groups and CSOs, including the JWNDRR, should fully and effectively participate in theprocess for updating the Guidelines so that their experiences, knowledge and lessons learnt should
be well-reflected in the new version of the Guidelines.
It was an outstanding action taken by the government to establish the Gender Equality Unit at
Reconstruction Agency in the Cabinet Office in February 2012. The Unit collected the cases on goodpractices for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment on DRR in Iwate, Miyagi and
Fukushima prefectures in Tohoku, so that the lessons learnt from the Great East Japan Earthquake
should be shared among women and men in Japan. It is recommended that the Reconstruction
Agency should be sustained with Gender Equality Unit beyond its termination by 2020, so that thegender perspective should be well-integrated in the recovery and reconstruction processes in the
future disasters with the establishment of communication mechanisms among diverse stakeholders.
In addition, as stipulated in the SFDRR, the sex, age and disability disaggregated data (SADDD) on
DRR should be collected by the Reconstruction Agency in collaboration with the Statistics Bureau,
so that evidence-based DRR policies with a gender perspective should be formulated and effectively
implemented in the coming years.
3. Challenges for women’s groups and CSOs
One of the positive outcomes of the Great East Japan Earthquake is that the networks among
the survivors of disasters were formed and strengthened. For example, Women’s Net Kobe applied
their hotline services for supporting GBV survivors in Tohoku in 2011. The National Council of
Women and Gender Equality Centers as well as JWNDRR played an extremely important role topromote women’s leadership in local and volunteer DRR associations. All kinds of manuals for
emergency shelter management and disaster preparedness with a gender and diversity perspective
were published in multi languages and DVDs by local women’s groups with local governments allover Japan. Among others, the “DRR for Tokyo Life” published by metropolitan Tokyo government
in 2018 need to be further updated from a gender perspective.
The Gender Equality Bureau is now preparing for the adaptation of the Fifth Basic Plan for
Gender Equality (2020). The lessons learnt so far on DRR with a gender/diversity perspective should
be well reflected in the Plan. The national-level Basic Disaster Management Plan (2016) emphasized63that gender differentiated needs and concerns should be considered at all the disaster risk
management processes and women’s participation in decision-making processes on DRR should bepromoted. However, the Plan did not make it clear how the specific measures should be taken toachieve those goals. Women’s groups and CSOs should monitor the progress made and further
request for more effective implementation measures of the Plan.
It is a well-known fact that the gender gaps are quite wide in social, economic and politicalspheres in Japan. Therefore, it is important to tackle the underlying causes for gender inequality
and make strenuous efforts for enabling women to take more proactive roles and stronger leadershipon DRR and reconstruction. It is also needed to promote not only infrastructure, such as high sea
walls, but also non-structured assistance, such as livelihood recovery and disaster preparedness ofthe communities, with more gender-equal and women’s empowerment perspectives under theJapanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) as well as overseas assistance provided by the
women’s groups, CSOs and private sectors.

64

List of Contributors
A. Women and Poverty
ABE, Aya: Professor (Social Policy), Tokyo Metropolitan University. Her research focuses on
measurement and policies against poverty and social exclusion.
B. Education and Training of Women
KAMEDA, Atsuko: Professor Emeritus, Jumonji Women’s University; Director, Japan Association
for Women’s Education; Member, Japan Association of International Women’s Rights.
C. Women and Health
TSUGE, Azumi: Professor at the Faculty of Sociology, Meiji Gakuin University. Specialized in
Gender, Biomedical Technologies and Social Interaction. Coauthor of Demagogies of High School
Nin-katsu Brochure by MEXT (in Japanese, Ronso-sha, 2016).
TAKAHASHI, Sakino: Translator, part-time lecturer of Ochanomizu University. Specialized in
Feminism and Technology. Translator of Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature,
by Haraway, Donna (Seido-sya, 1990).
D. Violence against Women
KAINO, Tamie: Professor Emeritus, Ochanomizu University, Gender and Law, Violence against
Women.
E. Women and Armed Conflict
MOTOYAMA, Hisako: Representative of Asia-Japan Women's Resource Center (AJWRC) and Ph
D student of feminist international relations at Ochanomizu University.
F. Women and the Economy
SAITO, Etsuko: Ochanomizu University, Associate Professor, Ph.D., Editorial board of Journal ofHousehold Economics, Member of Standing committee of Family Resource Management in theJapan Society of Home Economics and Member of Society for Study of Working Women.
G. Women in Power and Decision-making
MIURA, Mari: Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Sophia University. Ph.D. from
University of California, Berkeley. Co-founder of the Academy for Gender Parity. Author of Welfare
Through Work: Conservative Ideas, Partisan Dynamics, and Social Protection in Japan (Cornell
University Press, 2012), “Persistence of Women’s Under-representation” (in Japan Decides 2017,
Palgrave Mcmillan 2018).

65

H. Institutional Mechanisms for the Advancement of WomenIWAMOTO, Misako: Professor of Mie University, Faculty of Humanities, Law and Economics,
Specialty; Women’s Participation in Politics. ‘Decision Making and Gender-related Issues in Japan’,“Japanese Journal of International Society for Gender Studies”, vol.11, 2013.
I. Human Rights of Women
OMI, Miho: Ph.D. in Law (Kanagawa University); Professor at the Faculty of Law, Kanagawa
University; Vice-Convener, JAWW; Member of the Board of Directors, Japanese Association ofInternational Women’s Rights (JAIWR). Specialized in International Human Rights Law andFeminist International Law. Publications include Trade Liberalization and Women (Shogakusha,
2013) and Commentary on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (co-authored, Shogakusha, 2010).
J. Women and media
TANIOKA, Rika: Professor at Undergraduate School of Cultural and Social Studies Department ofMedia Studies, Tokai University. Has worked in the broadcasting industry for about twenty years
before becoming academic teacher. Specialized area is Gender and media. Member of JAWW.
Collective editing and writing “Work and life unbalanced of TV broadcasting workers: interview
with 30 female and male workers of 13 broadcasting bureaus”, Otsuki books publisher, 2013.
SANO, Atsuko: Director of Social Design Society. DBA (Ph.D. equivalent) in Social Design Studies.
Having been a radio personality and video creator, before becoming an e-learning planner.
Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Project “ICT promotion and social inclusion of women inGermany – Globalization and paradigm change in gender – “(Period 2018 – 2022). Now, a specialistat National Women’s Education Center of Japan (in charge of e-learning).

K. Women and the Environment
DOMOTO, Akiko: Committee member, Japan Committee for the United Nations Decade on
Biodiversity (UNDB-J); Former member of the House of Councilors; Former Governor of
Chiba prefecture; Former President; The Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced
Environment (GLOBE International); Former Vice President, The International Union forConservation of Nature (IUCN).
ODA, Yukiko: Vice Convenor, Japan Women’s Watch, Co-Unit leader, Gender unit, Japan
Civil Society Network on SDGs (SDGs Japan). Her major interest is gender and development
and the environment.
L. The Girl-child
ABE, Maki: Chairperson of the board of Empowerment Kanagawa. Founder and executive directorof Japan Dating Violence Prevention Network. Child Assault Prevention Specialist. Published a book66

No One Deserved To Be Assaulted (2018).
P. Youth
KAWAI, Chihiro: Leader, Stop the Violence (STV) campaign team, Girl Scouts of Japan. STV is
the World Association of Girl Guide and Girl Scouts global flagship campaign to end violenceagainst girls and women launched in 2011. Girl Guides and Girl Scouts have been tackling violenceagainst women and girls through advocacy, education, community action and research.
Q. Women and WorkNAITO, Shino: Vice Senior Researcher (Labour Law), the Japan Institute for Labour Policy andTraining. Her research focuses on workplace bullying and harassment, Anti-discrimination law, andgender and law. Lerouge, Loïc and Naito, Shino, “Bullying and Law in Japan”, in Lerouge, L (ed),Psychosocial Risks in Labour and Social Security Law: A Comparative Legal Overview from
Europe, North America, Australia and Japan, Springer, 2017. Naito, “Enforcement of Law against
Workplace Harassment”, Quarterly labor law (260), 2018.
KOBAYASHI, Mitsuko: Ph.D., Secretary-General of JAWW and Member of Society for the

Study of Working Women. Her research focuses on measures and policies for female employees,
and gender and ICT.
R. Migrant WomenYAMAGISHI, Motoko: Secretary General of Solidarity with Migrants Japan (SMJ),
Co-representative of Kalakasan Migrant Women Empowerment Center, Board member of Catholic
Commission of Japan for Migrants, Refugees and People on the Move, Lecturer at Rikkyo
University.
OGAYA, Chiho: Professor of Sociology and Migration Studies at Ferris University in Yokohama.
Co-author of Migrant Women and Work (SAGE ,2006) and Cultural and Social Division inContemporary Japan: Rethinking Discourses of Inclusion and Exclusion (Routledge, 2019).
S. Women with Disabilities
Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI) Women’s Network Japan: Established in 1986, DPI
Women’s Network Japan has been working to promote independent living of women withdisabilities and has worked for the abolition of the Eugenic Protection Act in the past. Moderately
linked with local organizations for women with disabilities along with individuals with disabilities,
we are working on various issues such as providing information in Japan and at international level.
URL: http://dwnj.chobi.net/?page_id=41
T. The Role of Men and Boys
ITO, Kimio: Professor at the Faculty of Sociology and the head of Diversity Promotion Office,67

Kyoto Sangyo University. Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University and Osaka University. Member of
Science Council of Japan. Specialized in cultural sociology, political sociology and gender studies.
Co-author of Gender and Welfare States in East Asia: Confucianism or Gender Equality?
(Macmillan, 2014).
U. Older Women
KAMOZAWA, Saori: Ph.D. in Social Policy (The University of Birmingham, U.K.), AssistantProfessor, College of Humanities and Sciences, Nihon University; Officer, JAWW; Qualified Social
Worker; Author of Mental Health Services in Japan: A Socio-cultural Approach for women (LambertAcademic Publishing, 2019).
V. Agricultural, fishing and forestry women
NAKAMICHI, Hitomi: Member of JAWW. Faculty of Contemporary Studies, Kyoto Women’s
University, Doctor of Agriculture (Kyoto University): Rural Sociology, Policy for Rural Women.
Co-author of Women and Families in Rural Japan, 2000, Tsukuba-Shobo, Co-author of What isgender difference (Academic Conference Series), 2008, Japan Science Support Foundation. Editor of
Women in Japanese Fishing Communities, 2009, Agricultural and Forestry Statistics Publishing Inc.
W. Minority
Japan Alliance for Legislation to Remove Social Barriers based on Sexual Orientation and
Gender Identity (Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation, J-ALL): Our organization wasestablished at April 5, 2015, aiming at legislation to remove social barriers based on sexual
orientation and gender identity. Our main activities include 1) Policy Proposal, 2) Lobbying forLegislation, 3) Public Relations & Education (to hold symposium, study session etc), and 4)
Research, Publication & Consultation. http://lgbtetc.jp/
X. Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction
Japan Women’s Network for Disaster Risk Reduction (JWNDRR): The JWNDRR was
established in 2011 after the Great East Japan Earthquake to promote the collective power of morethan 150 women’s organizations and CSOs in Japan and enhance partnership with thoseorganizations. Currently Akiko Domoto is the President, former Governor of Chiba Prefecture, andYumiko Tanaka is Vice-President. Professor of Josai International University and member of JAWW.
URL: https://jwndrr.org/

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JAWW NGO Report for Beijing+25
December 2019
JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch)Contact address: office@jaww.info
https://jaww.info/69