Japan NGO Report 2009

JAPAN ＮＧＯＲＥＰＯＲＴ２００9 For Beijing＋15

October 2009

ＪＡＷＷ（ Japan Women ’ s W a t c h ）

On Publishing Japan NGO Report 2009

The coming year 2010 will be an important year for women’s movements worldwide since it marks the 35th Anniversary of the UN International Women’s Year, 15 years after the Fourth UN World Conference on Women, and 10 years after “Women 2000.” It has been agreed that the 54th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to be held in New York in March 2010 will focus on “Beijing+15” activities, discussing how the issues incorporated in the “Beijing Platform for Action” adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing from 4-15 September, 1995, and the so-called “Outcome Document” adopted at the 23rd UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) “Women 2000” held between May 30-June 10, have been fulfilled, and what other emerging issues have been discussed at the UN since 2000, and what the remaining issues are for the future. JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch) was organized in 2001 and began working on the publication of Japan NGO Report 2004, which dealt with the 12 critical areas of concern (from A through L) listed under the “Beijing Platform for Action” (BPFA) as well as other five areas of concern. In this Japan NGO Report 2009, we discuss the 12 critical areas of concern in Part I (from A to L) in BPFA and five other areas of concern in Part II (1~5). We regret we have not been able to include a chapter on Youth, which is a very important topic for the 21st century. In the meantime, the UN has decided to hold high-level intergovernmental meetings in the five regions in the world from Africa, Asia Pacific, West Asia, Europe (including North America) and Latin America and the Caribbean in 2009. In the Asia Pacific region, the UNESCAP (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) High-Level Intergovernmental Meeting is to be convened from November 16-18, 2009 in Bangkok, Thailand to review the regional implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Outcome Document 2000 and other emerging issues. Prior to this meeting, APWW (Asia Pacific Women’s Watch) decided to organize an Asia Pacific NGO Forum on Beijing +15. Many women NGOs in the Asia Pacific region are to meet together at the Forum which will be held at Miriam College in Quezon City, the Philippines under the Convenorship of Dr. Patricia B. Licuanan, the President of Miriam College, from October 22-24, 2009. In response, women in the Asia Pacific region have begun to prepare their reports in each sub-region and country from the viewpoint of NGOs. As an organization with the mission of being a Steering Committee member of APWW and in charge of the Secretariat of APWW (July 2008-June 2010), JAWW also has the responsibility of conducting this Asia Pacific NGO Forum. We all hope that the contents of our Japan NGO Report 2009 will reflect the compilation of the voices of women in the Asia Pacific region, which in turn is expected to be mirrored in the outcome documents at UNESCAP and CSW meetings. Those who have been involved in preparing this report all support the Beijing Platform for Action and the Outcome Document of the Women 2000 Session. However, even among them there is a variety of views and expressions that they contend should be used. Therefore, the editors have decided not to unify the terminology and present diverse claims on each point in issue without resolving the differences. For reasons of space, this report has a limitation in that it may fail to give full explanations and the sources used to support the argument. Nevertheless, we are extremely pleased to be able to report in and outside of Japan our views derived from our daily life experiences and research in this document from the NGO’s standpoint. Women NGO members in Japan have been acquiring valuable experiences by taking part in the international fora and meetings held outside Japan. In 1975, about 240 Japanese women attended the International Women’s Year Tribune held parallel to the First World Conference on Women in Mexico

City, followed by about 400 women at the second in Copenhagen in 1980 and about 870 women at the third in Nairobi in 1985. In 1995, as many as 5,385 women from all over Japan participated in the Beijing Conference partly because of its vicinity. Likewise, through the participation of approximately 10 to 12 JAWW members at CSW sessions in New York held in March every year from 2001 through 2009, JAWW has been accumulating exchanges with the participants worldwide. Those experiences have led us to reconsider our own living and life, think about the world community and Japan’s future, and strengthen our solidarity with people worldwide. With the immensity of the issues humans face in the future ahead, we are highly committed to the important responsibility of passing on our achievements to younger generations and of working together with men in Japan and in the world. In closing I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the many people and organizations that have sacrificed their time and offered their cooperation in the publication of this booklet.

JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch)

Hiroko Hara Convenor October 4, 2009

Table of Contents

On Publishing Japan NGO Report 2009 Assessing the implementation of the critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Outcome Document of the 23rd UN General Assembly Special Session and other emerging issues

Part I

A. Women and Poverty Chieko Akaishi 1

B. Education and Training of Women Reiko Maruoka 8

C. Women and Health Hiroko Hara 13

D. Violence against Women—Beijing+15: Our Progress in Eliminating All Forms of Violence Against Women Tomoko Endo 19

E. Women and Armed Conflict Asia Japan Women's Resource Center (AJWRC) Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM) 26

F. Women and the Economy—Globalized Economy and Financial Crises from a Gender Perspective—

Mari Osawa with Yasuko U. Muramatsu 31

G. Women in Power and Decision-making Kay Fusano 44

H. Institutional Mechanism for the Advancement of Women

Hiroko Hashimoto 51

I. Human Rights of Women Mikiko Otani 57

J. Women and the Media Yasuko K. Muramatsu with Yoko Kunihiro, Rika Tanioka, Satoko Matsuura, Reiko Aoki, Miiko Kodama, Akiko Sugawa, Miho Takeshita, Kaori Hayashi, Keiko Ikeda and Toshiko Miyazaki 61

K. Women and the Environment—Mainstreaming Women’s Sensitivity Makes a Difference to the Environment— Akiko Domoto, Eri Nakajima, and Yuko Honda 68

L. The Girl-child—Obstacles and Challenges Mariko Asano and Masako Tanaka 78

Part II

1. Elderly Women Takako Sodei and Keiko Higuchi 86

2. Migrant Women— Present State and Pressing Issues Ruri Ito and Chiho Ogaya 93 iii

3. Minority Women Minako “Minata” Hara

3-1 Sexual Minority Women 101 3-2 Ainu, Buraku, Zainichi Korean, and Ryukyu Women—Beijing+15: The Progress and the Challenges of the NGOs of Ainu, Buraku, Zainichi Korean, and Ryuku Women in achieving self-determination and eliminating all forms of discrimination 104 3-3 Women with Disabilities 113

4. Rural Women 4-1 Women in Agriculture Masami Shinozaki 116 4-2 Women in Fisheries Hitomi Nakamichi and Natsuko Miki 121

5. The Role of Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality Miwako Shimazu 123

About JAWW 141

Part I: 12 critical areas of concern in BPFA

A. Women and Poverty

Chieko Akaishi (Single Mothers Forum (NGO); Anti Poverty Network; Josei to Hinkon Network1) Translated by Miwako Shimazu (JAWW)

In Japan, as the issue of economic gaps captured the general public’s interest around 2006, the word “poverty” came to be considered as a domestic problem confronting Japan. Now news reports abound on young people as dispatched workers making a living on daily wages and lodging at Internet cafes, men dying of starvation as a result of deprivation of welfare benefits, and male dispatched workers who have lost both the job and home due to forced termination of work contracts, and the like. Relatively speaking, poor men rather than poor women seem to be getting more attention. Since its establishment in 2007, Anti Poverty Network has been making some progress in highlighting poverty as a grave social problem by forming a network among the poor--ranging from the homeless, to so-called “freeters2,” dispatched workers, single mothers, the disabled, the sick, multiple debtors, and recipients of welfare benefits—and their supporters. At the very start of the year 2009, the Haken-mura (literally meaning dispatched workers’ village) program launched by labor unions, civil groups, and other concerned groups for the relief of former dismissed workers rendered visible the fact that even in Japan widely recognized as an affluent industrialized nation, there is a whole array of people hovering between life and death after becoming jobless and homeless. More importantly, women have experienced poverty long before then and now they are being exposed to even more severe poverty. Visit a 24-hour open McDonald’s at night, and you will find several cart-carrying women staying the night there. These women cannot live on the street because of possible danger. Single mothers have been poor long before. Among the causes of women’s poverty are the structure of sex division of labor which has compelled women to work on a low wage to supplement the family budget, the present expansion of non-regular workers, reduction of expenditures for welfare and social insurance, and the tax system favoring the upper income class. Josei to Hinkon Network made such women’s problems visible so as to provide a space for women themselves to raise their voices, and by so doing called the government to take appropriate measures. Figure 1 below attests all this; the relative poverty rate of women is higher than that of men at practically all age groups.

1 Josei means women and hinkon, poverty in Japanese. 2 The term has been variously defined since its coinage. For example, A White Book on Labor Economics in 2006 defines it as “graduates (unmarried in case of female) aged between 15 and 34, who are working part time or who are seeking a part-time job without doing any housework or attending school. 1

Figure 1: Relative Poverty Rate (by age groups/gender) in 2002

Source: Specialist Committee on Impact Assessment and Evaluation, Council for Gender Equality (2009) “Aratana Keizai Shakai no Choryu nonakade Seikatsu Konnan wo Kakageru Danjo nitsuite Torimatomeni muketa Rontenseiri,” March 26, 2009, p. 403,

According to the National Tax Agency’s fact-finding survey on wages in private enterprises4 conducted in 2006, the yearly total income earned by men was 5.39 million yen and women 2.71 million yen in 2006, which is a half of men’s. Moreover, 22.8 percent of workers, that is, 9.6 percent of men and 43.6 percent of women, earned 2 million yen or less a year on average. Likewise, the percentage of non-regular workers is exceptionally higher among women than men. In fact, non-regular workers in 2008 which accounted for 34.1 percent of all workers consisted of 19.2 percent of male workers and 53.6 percent of female workers5. The majority of women work as part-timers, dispatched workers, contract workers, or non-regular civil workers. As shown in Figure 2, within 15 years between 1992 and 2007, the percentage of non-regular workers among male workers saw an increase from what looks like the thickness of chocolate coatings to what looks like that of the dough of Chinese meat buns, which is called into attention as a social problem. This contrasts with women’s cases where non-regular workers account for a sizable percentage both in 1992 and 2007 and the numbers increased more than those of men in all age groups but not receiving enough attention.

3 http://www.gender.go.jp/danjo-kaigi/kansieikyo/konnan-ronten/zenbun.pdf 4 http://www.nta.go.jp/kohyo/tokei/kokuzeicho/minkan2006/minkan.htm 5 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2009) Heisei 21-nenban Hataraku Josei no Jitsujo, p. 131 (http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2009/03/dl/h0326-1g.pdf) 2

Figure 2: Percentage of Workers by Employment Types, Age Groups, and Sex

(%) Women in 1992 100.0 90.0 80.0 70.0 1.6 10.5 60.0 2.7 1.9 50.0 10.6 1.8 1.8 1.8 40.0 2.1 20.2 24.9 23.5 13.5 19.7 1.9 30.0 59.0 0.3 13.8 20.0 43.7 1.7 6.2 27.2 25.9 26.0 26.2 0.5 10.0 24.2 8.3 17.9 2.0 10.3 8.0 0.0 1.8 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-

full-time workers part-time workers dispatched workers, contract workers, etc.

(%) Women in 2007 100.0 90.0 80.0 70.0 9.0 12.6 60.0 7.4 7.8 5.7 9.6 8.0 50.0 16.0 22.0 4.4 31.8 40.0 18.6 23.8 29.8 29.6 25.0 30.0 4.2 42.8 20.0 36.4 0.9 31.3 17.2 26.7 25.9 26.3 24.9 10.0 12.6 19.6 8.5 3.30.9 0.0 3.7 2.1 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65- (age) full-time workers part-time workers dispatched workers, contract workers, etc.

(%) Men in 1992 100.0 1.5 90.0 1.2 2.8 1.6 80.0 1.3 1.3 1.1 1.5 1.8 0.9 2.2 70.0 0.8 11.0 1.0 4.4 60.0 1.7 50.0 83.4 81.9 40.0 76.7 9.6 71.4 68.2 64.0 30.0 57.6 54.1 5.6 20.0 3.7 0.3 3.0 10.0 5.8 22.6 1.6 5.9 0.0 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-

full-time workers part-time workers dispatched workers, contract workers, etc.

Men in 2007 (%) 100.0

90.0 5.9 8.6 4.8 80.0 4.0 3.7 3.9 7.3 2.7 2.0 4.3 70.0 2.1 2.3 5.7 60.0 6.3 3.5 50.0 19.8 40.0 75.5 69.5 74.1 73.0 69.9 15.0 30.0 64.8 55.4 9.6 20.0 38.5 3.7 0.7 10.0 9.8 19.9 4.4 5.7 0.0 3.3 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-

full-time workers part-time workers dispatched workers, contract workers, etc.

Source：Specialist Committee on Impact Assessment and Evaluation, Council for Gender Equality (2009) “Aratana Keizai Shakai no Choryu nonakade Seikatsu Konnan wo Kakageru Danjo nitsuite Torimatomeni muketa Rontenseiri,” March 26, 2009, p. 276

As for scheduled cash earnings7, in 2008 female regular workers earned 70 percent of what male regular workers earned, whereas female non-regular workers earned 70 percent of what female regular workers earned, or only 49 percent of male regular workers’ earnings. Women’s individual low wage does not matter at all so long as their male family member, typically their father or husband, is earning a high income while they work to supplement the family budget. However, more and more women do not follow that kind of lifestyle, such as women living in poverty alone. Some women even if they are living with their family are on the poverty line. In parallel, it has become difficult for a man to earn enough to support his whole family alone with a single income because of companies are eliminating the traditional seniority-based wage system. These newly

6 http://www.gender.go.jp/danjo-kaigi/kansieikyo/konnan-ronten/zenbun.pdf 7 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/itiran/roudou/chingin/kouzou/z2008/dl/koyou.pdf (243.9/345.3=70, 170.5/243.9=70) 4 emerging phenomena are promoting changes in the Japanese society for a wider range of social stratification. This Chapter looks into women’s poverty by focusing on typical groups: single mothers, elderly women, young women, and women who ended up living on the street.

1. Single mothers The number of single-mother households (including those where the mother and children are living together with the mother’s relatives) in Japan has been surging up to 1.23 million in 2003 from 0.79 million in 1993.8 Of all single mothers surveyed in 2006, 80 percent were divorced mothers, 10 percent were widows, and 0.7 percent were mothers who had delivered a child out of wedlock. Those mothers had 1.58 children on average and their average age was 39. On average, they became single mothers at the age of 31.8. In 2005, their average annual income totaled 2.13 million yen (including benefits, pension payments, and childcare expenses), of which the annual labor income was 1.71 million yen9. In 2000, among 26 OECD countries, Japan had the second highest relative poverty rates in single-parent households with children headed by a working single parent. Like Turkey and Greece, Japan was exceptional in that having an employment does not necessarily reduce poverty risks among single parents. (Figure 3)

Figure 3: Relative poverty rates in households with children and single-parent households, 2000

Source: Förster, Michael and Marco Mira d'Ercole (2005) “Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries in the Second Half of the 1990s” OECD, p. 3510

The number of single mothers working non-regularly has increased over the past decade; more than half of them are not in full-time employment, such that they have no prospect of income increase. In 2002, the Diet proposed a bill to set the maximum length of the childcare allowances, which 1 million households were receiving then to five years, imitating the welfare reform in the United States, in order to restrain the rapid increase of welfare budgets stemming from a rise in the number of mother-child households. Thanks to the opposition of concerned NGOs, the amount of the benefits after five years was cut by half instead of none. Subsequently, in 2007, the government imposed a de-facto freeze, in which the recipient is entitled to receive the allowance after five years, upon the completion of designated procedures such as submitting a certificate of employment , but many fail to

8 Equal Employment, Children and Families Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2005) “Heisei 15-nendo Zenkoku Boshi Setaito Chosakekka Hokoku” (http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2005/01/h0119-1b01.html) 9 Equal Employment, Children and Families Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2007) “Heisei 18-nendo Zenkoku Boshi Setaito Chosakekka Hokoku” (http://www.mhlw.go.jp/bunya/kodomo/boshi-setai06) 10 http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/48/9/34483698.pdf 5 apply because the procedures are highly complicated. Similarly, a welfare supplement for children of single parents and for orphans was phased out beginning in 2005 and was totally abolished in 2009. In a nutshell, the government is curtailing the amount of benefits for those who cannot raise voices. In response, we NGOs involved in single mothers’ well-beings, while actively working on counseling, survey and research, and policy proposals, requested the government not to carry out this 5-year phased reduction of childcare allowances, which helped to prevent the complete reduction. Our next challenge is to call for the need to continue such cash benefits and further to support children’s education.

2. Elderly women At present, one fifth of the Japanese population is aged 65 and above, which is the official definition of the elderly, of which nearly 60 percent are women. Elderly women living alone usually belong to the low-income class. As of 2005, the percentage of elderly women among the recipients of welfare benefits is high at 16.4 percent, of whom 16.4 are living alone11. Not a few elderly women are pensionless, with the number in 2004 estimated to be 0.342 million12. Their little or no pension payments seem to be attributed to the unstable work conditions even in their working years, divorce experiences, among others. As to why divorce experiences are linked with little or no pension payments, we could point out three possible explanations: First, many women who were full-time housewives in their marriage have paid their contributions to only the basic pension, namely the National Pension. Second, because the jobs women find after divorce are often low-paid, many opt either not to pay pension premiums or to apply for exemption from their payment. Third, although a new system to divide pensions between a couple upon divorce was introduced in 2007, the amount divorced women receive has increased only slightly; moreover, since it is not retroactive; the new system does not seem to be much of benefit to current elderly women. Many have a strong desire to obtain employment. Of those elderly women who wish to have a job, 20 percent (aged 65 and over) and 17 percent (aged 75 and over) said they wish to work because they need an income13, which can be interpreted as insufficiency of their pension payments. In addition, the medical system for the latter-stage elderly has been changed for the worse.

3. Young women Recently, more and more women in their 20s and 30s are working non-regularly, many of them earning 1 to 2 million yen a year. These women would have to make a bare living if they are to live on their own. Helpless, some of them are forced to live with their parents. They are beginning to raise their voices, such as “I cannot hope for better future,” “I have to give up marriage,” and “I am afraid of working outside.” The reason behind the agony of jobless young women is gradually identified. It has been found that a complex combination of their various experiences at school, home, and in the workplace makes their life all the more difficult. The scheduled revision of the Worker Dispatch Law would likely affect women; many are office

11 Specialist Committee on Impact Assessment and Evaluation, Council for Gender Equality (2008) “Koreisha no jiritsushita Seikatsu nitaisuru Shien nikansuru Kanshi Eikyo Chosa Saishuhokoku nimuketa Ronten no Torimatome” (http://www.gender.go.jp/danjo-kaigi/kansieikyo/rontenmatome-s2.pdf) 12 Social Insurance Agency (2007) “Heisei 16-nen Koteki Nenkin Kanyu Jokyoto Chosakekka no Gaiyo” http://www.sia.go.jp/infom/press/houdou/2007/h070220.pdf (p. 25) 13 Specialist Committee on Impact Assessment and Evaluation, Council for Gender Equality (2008) “Koreisha no jiritsushita Seikatsu nitaisuru Shien nikansuru Kanshi Eikyo Chosa Saishuhokoku nimuketa Ronten no Torimatome” (http://www.gender.go.jp/danjo-kaigi/kansieikyo/rontenmatome-s2.pdf)

6 workers dispatched from an agency. Dispatched work should be more strictly regulated. Since dispatched workers cannot seek advice from labor unions, women’s unions need to act to help them out.

4. Women living on the street In Japan few women live on the street, probably to avoid sexual violence, but the number is steadily increasing. NORA, a unique network of women living in the parks in Metropolitan Tokyo formed in 2008, is selling hand-sewn cloth napkins they made.

Though still in the making, Josei to Hinkon Network since its start in 2008 has been making efforts to heighten the visibility of women in poverty, provide counseling to individuals, and work for the betterment of the welfare and labor systems, including revision of the Child-Rearing Allowance Law along with the reinstatement of welfare supplements for children of single parents and for orphans, revision of the Act for Securing the Proper Operation of Worker Dispatching Undertakings and Improved Working Conditions for Dispatched Workers, and measures to prevent dismissal on account of maternity and childcare leave.

B. Education and Training of Women Reiko Maruoka (Convener, Education & Mass Media Committee, International Women’s Year Liaison Group) Translated by Kay Fusano (Vice-Convenor, JAWW)

1 Introduction In this Chapter, I will discuss what has been and is at issue in the area of women’s education, namely school education, higher education, and social education, from gender perspectives. Section 2 examines specific problems in school education: home economics as a school subject, sex education, hidden curricula, mixed name lists, and textbook screening. Section 3 takes a look at the rate of women who go to higher schools in the past 20 years. Finally Section 4 on social education focuses on the budgetary problem in women’s education and training and on the role of National Women’s Education Center.

2 School education 2-1 Introduction In 2006 the Fundamental Law of Education whose objective had been and is to “perfect one’s personality as an individual who builds a peaceful nation and society” (Article 1) in compliance with the spirit of the Constitution of Japan was revised1. One of the major changes was made to Article 2 which newly sets goals of education including development of a sense of morality, gender equality, and peace in the international community. Accordingly, the School Education Law as well as courses of study for primary, lower and upper secondary schools and special education schools were also revised. As a consequence, moral education was overemphasized2, and thus supervision over children and teachers was strengthened from my point of view. In the course of the structural reform driven by the cabinet of the then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, neo liberal education was promoted and competitions were intensified through the liberalization of the school district system, the introduction of a unified lower and upper secondary school system, and the implementation of national achievement tests,. Animosity towards gender equality is reflected in the process of screening and adoption of textbooks especially in textbooks on social studies and home economics.

2-2 Home economics Fifteen years have passed since an identical curriculum for boys and girls was introduced in upper secondary school. The first upper secondary school students who learned home economics based on the new curriculum in 1994 are now in their thirties. According to a survey conducted by the Cabinet Office in 2007, young men who are against the stereotypical perception of gender roles are increasing in number. This trend shows a positive effect of the identical curriculum for boys and girls in home economics. Another positive effect is seen among young men who make their lunch by themselves to save money and at the same time to ensure food safety. At present boys and girls have no sense of incongruity in studying home economics together, as well as other subjects. In my view, home economics is an important school subject because boys and girls could learn life skills and the functions of their daily lives in order to realize the spirit of Articles 25 and 243 of the

1 http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/kihon/about/06121913/002.pdf 2 In this connection, hoisting of the flag of the Rising Sun and singing of the national anthem were enforced. 3 Article 24. Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters

Constitution of Japan which stipulate equality of the sexes and the minimum standard of living. However, in the revised courses of education, gender equality has been watered down and what I think is the role of home economics has not been fully considered. Curricula for education stressing excessive rote learning are encouraged in them and such subjects as home economics (elementary school), industrial arts/home economics (lower secondary school), and art (lower secondary school) are made light of, because they have nothing to do with entrance examination subjects. The fact that third-year students at lower secondary school learn industrial arts and home economics for only 0.5 school hour per week shows that the development of their mind and body is ignored. The required credits in home economics for upper secondary school students were 4 in 1994, but they have been reduced to 2 since 2003. This has led to a decline in the number of home economics teachers and the inadequate maintenance of special classroom facilities for home economics. The Cabinet Office, as well as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, must recognize anew the important role home economics play in promoting gender equality.

2-3. Sex education The following episode of Nanao School for disabled children4 5in Tokyo epitomizes the critical situation of sex education in Japan. Nanao School for disabled children initiated its own sex education course for disabled children in 1997 so that they would be able to correctly understand their own bodies. This course, using dolls with sex organs, had the understanding and approval of the parents. However, the school’s sex education for mentally disabled children was criticized by three metropolitan assembly members of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan as ‘extreme’ at an assembly meeting in July 2003. The Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education should have defended the School from the unfair political intervention, but in September 2003 the Board suspended Nanao High School Principal Mitsuru Kanazaki from office for one month and demoted him to the position of teacher, claiming that his school provided students with an ‘inappropriate’ sex education. The Board later changed the reason for the punishment by blaming him for ‘inappropriately organizing school classes.’ Moreover, it also punished other teachers who were involved and even interfered in sex education in other schools. In response, in May 2005, those concerned the issue filed a suit against the three assembly members, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, and Sankei Shimbun (one of Japan’s dailies) for the violation of the Constitution which provides for “children’s right to learn” and others. On March 12, 2009, the Tokyo District Court ordered the defendants (three metropolitan assembly members and the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education) to pay compensation to the affected Nanao School teachers. The plaintiffs won the suit. Although the Court ordered compensation to the affected Nanao teachers, it did not approve the return of teaching materials or an apology from Sankei Shimbun, which carried a sensational article criticizing sex education at Nanao School in 1997. On April 9, 2009 the Tokyo High Court upheld a lower court decision and ordered the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education to withdraw its punishment of a special school principal over sex education that came under attack from conservative members of the metropolitan assembly as pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes. Article 25. All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living. In all spheres of life, the State shall use its endeavors for the promotion and extension of social welfare and security, and of public health.(translation by the Japanese government) 4 http://www.nanao-sh.metro.tokyo.jp/mokkuhyou.html 5 For a detailed account of this court case, see Yuji Kodama (2009) Seikyoiku Saiban (Court case of sex education), Iwanami Shoten (in Japanese)

‘extreme.’ Following the lower court ruling, the High Court judged that the education board groundlessly determined the school’s organization of classes as inappropriate. It ruled that the punishment amounts to the abuse of power and is thus illegal. The Tokyo District Court gave strict punishment to the political intervention in the sex education of Nanao School, while the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, exploiting this sex education bashing, produced and distributed “Reference Materials for Teachers” in 2004 in order to make the ‘ideal’ method of sex education known widely. It conducted a nationwide survey on sex education in 2005 and issued revised Sex Education Guidelines in 2008 in order to avoid ‘extreme’ sex education. Although ‘restrictive provisions’ have been removed from the revised courses of study of fiscal 2008 (for lower secondary schools) and fiscal 2009 (for upper secondary schools)6, information on pregnancy has been deleted from the courses of study for lower secondary schools and that on reproductive functions for upper secondary schools has been restricted. Sex education bashing at school by the Ministry is still continuing. This brings a great challenge to us who are deeply concerned with teenage pregnancy and spread of sexually transmitted diseases among young women and men in Japan.

2-4 Hidden curricula Fifteen years after the adoption of an identical curriculum of industrial arts/home economics (lower secondary school) and home economics (upper secondary school) for boys and girls at lower secondary school (1993) and upper secondary school (1994) has led to the elimination of the entrenched perception of gender division of labor. In physical education many classes still separate boys and girls but the number of classes where boys and girls learn together is increasing. However, in elective subjects girls tend to choose home economics and boys tend to choose industrial arts. In extra curricular activities, girls tend to choose chorus, instrumental music and drama clubs. Some examples of hidden curricula are: sometimes teachers still speak careless words like “As you are a boy…” or “Although you are a girl…”; girls’ names on school lockers are always written in red, while boys’ names in black; girls are often told to clean and clear the classrooms, while boys are told to do heavy labor, etc.

2-5 Mixed name lists According to a survey conducted by the Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office in 2007, 80 per cent of schools nationwide, including kindergartens, used mixed name lists for boys and girls. In the Metropolis of Tokyo the use of mixed name lists had been increasing since 1998. Although it decreased in 2004, when the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education prohibited the use of mixed name lists based on the idea of ‘gender-bias-free,’ no such decrease has been seen up to date. Thanks to the use of mixed name lists, the idea of predominance of boys over girls is being eliminated at school.

2-6 Textbook screening According to the revised Basic Law of Education, moral (patriotic) education was made the basis of education and the screening of textbooks on home economics and social studies was strengthened. Particularly history and civics textbooks compiled by a new conservative group were promoted and adopted by integrated junior and high schools in Tokyo, schools for disabled children, Suginami Ward schools in Tokyo and private schools. However the adoption rate of these textbooks nationwide was only 0.39 per cent. In the civics textbooks compiled by the group gender equality was denied, sex differences between men and women were respected as valuable personality, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society,

6 http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/new-cs/youryou/index.htm (in Japanese)

and the Equal Employment Opportunity Law were all ignored. The issue of so-called ‘comfort women’ had been dealt with in all textbooks since 1997 after the Government approved the fact and apologized, but after the strengthening of the screening system, the issue disappeared from most of the textbooks. The 2010 version of history textbooks compiled by the group was authorized again and a scheme is underway to make schools adopt them. Questions were raised regarding technicality, transparency and openness of textbook screening system when people, including those from Okinawa Prefecture, protested against the deletion of the issue of military-induced mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa from the 2007 version of Japanese history textbooks for upper secondary schools. However, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology protected the closed-door process of the screening system by keeping the writers’ names secret. Moreover, the new screening system strengthened its control by requesting the writers to submit a contrastive table with five items, including patriotism, stipulated by the revised Basic Law of Education.

3. Advancement rate of female students7 The percentage of girls who advance to higher educational institutions is increasing as a whole (Table 1). It should be noted that in 1969 girls for the first time exceeded boys in terms of the percentage of students entering upper secondary schools, keeping the rank to date. The decrease in the share of junior colleges is explained by the fact that a growing number of junior colleges are being reorganized 4-year colleges or universities.

Table 1: Changes in Advancement Rate of Female Students by Type of School by Year

year 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2007 Graduate school 1.6 2.5 3.1 5.5 6.3 7.2 7.0 University (undergraduate 12.3 13.7 15.2 22.9 31.5 36.8 40.6 program) Junior college (female only) 21.0 20.8 22.2 24.6 17.2 13.0 11.9 Upper secondary school 95.4 94.9 95.6 97.0 96.8 96.8 96.6

Source: “Basic School Survey” by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 1. “Upper secondary education: Percentage of graduates of lower secondary school and secondary school (lower division) who enter upper secondary school and college of technology (except for upper secondary school-level correspondence courses). 2. “University” (undergraduate course) and junior college: Total university or junior college enrollments (including students who had failed the entrance exam but were accepted at a university of their choice in the following year) divided by lower secondary school graduates of three years before. The figure excludes students on university-level or junior college-level correspondence courses. 3. “Graduate school: Students who enter graduate school immediately after completing their undergraduate course as a percentage of all students completing undergraduate courses. (It also includes new Ph.D. course advancement in the case of medical and dental schools.)

4. Social education In 2007 the budget for ‘measures to support efforts to harmonize work with family and community life’ was strengthened and new budgetary items of ‘plan to enhance education at universities and vocational schools’ and ‘system to support learning’ were included. The budget for the latter increased by more than 30 per cent in 2008 and reached some 200 million yen. After the Basic Law of Education was revised, greater importance was attached to home education

7 Women and Men in Japan 2009, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, p.15 (http://www.gender.go.jp/english_contents/pamphlet/women-and-men09/index.html)

and the budget for childcare was strengthened. 70 per cent of the total amount of 11.7 billion yen demand for budgetary appropriations relating to public halls in 2006 was allocated to home education and support for children in communities. On the other hand, the budgets for studying women’s issues and education towards gender equality were reduced. The budgets for ‘women’s education and training for empowerment’ and ‘education to promote gender equality’ were integrated into other budgetary items in 2007. The budget for gender equality centers has been reduced due to discontinuance, integration and scaling back. Gender bashing and harassment against events relating to domestic violence and ‘comfort women’ are frequently seen in communities. During the 1970s women NGOs in Japan petitioned the Japanese government to establish what is now the National Women’s Education Center (NWEC), which proved successful in 1978. Every time NWEC comes under a threat to merge it with youth organizations, women NGOs act in unison to impede such a move while supporting the expansion of its activities. A good example of this is the opening of the Women’s Archives Center8 at NWEC to collect, organize and preserve historical materials on women’s activities and the creation of the Women’s Digital Archive System9. NWEC promotes international exchange with the Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI), the Korean Institute for Gender Equality Promotion and Education (KIGEPE), UP Center for Women’s Studies in the University of the Philippines, and other organizations outside Japan, and “organizes various activities as a hub for women’s education in Asia, including training seminars for administrative officials from developing nations in charge of women’s education commissioned by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) “10.

8 http://www.nwec.jp/en/information/page07.html 9 http://www.nwec.jp/en/information/page10.html 10 Women and Men in Japan 2009, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, p. 35 (http://www.gender.go.jp/english_contents/pamphlet/women-and-men09/index.html)

12 C. Women and Health Hiroko Hara (Japan’s Network for Women and Health; Convenor, JAWW)

I. Introduction The Constitution of Japan in Article 25 stipulates “All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living. In all spheres of life, the State shall use its endeavors for the promotion and extension of social welfare and security, and of public health.”1 However, the policies introduced by the Japanese government under the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) Cabinet have been sending the message to the people that “it is the citizen’s duty, instead of basic human rights, to maintain good health and high cultural standards, by issuing many laws and ordinances. Incidentally, the Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society in Japan (enacted in 1999) has no provision on women’s health. In contrast, the term “reproductive health/rights” was included in both the first Basic Plan for Gender Equality endorsed by the Cabinet on December 12, 2000 and the Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality endorsed by the Cabinet on December 27, 2005. What is more, the Second Basic Plan lists “sex-specific medicine” as one of its 10 most important agenda. That is, “to promote ‘sex-specific medicine,’2 or medicine appropriate for each individual which takes sex differences into full consideration, in an effort to maintain and enhance life-long health. We heartily welcome these moves by the government. In this Chapter, I will first overview situations concerning reproductive health/rights; then I will discuss spread of HIV/AIDS and STIs in Japan, followed by a discussion on promotion of gender and sex-specific medicine. Finally, I will examine causes of death in Japan and their implications from the perspectives of gender equality.

II. Reproductive Health and Sexual Health/Rights In Japan, the maternal mortality rates have dropped over the course of time, and the technological level of obstetricians/gynecologists and midwives is high. Yet, seen nationwide the number of obstetricians/gynecologists shows the tendency to fall,3 so does the number of maternity clinics run by private midwives4. For this reason, it is not easy for pregnant women to make an appointment for

1 http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/constitution_and_government/the_constitution_of_japan.html 2 The Plan provides a supplementary explanation to the term: “The term refers to the kind of medicine that was launched in the United States in the 1980s onwards, as it had been found that there were marked differences as to the causes or treatment of various diseases. An example in which sex differences are manifested is angina pectoris, which is often caused by flow-limiting stenoses within epicardial coronary arteries in case of men, but angina pectoris in women is usually caused by impaired blood flow to the myocardium.” 3 Among its causes are: long work hours demanded of obstetricians/gynecologists and greater financial burden incurred by low wages and an increase in medical suits (insufficient lawsuit insurance). (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (ed.) (2007) White Book on Health, Labour and Welfare, fiscal 2007, Gyosei, p. 45). For trends in the number of obstetricians/gynecologists, see: 47th meeting for Medical Insurance Subcommittee, Social Security Council (2007) “Review for revising a system of medical treatment fees in fiscal 2008” (reference) September 27, 2007, document 2-2, p. 8 “Trends in the number of obstetricians/gynecologists and its number per 1,000 births” (http://www.wam.go.jp/wamappl/bb11GS20.nsf/0/39db2cd3d3e2d8fc492573620005c23b/$FILE/20070926_1sh iryou2-2_1.pdf) The data above shows that the number varies among prefectures. In 2004, out of 47 prefectures, the number lessened in 35 prefectures. 4 Article 19, Medical Service Law provides that: “The founders of maternity clinics, in accordance with the Ordinance by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, shall designate commissioned doctors and hospitals/clinics.” However, as less doctors accept the commission, maternity clinics are increasingly forced to 13 their delivery. In some cases, they change their residence to other municipalities in order to reserve a bed for their delivery. Since 2007, there have been medical accidents in child delivery that shook the nation. When pregnant women exhibited a symptom of a brain hemorrhage or other serious symptoms, they were sent to several other large hospitals by ambulance but each time they were refused to be accepted for reasons ranging from occupied beds to absence of doctors and doctors in operation. At the final hospitals that did accept them, babies were delivered by Cesarean section, which either cost the life of the pregnant women or put them in a coma in a critical condition. There are exceptions, though quite small in number; where an appropriate network has been built among public hospitals, university hospitals, medical practitioners, and fire departments in charge of ambulances in order to minimize the occurrence of such accidents. Turning to contraception, thanks to the efforts of women’s NGOs and concerned Diet members, the Ministry of Health and Welfare officially approved low-dose pills in June 1999, almost nine years after receiving the first application in 1990. Nevertheless, medical products that are permitted for use are limited to those listed at the time of application to the Central Pharmaceutical Affairs Council back in 1990. Starting in 2008, a kind of low-dose pills that has already been approved to treat dysmenorrhea contracted as a complication of endometriosis is covered by public medical insurance, but is not allowed to be used as a contraceptive. Japan is one of a few nations which do not officially approve emergency contraceptives. Induced abortions are legalized only if the conditions stipulated in Article 3 of the Mother’s Body Protection Law5 are met: Doctors judge that continuation of pregnancy is undesirable for the health of the maternal body or for economic reasons, and the couples give consent. However, deleting the clause on “economic reasons” entails “revival” of “illegal abortion” in the Penal Act, which is currently regarded as an exception on the ground of the Mother’s Body Protection Law. Under the Penal Act, women who have had abortions are penalized for “illegal abortions,” but the provision that frees men who made women pregnant against their will from any punishment remains intact. Even rape victims who have undergone induced abortions are considered for penalization. While opinions among women are not necessarily unanimous on this point, some NGOs, obstetricians/gynecologists, and midwives who espouse reproductive health/rights are endeavoring to hinder the future revival of “illegal abortions” in the Penal Act. In Japan, Planovar® is the only medicine approved by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) to be used as an emergency contraceptive.6 On September 29, 2009, MHLW approved the use of Cervarix™ as a vaccine for preventing HPV infection, the first vaccine approved in Japan, although this is a rather controversial issue.

III. Relationship between insufficient sex education in middle and high schools and the spread of HIV/AIDS and STIs among teens and those in their twenties As described in “L. the Girl-child,” it is necessary to prevent prevalence of HIV/AIDS and STIs among teenagers and the people in their twenties (Tables 1 and 2). Several NGOs in Japan, including women’s NGOs, have been deeply concerned about the reproductive health/rights situation in Japan especially since 2000. However, their voices have not changed the attitudes of most of education boards in prefectures, cities, towns, and villages.

close. 5 “Medical practitioners are allowed to perform sterilization on a woman with a consent of the woman and her spouse (including those who are not registered but are in fact under the same situation as marital relationship; the same shall apply hereafter.) if the following conditions are met: 6 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/shingi/2008/09/dl/s0930-6l_0026.pdf 14

Table IV-1 Number of Persons with HIV/AIDS under 20 Years of Age age 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2008 HIVunder 10 3 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 10-14 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 15-19 6 3 5 7 8 10 14 19 AIDSunder 10 0 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 10-14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15-19 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 2 Source: AIDS Control Promotion Council, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2009) The 2008 Annual Report of HIV-AIDS Surveillance 7

Table IV-2 Number of Induced Abortions by Women under 20 Years of Age 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 total 40,475 34,745 30,119 27,367 23,985 age under 15 483 456 308 340 345 age 15 1,548 1,274 1,056 995 974 age 16 4,795 3,875 3,277 3,071 2,811 age 17 7,915 6,447 5,607 4,911 4,392 age 18 11,087 9,747 8,236 7,191 6,245 age 19 14,647 12,946 11,635 10,859 9,218 Source: Mothers’ & Children’s Health & Welfare Association (2009) Maternal and Child Health Statistics of Japan, Mothers’ & Children’s Health Organization, p. 87

We need to increase public knowledge about cervical cancer, particularly from a gender perspective. Some men are not aware the types of HPV (human papillomavirus) that put women at risk for cervical cancer rarely cause health problems for most men, in other words, a man with HPV transmit pass HPV to his wife or sex partner, but only she has the possibility of contracting cervical cancer. Many women with cervical cancer are suffering accusation of their husbands because of their ignorance of this fact. We also need to promote public education about cervical cancer and other sexually transmitted diseases, especially for female and male teenagers. Thus, it is important to empower women at an earlier age so that they can recognize reproductive health/rights as their own issue and be able to protect them and to furnish necessary environments to make this possible. Further improvements are needed from the perspectives of reproductive health/rights, specially by establishing a system to provide accurate information that meets the needs of young people through the training of mentors including peer educators and the cooperation of the agents concerned (schools, parents, medical institutions, the media, and young people themselves). It is also of great magnitude to create a system that would make it easy for young people to access information and the organizations involved.

IV. Promotion of Gender and Sex-Specific Medicine It is only less than 10 years ago that the necessity of providing medical care based on women’s characteristics was acknowledged by national and some, but not all, local governments. In the past, everyday medicine ignoring sex differences and medicine in which the result of men’s clinical trials was applied to women had been long practiced. Partly as a response to the dissatisfactions of female patients, urgent calls arose for the creation of clinics specializing in women outpatients characterized by provisions of comprehensive medical care with full cooperation of other special clinics and

7 http://api-net.jfap.or.jp/mhw/survey/08nenpo/nenpo_menu.htm 15 medical institutions. This would be coupled with the first medical examination performed by female physicians, and centers on intensive interviews. With the opening of clinics specializing in women outpatients at Kagoshima University Hospital in May 2001, women’s outpatient clinics have been rapidly spreading nationwide. These clinics meet women’s needs not only in reproductive health issues but also different kinds of complaints. In 2002, an online network named NAHW (New Approach to Health and Welfare)8 was launched by Dr. Keiko Amano, a cardiologist, for disseminating and sharing information on gender-sensitive medicine and for promoting evidence-based medicine. In April 2003, Ms. Akiko Domoto was elected as the Governor of Chiba Prefecture and started a project on gender-sensitive medicine. On March 2, 2003, Dr. Amano, then the Director of Chiba Prefectural Institute of Public Health was, held a Workshop on Gender Sensitive Medicine in Makuhari, Chiba, Japan, attended by 18 medical doctors (more males than females) in wide-ranging specialties and one pharmacologist, the governor of Chiba Prefecture (Akiko Domoto), two female officials (Director-General of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and Director of the Health Promotion Division of Chiba Prefecture), and one female anthropologist. Among the 18 medical doctors was Dr. Marianne J. Legato, Prof. of Columbia University, who is a mentor to Dr. Keiko Amano. In 2004, some hospitals opened men-specific outpatient sections on unidentified complaints. The first journal on gender-specific medicine in Japanese entitled Gender & Sex Specific Medicine was published in 2004 by Jiho but the publication was discontinued in December 2006. In February 2008, the Japanese Association of Gender-Specific Medicine 9 was founded with members from different fields ranging from Western medicine, to Chinese medicine, pharmacology, nursing, health, and social sciences.

V. Causes of Death in Japan: Men’s Health There is not sex difference in the top three causes of death: malignant neoplasm, cardiac disease, and cerebrovascular disease. Among causes of death that do exhibit sex differences is suicide.10 By international comparison, Japan’s suicide rate ranks 9th for the total of men and women, 11th for men, and 6th for women. According to the “Vital Statistics of Japan” by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the number of suicide committed between 1947 and 2007 is high for men but low for women.（Figure IV-1） As for the trends of men who committed suicide tabulated by age brackets over the time span of 50 years, the number reached its peak at the age bracket 15-34 around 1955, at age bracket 35-54 around 1985, and at age bracket 45-64 after 1998.

8 http://www.nahw.org/ 9 http://www.convention.co.jp/gsmj 10 The website of the Cabinet Office has a special section on policies to prevent suicide. http://www8.cao.go.jp/jisatsutaisaku/index.html Cabinet Office (ed.) (2007) White Book on Measures against Suicide, 2007, Saeki-insatsu, pp. 34-42 16

Figure IV-1 Long-term Trends in the Number of Suicide 35,000

30,000

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

0 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 9 1 3 5 7 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2

total male female

Data: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Vital Statistics Source: Cabinet Office (ed.) (2007) White Book on Measures against Suicide, 2007, Saeki-insatsu, p. 5 (http://www8.cao.go.jp/jisatsutaisaku/whitepaper/index-w.html)

Other references: National Police Agency, Community Safety Bureau, Chiiki (Community) Section (2008) ”Summary report on suicide committed in 2007,” June 2008 http://www.npa.go.jp/toukei/chiiki10/h19_zisatsu.pdf WHO data “suicide rates per 100, 000 by country, year, and sex” http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/print.html

The fact that suicide death rates peak at ages 55-59 can be interpreted as men choosing to commit suicide suddenly confronted with dismissal or deadlocks at workplaces, who up to then have led their lives with a goal of pursing what Osawa (2007)11 calls the “breadwinner model” from childhood. To put differently, men fall victim to Japan’s cultural norm.

VI. Conclusion Thus, we should earnestly seek such a social system that would make high medical, pharmacological and nursing standard fully beneficial to all people living in Japan. We strongly hope that Japan’s social system would transform itself for the better to meet the acute needs of various categories of people in Japan. Proper social education and sex education are required of girls and boys and all types of individuals so that they could be able to carry on their conscious efforts by themselves to maintain their good health and to obtain appropriate health services in prevention and treatment. We, both women and men in Japan, need to widen our knowledge about mental health for proper treatment and prevention of tragedies. Finally, we, as citizens of Japan, should commit ourselves to enabling medical doctors, nurses, social workers, and helpers for the sick, handicapped,

11 Osawa, Mari (2007) Gendai Nihon no Seikatsu-hosho Shisutem: Zahyo to Yukue (Livelihood Security System in Contemporary Japan) Iwanami Shoten 17 and the old to lead a humane, healthy, and rewarding life.

D. Violence against Women—Beijing+15: Our Progress in Eliminating All Forms of Violence Against Women Tomoko Endo (Secretary General, All Japan Women’s Shelter Network) Translated by Minako “Minata” Hara

Looking back on the past 15 years after the Beijing Conference, this report examines to what extent legal measures have been taken to eliminate violence against women since the Beijing Platform for Action was proclaimed, what NGOs working on women’s rights have done and how effective they have been in advancing the status of women in Japan, The fact that violence against women was placed on the platform in the Beijing Conference had a tremendous impact on the women’s movement in Japan, And this common theme connected a wide range of women’s movements across a broad range of sectors. In the past 15 years or so, survivors of violence have emerged as a vocal group, and the movement has taken a new turn to embody the essence of feminism, which is to place at its core those women victimized by violence, which helped to forge linkages among previously separate movements. This resulted in the birth and development of self-help groups for survivors of sexual/domestic abuse, running of private shelters to support women victimized by domestic violence as well as the subsequent networking among them. The women’s movement began to offer close support to survivors who began to speak out against rape, sexual harassment and human trafficking, and pushed for the legislation and revision of the Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims1 that reflects the real experience of women, as well as the enactment of the Anti-Stalking Law. Also from 1995 onward, many universities began to offer lectures on Women’s Studies and other related subjects. Subsequently there emerged with a myriad of researchers specializing in Women’s Studies who were committed to women’s activism with a clear perspective of gender equality. In a way, they acted as a bridge between women activists and researchers. Most recently, a nationwide network to introduce a comprehensive anti-sexual-violence legislation was formed in 2008. Although its 500-strong membership is still modest, the network is nevertheless being led by pioneering women activists coming from a broad base, which is truly epoch-making in the history of the women’s movement in Japan. Women in Japan are now becoming politically empowered for eliminating all forms of violence against women. Women who are non-Japanese residents, Zainichi Koreans (Koreans born in Japan), Ainu and other ethnic minorities are beginning to take leadership in their hands and organize themselves all over the country. Sexual minority women have also joined in to expand their network of human rights advocacy against violence. Measures to curb sexual harassment in the workplace, however, have fallen behind. One reason is that the labor movement is incapable of shedding its conventional patterns of male-centered leadership. To reach a radical solution to this problem, the labor movement should be seriously reexamined so that it can become a supporting force in the struggle to eradicate violence against women in the workplace.

1. A chronological overview from circa 1995 to present: Social trends and the Efforts of Women’s NGOs Let us take a chronological look at what the women’s groups and networks have been working on, and the major social events and new legislations in the past fifteen years.

1-1 Before 1995 The movement that had budded before the Beijing Conference gained momentum after the Conference. With the wind blowing from the Conference, the late 1990s was the time when a number of networks sprang up. - In 1983, Tokyo Rape Crisis Center was established as the first center of its kind in Tokyo. - In 1988, Seiboryoku wo Yurusanai Onnatachi no Kai Osaka (STOP Violence Against Women Osaka)

1 http://www.gender.go.jp/dv/sv2.pdf 19

was set up to protest the sexual assault of a woman who intervened to stop male feelers from victimizing a girl on the subway. Volunteer organizations to fight violence against women opened all over Japan during this period, including “Kanagawa Women's Space ‘MsLA’” (1988), “Group NO! Sexual Harassment of Fukuoka” (1989), “STON90, Women’s Network to fight sexual violence” and “Women’s Space On, Sapporo” (1993), to name a few. - In 1990, the first self-help group for women survivors of sexual abuse “Seigyakutai wo Katarukai”2 was formed in Tokyo. This group, which later grew into “SCSA (Stop Child Sexual Abuse),” was initially received with skepticism even by mental health professionals working specializing in alcohol addiction. Time-tested for two decades now, similar groups of all kinds have sprung up around the country, which proves that self-help groups are instrumental in empowering victims/survivors, challenging stereotypes, and triggering social change. - In 1992, a plaintiff won the Fukuoka Sexual Harassment Case. - In 1993, the then-professor of Kyoto University was denounced of sexual harassment. Encouraged by these lawsuits, women’s groups against sexual harassment became more active. Sexual harassment was first addressed as a labor issue at about the same time. - In 1993 the first survey in Japan on the prevalence of domestic violence by the “Spousal (Partner) Violence Study Group” was conducted.

1-2From 1995 through 1999 - In 1995, precisely during the Beijing Conference, three US Marines stationed at a US military base in Okinawa were arrested for abducting and raping a schoolgirl. The news shocked the women attending the Beijing Conference. The incident led to the setting up of Rape Emergency Counseling Center Okinawa “REICO” (1995), and “Okinawa Women Act against Military Violence,” both of which are active to date in their work against sexual violence and the military presence. - In 1997, Campus Sexual Harassment (CSH) Nationwide Network, which was established to eradicate sexual harassment in universities, remains active until today. In 1997, as a part of the effort to reinforce domestic laws based on the observations of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was revised to oblige employers to take preventive measures regarding sexual harassment. With this law, which came into effect in 1999, sexual harassment was officially defined by the government and it became the employer’s duty to prevent harassment cases in the workplace. Although the law actively encourages employers to set up a complaints office, which is a step forward, it is not obligatory and thus does not prove truly effective. - In 1998, a nationwide network of private women’s shelters was set up by All Japan Women’s Shelter Network (Shelter-Net) to support victims of domestic violence. Under the banner “Let the Shelter Movement Rise!” the Shelter-Net held its first nation-wide symposium in Sapporo, and has held annual symposiums with the massive participation of about 1,000 supporters. The so-called “private shelters” opened up one after another immediately after the Beijing Conference; they grew in numbers, from a group of 4 organizations to over one hundred as of 2009. As a network that is central to women who offer direct support and advocacy to eradicate violence against women, Shelter-Net played a major role in introducing (2001) and revising (2004, 2007) the Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims . - In 1998, VAWW-NET Japan (Violence Against Women in War Network Japan）was set up to work on women’s human rights. The group actively addresses the issue of Japan’s military sexual slavery (“comfort women”), sexual violence occurring in the US military bases of Okinawa and elsewhere, and violence against women in war and armed conflicts in Asia and other nations, as the three pillars of its activities. - In 1999 “The Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society” was enacted in 1999. Following this, many prefectural governments introduced codes and regulations to enforce policies to support women victimized by violence on local government levels. - In 1999, a non-profit organization called “NPO Center for Education and Support for Women, Japan” was set up with the collaboration of women doctors, nurses and other health care professionals to

2 Literally means a group to discuss sexual violence. 20

support violence victims. This NPO trains health care professionals to be able to deal with rape and other forms of sexual assault. - In 1999 “the Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and the Protection of Children” was enacted. It was revised in 2004, but the bill to punish simple possession of child pornography did not pass this year (2009). - In 1999, a young woman was killed by the first reported incident of “stalking” in Japan, which took place in Okegawa City, Saitama, Japan. Outrage grew as the media reported how the police repeatedly failed to take the victim’s complaint seriously. Although, the “Anti-Stalking Act” was enacted in 2000, the Law is still considered ineffective since the victims did not have enough say in the legislation and the police still fail to act on their complaint seriously in many localities. - In 1999, “the Act on the Prevention, etc. of Child Abuse” was enacted. - In 2000, VAWW-NET Japan played a key role in holding "The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery" in Tokyo, strongly urging the government of Japan to take responsibility on this issue. - In 2000, with the victory of the Akita Sexual Harassment case. Although sexual harassment claims keep increasing among women, the eradication of sexual harassment has not been sufficiently reflected in the policies of existent labor union that are structured in male-centric ways. Thus, to be heard, many women have no choice but to turn to “Women’s Unions” that allow individual membership.

1-3 From 2000 through 2005 The highlight of this period is definitely the enactment of “the Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims” (henceforth, Domestic Violence (DV) Prevention Act) in 2001. Survivors of domestic violence, support workers in private shelters and Dietwomen all worked together across party lines to make this legislation come in effect. The mainstay of the DV Prevention Act was that it made it a duty of metropolitan and prefectural governments to issue Protection Orders (Order prohibiting approach to the victim and Order to vacate3) and extend temporary refuge to the spousal violence victims. Its definition was narrow, however, as only the spouse and ex-spouse could use the protection order system, and it did not recognize emotional/psychological abuse as a reason to petition for Protection Orders. Persistent lobbying for its revision began in 2003 mainly among support workers. After a series of DV survivor speak-outs in public meetings with Diet members and government officials, the Act was successfully amended for the first time in 2004, and again in 2007. - In May 2003, there was an incidence of sexual assault in a university circle named “Super Free”. This was the case in which male university students who regularly hosted drinking parties were charged of using alcohol to incapacitate several female students and gang-raping them in a vacant room. This incident received wide media coverage and led to the revision of the Penal Code in 2004 to raise the statutory penalty and added a clause to punish gang-rape (Article 178- 2)4. - In 2002, an exchange of dialogue on trafficking in persons began between NGOs, International Organization for Migration, related Embassies and the Japanese government. - In 2003, JNATI (Japan Network Against Trafficking in Persons) was set up to conduct campaigns and surveys on trafficking in persons, and conduct effective lobbying to end trafficking. Ochanomizu University’s 21st Century Center Of Excellence (COE) Program was instrumental in making it happen. - In 2004, the government of Japan decided to set up an official liaison committee.

3 Article 10 “..(i) To oblige the spouse, for a six-month period from the day the order comes into effect, to refrain from approaching the victim at the victim's domicile (except for the domicile that the victim shares as the main home with the said spouse; …” “(ii) To oblige the spouse to leave, for a two-month period from the day the order comes into effect, the domicile that the spouse shares as the main home with the victim and to refrain from loitering in the vicinity of the said domicile.” 4 Article 178-2 (Gang Rape) When two or more persons jointly commit the crimes prescribed under Article 177 or paragraph (2) of Article 178, they shall be punished by imprisonment with work for a definite term of not less than 4 years. (http://www.kl.i.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/told/m40a04502en.1.1.txt) 21

- In 2004, the Nationwide Network Against Sexual Harassment was set up (dissolved in 2005) in sync with the year of revision of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law to strengthen the efforts to curb sexual harassment. Public meetings were held with bureaucrats, Diet members, labor unions and business organizations to deliver the voice of female workers. - In 2004, NPO Japan Feminist Counseling Society conducted a Sexual Harassment Hotline to gather women’s experiences and voices, and received more than 8,000 calls altogether in a limited time span. 80% of the consultations were about direct physical contact, which showed that sexual offenses were rampant in the workplace. As a result of these efforts, the Equal Employment Opportunity Law obliged the employer to take preventive measures. -In 2004, the Nationwide Network Against Sexual Harassment petitioned to make the Workers Accident Insurance cover illness caused by sexual harassment as an occupational injury. From 2003 onward, such sexual offenses and misdemeanors as groping in trains and sneak camera shots began to be punished more frequently using local regulations and ordinances.

1-4 From 2005 to 2009 - In 2005, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare issued an ordinance to prefectural governments stating that, if sexual harassment resulted in illness, the case should be examined to see how the employer handled it. However, as the Labor Standards Inspection Office is highly gender-biased, it has so far been impossible to win the coverage. - In 2005, the Diet passed the “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons” and the Criminal Code was revised to make human trafficking a crime, but no clause specifies care and support for the victims. - In 2006, Action Center for Working Women (ACW2) was set up to establish women’s right to work and eradicate violence against women. Its major operation is to run a hotline for women workers; it dedicates one day a month to sexual harassment consultations. - In 2007, the Cabinet Office conducted its first Dating Violence Survey and found that almost a half of all young people have experienced dating violence either as a victim or a perpetrator. A nationwide network to eradicate dating violence is now being formed throughout the nation as the defect of the DV Prevention Act is becoming recognized. - In 2007, the Cabinet Office began extending NPO Shelter-Net its support for the “Purple Ribbon Project” (campaign to eradicate violence against women) to embark on the support of a national anti-violence campaign. - In 2007, Women’s Protection Facilities 5 in Tokyo conducted an independent survey on the experience of sexual assault and abuse among the women using the facilities, and found that almost 80% of the women who are arrested for the violation of the Anti-Prostitution Law have experienced some kind of sexual assault, including domestic violence and sexual abuse. Based on these survey results, Zenkoku Fujin Hogo Shisetsu to Kyogikai (National Federation of Women’s Protection Facilities, etc.) has embarked on the prohibition (of both purchase and sale) of prostitution as well as of pornography. - In 2008, NPO Shelter-Net conducted a survey on sexual assault of women and children in homes suffering from domestic violence and found that 6% of the children were sexually abused. This is a significant increase compared with past surveys by child consultation offices which yielded about 3% of all homes and thus indicated the seriousness of sexual abuse in homes where domestic violence occurs on a daily basis. Public protection facilities are falling behind on a national level to enforce measures to prevent sexual abuse of children and care for those children, and not enough number of well-trained staff is available. - In 2008, “Anti-Gender-based Violence Legislation Network” was formed to petition the introduction of a legal system to curb sexual violence regardless of gender or nationality. The group is now involved in improving the enforcement of the “Lay Judges System” in examining sex felonies to ensure the victim/survivor’s privacy and safety. - In 2008, “the Act on Prevention of Unauthorized Recording of Films” was enacted.

5 There are 50 Women’s Protection Facilities in Japan. Mostly run by private organizations, they have been set up for the purpose of rehabilitation and guidance of women based on the Anti-Prostitution Law. 22

1-5 Making active use of the Internet Many organizations now publicize their activities through Internet websites. The contents are diverse, and include survivors’ self-help sites and exchange of information among domestic violence victims. Starting this year, in 2009, the Purple Ribbon Project embarked on an Internet radio program for women to eradicate gender-based violence. Also, more survivors of sexual assault are coming out to denounce the violence inflicted upon them, and are actively publishing their stories, running websites and accepting e-mail consultations from other survivors.

2. Issues to tackle Looking back upon the 15 years of NGO action against gender-based violence, we must admit that change comes slow in the Japanese legal system and social structure, and women’s actions are by no means sufficient. Here are some of the major issues that need to be addressed. 2-1 Specific issues There is no doubt an urgent need for a support system for survivors of sexual violence. But even before that, just as “women’s rights are human rights,” we must legislate laws that say “violence against women is a crime” to raise the social awareness of the people in Japan. By the shocking media coverage of “Super Free” and other visible incidents, and by the courageous charges brought forth by victimized women, punishment has been reinforced to a certain extent for those acts categorized as “crimes” in the conventional sense. However, victims of those acts of violence that are still not considered a “crime” are left with no access to support. The 2004 “Basic Act on Crime Victims,”6 as well as the “Act on Support for Crime Victims, etc. Such as Payment of Crime Victims Benefit” revised and came into effect in 2002 both target only those who are victims of crime or their bereaved family members as defined by the Penal Code. No reasonable accommodation is made based on gender for “those women who find it too difficult to file a complaint”. This is why we call for a more drastic legal reform. Social resources that can be utilized to support survivors are extremely limited, especially for shelters and temporary refuge facilities. As of now, women’s protection facilities so specified by the Anti-Prostitution Law, together with private women’s shelters, are dealing with both domestic violence and trafficking of women, placing a disproportionate burden on them considering the extensiveness of gender-based violence. With a view to preventing violence, some voluntary organizations are conducting Child Assault Prevention programs in schools, but since they are by no means compulsory, the children are left vulnerable to sexual abuse. Children should have the opportunity to gain correct information on violence, so that they would neither be abused nor abuser others. The situation is worsened by a vocal backlash movement against sex education that has curbed the teachers’ initiatives in public education.

Here is a list of problems to be tackled in the near future for each agenda: i. On crimes of sexual violence ・ There is no rape shield law. ・ Rape and indecent assault are the only acts of gender-based violence stipulated in the Penal Code. ・ Physical assault or threat of violence is required to make rape and indecent assault a crime. ・ Genital penetration is required, in disregard of male rape. ・ Rape must be claimed by the victim; the victim must press charges. ・ There is no emergency support facility for victims. ・ There are no trained support staff in the facilities. (Female police officers are still few.) ・ Penalty for rape is lighter than that for robbery. ・ Act on Criminal Trials Examined under the Lay Judges System ii. On domestic violence ・ Domestic violence is not considered a crime. ・ Victim support is only offered to married spouse (includes de-facto marriages and

6 http://www.kl.i.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/told/h16a16100en.2.0.txt 23

ex-spouses). ・ Voluntary organizations are not seen as collaborating partners by the government. With no guarantee of operation costs, shelters are perpetually facing a financial crisis. ・ There is no long-term support system for victims/survivors; only general livelihood protection system is applied. ・ Shelters that are not barrier free deny access to women with disabilities. iii. On trafficking in persons and purchase and sale of prostitution services ・ Protection systems for victims are insufficient; many victims are simply sent back to their country. ・ No charges are pressed for purchase of prostitution services; only women are punished. The consumer/perpetrator goes unpunished. Traders who traffic walk free without being punished. ・ The Anti-Prostitution Law stigmatizes the women who are arrested for prostitution. ・ The legal system cannot catch up with the constantly changing forms of sex trade business, as exemplified by telephone clubs, cabaret-clubs7, “delivery health” services8, etc. ・ No study nor survey is conducted on sex traders or sex workers. Japanese sex workers are offered even less attention. iv. On sexual abuse ・ There is a lack of trained personnel in schools and other child-support facilities. ・ There is no systematic training to foster care-givers. ・ No study has been conducted. ・ Punishment is too light for abusive parents and relatives. ・ There is a lack of temporary refuge. ・ Children are not offered self-protection skills. v. On sexual harassment ・ Sexual harassment is not defined as a crime. ・ The Equal Employment Opportunity Law obliges the employer to take measures, but it deals with penalty for the harasser, no system of victim support. ・ ”Second rape” frequently occurs at consultation centers. ・ Acts of violation are not recognized because the accused deny the charges. ・ It is difficult to convince the labor office to recognize illness or disorder due to sexual harassment as occupational injury ・ Labor unions are slow in tackling the issue vi. On sexual minorities ・ Sexual minorities are forced to come out if they want to make the claim as victims of violence. Much “second rape” seems to be going on. ・ No studies ask about sexual orientation or gender identity; so the problems do not surface as such. ・ There are no shelter facilities for women with gender identity discomfort/disorder or vulnerable gay/bisexual men subjected to male violence. ・ Either assigned to be female by birth, by rearing or by gender identity, issues of sexual minorities women are often ignored or excluded from Gender-Equal Society programs on the sole basis that they are not “typical women.” vii. On violence prevention training ・ Violence prevention training is not compulsory in schools. ・ Almost no effective sex or relationship education is conducted in public schools. ・ School curriculum guidelines (Course of Study) lack gender-based analysis.

2-2 The status of sexual exploitation Finally, allow me to make a statement on the domestic sex trade and the form of prostitution being

7 Cabaret clubs are casual hostess clubs where men can choose young “amateur” women to drink with for a fee. 8 “Delivery health” dispatches persons that offer sexual services to one’s home or a hotel. 24

conducted by domestic sex trade industries in present day society. Due to the recent revision of the Adult Entertainment Business Law, there has been a rapid increase in non-store type business (many of which are unauthorized), and the situation is becoming more difficult to grasp. This is the same for Japanese women who work in those industries. There also is scouting in the streets. In Japan, you can find magazines, some of which free, at a convenience store or a bookshop recruiting workers for “delivery health” services. A typical ad would say “high income, easy job,” “anyone can do this job, earn up to 100,000 yen a day.” Women who apply are accepted after a nominal interview. Many are students. They wait at home or in a room of an apartment the client specified, waiting for phone calls, and report to the designated place by their client’s car or public transportation to offer their services. Once they provide the services, which are supposed to be everything but insertion, it is difficult for them to decline behind closed doors. Having to defend themselves on their own, women are forced to have sex, and must have an abortion or take care of themselves on their own, if they become pregnant or contract sexually transmitted infections (STIs), as the shop disclaims all responsibility. Meanwhile, there are many Internet sites that introduce men to young women and girls who have left home. With every intention of exploiting these women, these men offer cheap, nearly free accommodation. I feel that the exploitation of women in Japan is being strengthened in a very subtle way; women’s move against violence is not yet effective against this type of exploitation. This is caused by the fact that the system that supports young victims of sexual abuse and exploitation is extremely fragile. Increasing poverty is also a contributing factor. In the background there also is an overwhelming lack of self-esteem education so that women and girls can become sexually autonomous. And above all, the Japanese legal system does not press charges against consumers of sex.

3. Conclusion All the challenges that await Japan are serious and difficult to tackle, and the women’s movement is not as broad or strong as we want it to be. However, advancements are being made in the past few years to prohibit gender-based violence. Beijing+15 is a good opportunity to regain a global perspective and restart our engine to move on towards our goal of eradicating gender-based violence.

E. Women and Armed Conflict

Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center (AJWRC) Women's Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM)

Key Issues: - The global “War on Terror” and increasing tension with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have accelerated militarization, which negatively affected gender equality in general and women around military bases and ethnic minority women in particular. - The Government of Japan has made no effort to develop security policy to better protect women and girls from gender-based violence, or to consult with women’s groups in developing security policy. - Women and children around foreign military bases are under continued threat of sexual assaults by soldiers. Conviction of perpetrators and redress for victims are very difficult to achieve due to the conditions set under the Security Agreement with the United States. - Despite international criticism and recommendations by the U.N. bodies, the Japanese Government has not provided redress for the victims of sexual slavery during the Second World War. The need for full redress to victims of sexual violence under armed conflicts should be reemphasized in order to end the cycle of impunity of war crimes against women.

1. General Concern: The Gendered Militarization Process in Japan

1-1 The accelerating militarization and lack of consideration for women regarding the Japanese national security policy The Japanese Government led by the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) has accelerated military cooperation with the United States in the past years on the pretext of the U.S.-led “War on Terror” and the increasing tension with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), rather than seeking peaceful and humanitarian solutions to conflict situations. Besides dispatching the Self Defence Force (SDF) for logistic support of the U.S occupation of Iraq, the Japanese Government concluded a security consultation with the U.S. in 2005, so that the SDF would act in full co-operation with the U.S. military in developing commands and logistic structures. A direct response, from the U.S. military, to the increasing risks of so-called “arcs of instability,” is now apparent in Iraq. Thus Japan has been given a critical role in the U.S. global military strategy, as it hosts the headquarters of the Corps that command operations in the hemisphere covering Asia and the Pacific, Indian Ocean, North Africa and the Middle East. Despite the fact that the BPFA and the Beijing+5 Outcome Document call for the wider participation of women in the peace-building process and security policy, the Japanese Government has made no effort to consult with women’s groups, including those who are seriously affected by the Japanese national security policy, such as women assisting victims of sexual assaults by U.S. servicemen, or ethnic Koreans who often become targets of hate attacks as the tension with DPRK rises. Also, the Japanese Government has not enacted any security policy to better protect women and girls from gender-based violence under armed conflicts. While supporting military actions of the U.S., the Japanese Government does not consider the protection of refugee women from DPRK from gender-based violence as necessary in developing the security policy over the tension with DPRK. It also does not act to protect refugee Burmese (Myanmar) women from gender-based violence, but rather keeps providing aid to the junta in spite of international criticism. The number of refugees

accepted in Japan remains extremely low. In 2008, only 57 people were granted refugee status out of 1,599 applicants, while 360 were granted special resident status. Human rights violations, including sexual assaults regarding the SDF, have been a serious problem. In 2007, a female member of the SDF in Hokkaido filed a redress suit against the Japanese Government claiming that she had not only been molested by a male colleague but forced to retire by her superior after reporting to him of being sexually harassed. In this case, the perpetrator was let go unpunished while a punitive action was imposed on the woman victim, which reveals the lack of human rights awareness not to mention gender perspectives on the part of the SDF.

1-2 Attempts to revise the Constitution and the Fundamental Law of Education with a gender perspective The deepening military cooperation with the U.S. enlivened the attempt of conservatives to revise the pacifist nature of the post-war Constitution that prohibits the state to wage war or to maintain military forces. Between 2004 and 2007, the majority-holding Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) carried out a campaign to win two thirds of national votes that are necessary to revise the Constitution. While the revision attempt primarily focused on repealing Article 91, which limits the ability of Japan to take part in collective security actions, it nonetheless involved a wide range of challenges to the post-war values including the contrition for the wars, civil freedoms, human rights, and gender equality. The LDP insisted that Article 242 provisioning equality between men and women in marriage and family affairs should be amended “from the standpoint of family and community,” claiming that public interests should be prioritized over individual rights and that family should be the basic unit for “the public.” Such an amendment would put domestic violence victims in serious risks, and would also damage the efforts of promoting gender equality in the private sphere. Although the attempt to amend the Constitution eventually failed when the LDP lost majority in the 2007 Upper House election, the LDP-led Government has successfully amended the Fundamental Law of Education in 2007 with the same intent. The amended Law stresses on educating the “public,” with an agenda based on morale and national identity, rather than freedom, democracy, peace and equality; those were the principles of the former Fundamental Law of Education. Article 5 on co-education of boys and girls was abolished by that amendment.

2. Foreign Military Presence and Violence Against Women

2-1 Sexual assaults around the bases as continued threats Under the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty3, there are 135 U.S. military facilities and about 37,000 U.S. troops stationed throughout Japan. The presence of the U.S. military bases have caused serious damages to local communities, including noise, car accidents, plane crashes, environmental degradation; and crimes including sexual violence and first degree murder. Sexual assaults by U.S. soldiers have remained as a serious threat to women and girls living in communities hosting military

1 Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized. (translation by the Japanese Government) 2 Article 24. Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes. (translation by the Japanese Government) 3 the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between Japan and the United States of America,

bases, despite the repeated promise of prevention made by both Japanese and U.S. governments. Some recent cases include: a gang rape by four U.S. Marines, from the Iwakuni Air Station, against a 19- year-old Japanese woman in Hiroshima on October 14, 2007. Moreover, a U.S. Marine was arrested for raping a 14-year-old girl in Okinawa on February 11, 2008; and there was an incident of sexual assault and injury of a 22-year-old Filipino migrant woman in Okinawa on February 20, 2008. Although some of those perpetrators were convicted in the U.S. court martial, none of them were prosecuted and tried in the Japanese court.

2-2 Problems concerning the conviction of perpetrators The problem is not only with the high incidence of sexual crimes, but also with the difficulty of achieving a conviction. Many perpetrators have returned to the U.S. with impunity which has been in part facilitated by the discriminating criminal justice system of Japan, and the favorable conditions granted the U.S. military in the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement. Under the Agreement, U.S. soldiers are allowed free movement outside of the bases, while Japanese authorities have only limited power in arresting and trying soldiers who commit crimes in Japan as the U.S. has primary jurisdiction over cases involving on-duty soldiers. While Japanese authorities could exercise jurisdiction over cases involving off-duty soldiers, its powers to investigate and arrest perpetrators become limited when perpetrators are in U.S. custody. Furthermore, there is evidence that Japanese authorities are not actually exercising jurisdiction fully even in cases where it could do so. According to a recently discovered official document of 1953, the Ministry of Justice had actually ordered relevant authorities to abandon jurisdiction over crimes and accidents caused by U.S. military personnel except for very serious cases. This was allowed following a secret negotiation between the Japanese and American governments. Although the Japanese Government officially denies the secret agreement and argues that all the sexual crimes are duly prosecuted regardless of the status of perpetrators, 83 percent of all the crimes committed by off-duty U.S. soldiers between 2001 and 2008 were not prosecuted. Among them, only 25.8 percent of rape and rape resulting in death and injury and 10.5 percent of cases of forcible indecency as well as forcible indecency resulting in death and injury were prosecuted, while 73.5 percent and 56.1 percent of the same crimes committed by Japanese perpetrators were prosecuted.

2-3 Problems with redress for victims Under the Status of Forces Agreement associated with the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, while it is the Japanese Government that is responsible for compensation in cases involving on-duty soldiers, cases involving off-duty soldiers are to be solved through negotiations between the parties involved. In reality, it is extremely difficult for victims to receive satisfactory compensation, as perpetrators have the privilege of escaping from Japan without notification, protected by the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement. Meanwhile the Japanese Government does not provide any legal support for the victims. While the U.S. military may make consolation payments, its application depends on the decision by the U.S. authority and the amounts to be paid are usually very low. As a result of the difficulty of achieving conviction in court, most victims have ended up without redress or are forced to be silent for a small amount of token money.

3. The Redress of Sexual Slaves

Despite the fact that the BPFA calls the governments and international/regional organizations to take action to prosecute all criminals responsible for war crimes against women, and provide full redress to women victims4, the Japanese Government keeps refusing to take legal responsibility over the issue of Japan’s military sexual slavery during WWII, or the so-called “comfort women” issue.

3-1 The issue of “comfort women” The “comfort women” system was a brutal and inhumane manifestation of colonialism, militarism, racism, sexism, and class system. Tens of thousands of women and girls from the Asia-Pacific region

4 BPFA 145(e)

were taken to “comfort stations” and forced to be sex slaves for Japanese soldiers wherever the Japanese troops were. Most of the women were minors from poor, rural and lower class backgrounds. Some were lured with false promises for jobs. Some were forced after their family members were brutally killed by the soldiers. The victimized women, euphemistically called “comfort women,” came from different countries and regions in the Asia-Pacific region including China, DPRK, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan. Today, the few remaining survivors still suffer from post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD), poverty, physical and mental illness not to mention the stigma attached to them in their community. Since the early 1990s, the survivors who broke the 50 years of painful silence and began to speak out about the crimes committed against them have demanded that the Japanese Government fully accept legal responsibility and restore justice for these crimes.

3-2 Denial by the Japanese Government Even with the gruesome history proven, the Japanese Government has never fully accepted that it was and still is responsible under international law for the sexual slavery system. The Japanese Government has not given an official apology, nor state compensation, to the victims. Nine out of the ten claims (except for the last one still pending at court) filed in Japanese courts by the survivors themselves to demand an apology and state compensation were dismissed by the Supreme Court. As of 2006, not a single history textbook used in Japan’s compulsory junior high school system, contains the phrase “comfort women,” with only ambiguous descriptions of the matter remains in two text books. This is in contrast to 1997 when all history textbooks quoted the crime. Presently, only 17.3 percent of students in junior high school currently have the opportunity to learn anything concerning the history of “comfort women” in Japan.

3-3 The responses of the UN and international community The international community including the UN Human Rights institutions, on the other hand, has been making efforts to encourage the state to take responsibility for redressing the survivors of the sexual slavery system. Radhika Coomaraswamy5 UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences (1995, 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2003)6 and Gay J. McDougall, UN Special Rapporteur on systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed conflicts (1998 and 2000)7 fully examined the “comfort women” system and concluded the acts constituted as crimes under international law. The Expert Committee of the ILO concluded the “comfort women” system was a breach of the ILO Convention No. 29 (Forced Labour) (1930) and recommended the Japanese Government to take positive steps almost every two years since 19968. Various treaty bodies of the UN Human Rights Convention including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1994, 2003 and 2009)9, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR, 2001)10, the Committee Against Torture (CAT, 2007)11, the Human Rights Committee (CCPR, 2008) 12 have repeatedly raised and published concluding observations on the “comfort

5 1994-2009 6 E/CN.4/2003/75/Add.1, E/CN.4/2001/73, E/CN.4/1998/54, E/CN.4/1996/53/Add.1, E/CN.4/1995/42 7 E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/21, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1998/13 8 CEACR: Individual Observation concerning Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29) Japan published in 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 9 A/58/38, A/50/38, CEDAW/C/JPN/CO/6 10 E/C.12/1/Add.67 11 CAT/C/JPN/CO/1 12 CCPR/C/JPN/CO/5

women” issue. Even in the newly established the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council in 2008, several states raised the issue and made recommendations13. Furthermore, since 2007 foreign legislatures, including those in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, the European Union, as well as several city councils in Australia14 have passed resolutions calling for the Japanese Government to respond to the international community’s concern regarding the “comfort women” issue. Throughout the world, more and more people want the Government of Japan to take positive steps to provide a solution acceptable for the survivors.

13 A/HRC/8/44 14 in the order of the year the resolutions were adopted

F. Women and the Economy—Globalized Economy and Financial Crises from a Gender Perspective—

Mari Osawa (Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo) with Yasuko Muramatsu (Tokyo Woman’s Christian University)

1. Introduction The year of 2009 began with people not knowing which way to turn, losing not only their jobs but also their places of residence in unprecedented numbers and with unprecedented suddenness. Then Prime Minister Taro Aso, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said that in order to overcome the world financial crisis, nations with a current account surplus, including Japan, must shed their dependence on external demand and enhance growth based on domestic demand, and that the restoration of vitality to the Japanese economy, the second-largest in the world, was Japan’s foremost “responsibility.”1. However, the economic structure has deliberately been changed since the mid-1990s on, so that growth became dependent on external demand. From February 2002 until October 2007, Japan posted 69 months of economic growth, the longest period of continuous economic growth since World War II. During this time, returns to shareholders and executive pay increased dramatically; however, employment did not show such increases and employees’ nominal compensation actually decreased by 0.1%. For ordinary people, women in particular, this was indeed a “Jobless, Joyless Recovery.” (Figure 1) The Aso Administration’s economic policies have not aimed to change this economic structure itself. Indeed the emergency measures that were introduced by this administration, supposedly to “defend livelihoods,” were in fact accompanied by a plan to raise the consumption tax rate in three years’ time. This would surely pour cold water on household consumption that should be the main component of domestic demand2.

Figure 1 Jobless, Joyless Recovery

Source: based on Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (2008) White Paper on International Trade

1 http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/asospeech/2009/01/31davos_e.html 2 http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/asophoto/2008/12/12kaiken.html 31

2. Issues and Approach In terms of economic growth the 1990s in Japan was a “lost decade” accentuated by the Asian Economic Crisis in 1997, during which various “structural reforms” were introduced to financial system, social security system, labor market regulations, public finance and administrative system of the central government, to adapt itself to globalization and eventually realize “Jobless/Joyless recovery in the early 2000s. The current financial and economic crisis that originated in the United States hit harder socially excluded groups in relative poverty. It is well known from past evidences that financial and economic crises always heavily damage the most vulnerable in each society, as in Africa and Latin America in the 1980s and Asia in 1997. This Chapter is organized as follows: The rest of Section 2 introduces the analytical framework of a “livelihood security system,” which is combined with the idea of social exclusion/inclusion. Section 3 argues that the tax and social security systems in Japan, according to the findings of comparative studies, have a reverse function rather than being dysfunctional in terms of their role in reducing inequality and poverty. Section 4 overviews the casualization of employment and the unemployment situation and looks at the problem of livelihood security at the time of unemployment. Section 4 examines the pension system and shows how it is not simply undergoing a hollowing out process, but could well be one of the mechanisms of social exclusion. This Chapter adopts the framework of a “livelihood security system.” People’s daily livelihoods can be ensured in a sustainable way and opportunities for social participation secured when government institutions and policies such as tax and social security schemes, employment maintenance policy and labor market regulations are finely articulated with private institutions including families, enterprises, and not-for-profit organizations, and their practices. One of the authors refers to this articulation as a whole as the “livelihood security system” (Osawa 2007b). Conversely, the dysfunction or reverse function of the livelihood security system engenders social exclusion. The “reverse function” refers to a situation where a system that is supposed to secure people’s daily livelihoods actually comes to threaten them and excludes people. The concept of social exclusion originated in France. It refers to a situation where a person cannot participate in various aspects of the society as a full-fledged member due to poverty and income gaps, as well as language barriers, disparities in education, inequality in health, and barriers to civil rights. In the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997, struggles against social exclusion were positioned as one of the key objectives of the European Union. In December 2001, the European Council approved 18 common indicators for social exclusion and poverty (Social Protection Committee 2001; Bhalla and Lapeyre 2004: 6). These indicators were more or less experimental and further elaborated in 2006 and 2008.3 Of course, as Bhalla and Lapeyre pointed out, poverty and social exclusion are not limited to industrialized countries. In continental Western European countries (Germany, France and the Netherlands), however, social exclusion is seen distinctly in structural unemployment, while in developing countries, exclusion occurs even within the labor market, as seen in involuntary part-time work and the precarious segment of the labor market. Poor employment opportunities exist in any society but only a few developed welfare states such as continental Western European and Nordic countries enjoy schemes of effective unemployment insurance or public assistance, which allow workers to remain unemployed. This means that the labor market in countries without

3 Indicators include: At-risk-of-poverty rate (share of persons with an equivalent disposable income below 60% of the median equivalent disposable income), poverty risk gap, income inequality (ratio of total income of top quintile of population compared with bottom quintile), long-term unemployment rate, percentage of young NEETs, etc. In 2006 in-work poverty risk and low reading literacy of 15 year olds were added. In 2008 a list of indicators for medical needs and care utilization was agreed (http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/spsi/common_indicators_en.htm). 32

such benefit schemes includes a “precarious segment” of workers who have no choice but to work part-time. It involves temporary employment, working under poor conditions, and partial or full exclusion from access to social security (Bhalla and Lapeyre 2004: 16-26, 44, 171). In this way, Bhalla and Lapeyre have, in effect, modified the EU concept of social exclusion, locating the unstable labor markets of the developing countries in broader contexts of informality and extra-legality. However, the actual meaning of “extra-legality” is not discussed except for a brief reference to absence of formal property rights (Bhalla and Lapeyre 2004: 171). As will be argued in this Chapter, social exclusion in Japan is more related to exclusion within the labor market than the long-term structural unemployment seen in continental Western Europe. Within this exclusion, we find continuous instances of illegal temping and below minimum wages, and “extra-legalities” such as non-payment for overtime work and workers not receiving social security coverage. While Bhalla and Lapeyre claim that these extra-legalities are the “norm” rather than the exception in developing countries, we must not let the situation in Japan escape our notice, where social exclusion is also increasingly taking the form of extra-legalities. More importantly, the Japanese livelihood security system is not just dysfunctional but is in fact functioning in reverse as we will explore in the next section.

3. The Reverse Function of the Tax and Social Security Systems in Japan According to World Health Organization (WHO) data4, the suicide rate in Japan is very high for both males and females and, as we all know, Japan’s birthrate is one of the lowest in the world. The birthrate and the suicide rate are not generally considered to be indicators of social exclusion. However, surveys and comparative studies suggest that Japan’s world low birthrate and high suicide rate are strongly correlated with each other as well as with working and earning conditions and related social policies. The low birthrate, which does not allow the population to be maintained at the replacement level and is distinctly below the numbers of children couples wish to have, and the suicide rate of course, show how difficult it is to live and survive in this society including bearing children. From this point of view, we believe these two social phenomena have emerged as the outcomes of the livelihood security system. Given these facts, there can be little disagreement with a view that the livelihood security system in Japan is impaired or dysfunctional. What we want to stress, however, is that the system has a “reverse function,” rather than being simply dysfunctional. This section therefore looks into the situations of income distribution and redistribution through the tax system and social security schemes, starting from the respective sizes of tax and social security (3-1), net transfer to household (3-2), effects of tax and social security schemes on income disparity and poverty (3-3), and particularly on child poverty (3-4), and argues how these situations are gendered (3-5).

3-1 The taxation and social security contribution, as revenues for the government and burden for the private sector Let us first take a look at the relative levels of taxes and social-security burden, where there has been a significant change since the late-1980s. The ratio of tax burden to the National Income (NI) almost steadily declined from 1990 to 2004, while the ratio of the social-security burden to NI steadily rose, and the social-security burden exceeding national tax revenues in 2001. Among the OECD countries, it is only in Japan that the tax burden ratio markedly declined during the period from 1990 to 2002 (Economic Policy Institute for Quality Life 2007: 13). The way in which the tax burden ratio declined suggests a great gender impact. This is because direct tax revenues decreased due to a lowering of tax rates for companies, upper-income earners

4 http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/ 33

and the wealthy. In the face of financial difficulties, the Japanese government has in fact abandoned an annual 10-20 trillion yen in tax revenues which could have been collected from companies, upper-income earners and the wealthy. The percentage of direct taxation in national tax revenues declined from about 74% in the early 1990s to around 60% in 1998 and thereafter. The increase in indirect taxation (from about 7% to 20% of national tax revenues) is primarily attributed to the consumption tax. The consumption tax is regressive, so it places a disproportionately heavy burden on households whose propensity to consume (proportion of consumption expenditure in disposable income) is particularly high, including elderly women living alone, single mother households, and low-income families with small children. Briefly speaking, for the past decade or so, Japan’s revenue raising system has become far friendlier to upper-income earners and more unfavorable for low-income earners, as a consequence of lowering of progressive direct taxes on the one hand and raising of the regressive consumption tax and social insurance premiums on the other.

3-2 Net transfers to households by income group Next let us look at net transfers (public benefits after deduction of tax burdens) from around the year 2000. In Japan, people in the lowest income quintile (20%) receive 15.7% of the benefits, compared to an average of 22.8% in 27 OECD nations, and share 7.4% of tax burdens, compared to 4.0% in these OECD nations. The net transfer to the lowest quintile accounts for only 1.3% of the household disposable income in this income group (compared to 4.0% in the OECD countries). The benefits received by the lowest quintile were 0.8 times as large as those received by the highest, compared to 2.1 times for the OECD countries (Jones 2007: 22). This is a very lopsided situation. It should be noted that the majority of people in the lowest bracket are elderly women living alone and lone mother households.

3-3 Effects of Tax and Social Security Schemes on Income Disparity and Poverty The Gini coefficients and relative poverty rates before and after the tax and social security transfer (premium raising and benefit provisioning) clearly show how effective are the schemes in Japan. Table 1 is a summary of a table compiled by Kiyoshi Ota, fellow of the Economic and Social Research Institute of Japan’s Cabinet Office, in his paper that examined the OECD Economic Survey of Japan 2006. The table shows Japan’s ranking in terms of relative poverty rates and the level of income inequality among 14 OECD countries in the period around 2000. Relative poverty is defined as income that is lower than 50% of the median equivalent income5; disposable income is market income (also called initial income) minus tax and social security premiums, plus social security benefits. As Table 1 shows, Japan’s ranks of both levels of inequality and relative poverty rates are fairly low among 14 countries at the market income level, but is very high at the disposable income level.

5 According to research done by the Komamura Kohei group at Keio University on the comparison of Japan’s official poverty line (livelihood security standard) with OECD relative poverty standards, the latter is a viable substitute of the former in order to understand the rate of households requiring social security (Yamada et al. 2008). 34

Table 1: Japan’s ranking for the Gini coefficient and relative poverty rates among 14 OECD countries (around 2000) Disparity Type of income and ranking Age bracket measurement All ages Working age Elderly age group aged group aged 18-65 over 65

Gini Market income (A) 11 12 7 coefficient Disposable income (B) 5 5 2 Change in rank from (A) to -6 -7 -5 (B) Relative Market income (a) -- 9 -- poverty rates Disposable income (b) 2 2 3 Change in rank from (a) to (b) -- -7 -- Notes: 1. Compiled from OECD data (2006), etc. 2. 14 OECD countries are: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, UK, and US. Source: Ota, 2006: Figure 2-1.

In terms of income distribution, it is the employment and working situation and related government institutions within the livelihood security system that affect the market income and the tax and social security systems that affect disposable income. Table 1 shows that Japan’s ranks rise from market income level to disposable income level, from the 9th to the second in the case of relative poverty rates of working age group for instance, which indicates that Japan’s tax and social security systems, while presumably aiming to alleviate inequalities and reduce poverty, may well be working in reverse. I would like to explain in more detail the situations which are partially represented in Table 16. According to the 2006 OECD Economic Survey of Japan, and Jones (2007), the relative poverty rate among the working-age population in Japan was 13.5% in 2000 on a disposable income basis, second highest next to the US at 13.7% (the OECD average being 8.4%). The poverty reduction effect of tax and social security (the % point gap between the relative poverty rates of market income and disposable income) was only 3.0 among the working-age population in Japan in 2000, the lowest among 17 OECD countries (Jones 2007: 21). The percentage of those among the working-age population receiving benefits from the government in 1999 was only 11.4% (the average in 16 OECD countries was 19.7%). It is only in Japan that the percentage of beneficiaries was lower than the poverty rate (Jones 2007: 21, 23-24). The relative poverty rate within the elderly group was 21.1%, the seventh highest among 24 OECD countries (Jones 2007: 27).

3-4 Child Poverty As for children in particular, the tax and social security systems in Japan not only have a very weak redistribution and poverty reduction effect, but actually aggravate their poverty7.

6 While Table 1 is 14 countries comparison, hereafter the number of countries compared for each item differs due to data availability 7 As will be discussed in Section 5, the very design of the social insurance system has brought about extra-legality, that is, employers’ fraudulent withdrawal from the pension scheme and falsification of pension records, and accelerated the casualization of the labor market. 35

According to White and Adema (2007), among 19 OECD countries it was only in Japan that the child poverty rate was higher after tax and social security transfers than before in the 1980s, the mid-1990s, and around the year 2000, as is shown in Figure 2. Moreover, the child poverty rate in 2000 was lower on a disposable income basis than on an initial income basis only among the non-working single-parent households (Whiteford and Adema 2007: 18, 25). That is to say, taxation and social security in Japan have expanded child poverty, with the sole exception of non-working single-parent households.

Figure 2

Child Poverty Rates in OECD Countries, before and after Taxes and Transfers, 1980s, mid-1990s and around 2000 40 30

% 20 10 0 l k d y n d . e s y ia . a n d a ly d K S . r n a e n p c d n l w d a n g a n e a la w d la e n n a ra y a p a u It la U U v m n r e r R a la m t n n a l t e a n i o w e h r r r s a a J ea r r D e F N z c F e e u C o I D S it e h G A rm Z P C w z t e w E S C e e O N G N

1980s Before 1980s After Mid-1990s Before Mid-1990s After Around 2000 Before Around 2000 After

Note: “Before” denotes market income poverty before deduction of direct and payroll taxes (social security contributions) paid by individuals and households, while “after” reflects disposable income poverty after the subtraction of taxes and the addition of cash transfers. Countries from the US to Denmark are ranked by decreasing “after” rates of child poverty around 2000. Source: Whiteford and Adema 2007: Table 2.

Let us look at the relative poverty rates in 26 OECD countries around the year 2000 among households with children headed by a working age person. The relative poverty rate among working single parent households in Japan was 58%, the second highest to Turkey. By contrast, the poverty rate among non-working single parent households in Japan was 52%, not particularly high among these 26 countries. It is only in Turkey, Japan and Greece that the poverty rate among working single parents was higher than among non-working single parents (Jones 2007: 24). An overwhelming majority of single parent households are lone mother ones. In Japan, lone mother households have higher poverty rates when the mother works, which means they receive negative redistribution. The tax and social security systems really do have a reverse function. This OECD analysis is consistent with the survey results by Aya Abe, chief researcher at the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. According to Abe, the tax system contributed to a rise in child poverty rates at seven points in time, once every three years between 1984 and 2002, while the social security system also contributed to child poverty at most of those points in time, except in 1984 and 2002 (Abe 2006). Also, Abe’s analysis of poverty by household types of the 2002 income redistribution survey shows that poverty rates at the disposable income level are higher than those for market income level in single father households and in households with a parent with unmarried children. Poverty has been very slightly alleviated by redistribution in single mother households, but it would be useful to re-analyze it, separating households with working and non-working mothers (Abe 2008: 35).

3-5 Gendered Function of the Livelihood Security System Having examined the mechanism of the dysfunction and the reverse function, we should take note

of the fact they are not gender-neutral. The livelihood security system in Japan is characterized first of all by the fact that compared to other major industrialized countries, profit-making enterprises (capitalist relation of production) occupy a tremendous share among various relations of production of goods and services. In other words, Japan is a company-centered society; companies favorably treat “male breadwinners,” i.e. middle-aged fulltime male employees, supposed to maintain wives and children. The employment performance of Japanese men ranging from those in the prime of life to the elderly remains relatively favorable when compared internationally or to women and youth in Japan. Moreover, the number of employed in self-owned commercial and industrial businesses, and agriculture, forestry and fisheries are decreasing. The Japanese government is not only a “small welfare government,” but also a “big construction government.”8 In addition, it is a small welfare government whose welfare policy attaches too much importance to income transfers to former “male breadwinners.” Under the Japanese social insurance schemes, the type of insurance to which workers subscribe differs according to whether they are self-employed (including business owners and family workers) or employees, whether they are working in the private or public sector, and depending on the size of the corporation, working hours, annual income, marital status, and so on. Premiums and benefits also differ according to insurance schemes. In other words, the social insurance schemes in Japan are “uneven, vertically divided.” We can also find this type of structure in the social insurance schemes of continental Western European countries. The “standard” insured person is a male breadwinner, as envisaged in the “model pension benefit,” who is a full-time employee in a medium-sized or large enterprise and supports a wife. The Japanese public pension scheme has the strongest male breadwinner orientation among the major nations such as US, UK, Germany and Sweden. In addition, public policies responding to various needs, including family formation, are very insubstantial. For instance, the Japanese scheme to support the raising of future generations was the worst among the OECD countries around the year 2000 (Osawa 2007a)9. It is among women workers that employment has been drastically casualized since the late 1980s. The ratio of women covered by social insurance for employees has continued to fall since the mid-1970s. Sawako Shirahase’s analysis of the relative poverty rate among single-person households presents data by sex. The poverty rate in 2001 was 21.6% among male single households and 42.0% among female; the latter is almost twice as high as the former. The poverty rate was 29.8% among single households of men in their sixties, 44.0% among women in the same age group, 28.5% among single households of men in their seventies, and 48.7% among women in the same age group (Shirahase 2006: 69). Nearly half of all elderly women living alone are in poverty. In January-February 2008 the Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office conducted a national survey of 2,000 men and 2,000 women between the ages of 55 and 74. The results showed that about half of female single households have an annual income of less that 1.8 million yen. Divorced women were in especially severe circumstances, those living in cities reporting hardships regarding housing costs (Cabinet Office 2008).

8 Since 1945 and particularly in the 1990s the fiscal expenditure system in Japan has been characterized by the highest priority on investment in public work for economic development, while keeping the amount of social security-related expenditures at the minimum. In short, Japan has been heavily dependent public works. 9 In terms of models of livelihood security system, we can distinguish between the “male breadwinner” model, prevalent in Japan and Continental Europe; the “market oriented” model prevalent in Anglo Saxon countries and the “work-life balance” model typical in Northern Europe (Osawa 2007a). 37

4. The Casualization of Employment and Unemployment. Most of the data discussed in the previous section is for the period around the year 2000, and comparative data of OECD after 2000 is not available yet. Compared to other countries, the inequalities and poverty in the market income level were not significant around the year 2000, but since then casualization of employment has continued to accelerate, and the wage rate has been falling. One can only conclude that the situations at the market income level must also be worsening. Consequently if the tax and social security system is not completely restructured, the inequalities and poverty at the disposable income level have gotten so bad that something must be done; otherwise, hopes for a rise in personal consumption to “enhance growth based on domestic demand” are likely to remain unfulfilled. On top of all this, the economic crisis hit. Who lost jobs and how? The percentage of female employees who were employed on a non-regular basis, rose from 29.0% in 1984 to 54.2% in January-March, 2008. In the same period, for males the percentage rose from 7.7% to 18.7%. Looking at age break-downs, from the 1990s, there was a large increase in the casualization of women labor in the 15-24 and over 45 age brackets. Compared to this, the casualization of male labor crept up in the younger age bracket starting from the 2000s, but recently this trend seems to have been stopped (it goes without saying that casualization could well accelerate further in the second half of 2008). What are the special features of the unemployment rate? Unemployment tends to be seen as a burden particularly for men in Japan. But according to the Labor Force Survey (Basic Tabulation), the difference between the male and female unemployment rates has decreased toward March 2009. In other words, we must pay attention to the dramatic increase in female unemployment in the current economic crisis. We must also pay attention to the distribution of the duration of unemployment. Figure 3 shows the composition of the unemployed broken down by duration for major countries in 2006. The duration of unemployment is shorter for Anglo Saxon countries and longer for southern and western continental Europe. Northern Europe is somewhere in between. Japan’s figure is quite close to that of Spain and in Korea, the duration of unemployment does not often exceed 6 months. Figure 4 shows trends in duration of unemployment in Japan by gender and we can see that whereas men are unemployed for long periods, which have recently become longer, the duration of unemployment for women has not become longer.

Figure 3 Duration of Unemployment, by Country in 2006

EU-15 Source: Japan Sweden Institute for Labour Denmark Netherlands Policy and Training, Spain Databook of Italy International France Labour Statistics Germany Australia 2008, Table 4-6. UK Canada US Korea Japan

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

～1month 1～3 months 3～6 months 6 months～1year 1year～ 38

Figure 4

Trends in Duration of Unemployment in Japan, by Gender

2001 e

l 2002

a 2003 m 2004 e

f 2005 2006 2001 2002 e l 2003 a 2004 m 2005 2006 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% year

～3 months 3～6 months 6 months～1 year 1 year～

Source: Labor Force Survey (the Detailed Tabulation), conducted by the Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

How about unemployment benefits? It is possible to receive benefits if employment insurance is applicable. But all employees are not covered by employment insurance, and even if they are, they may still not be able to receive benefits. Eligibility for employment insurance includes having normal working hours of at least 20 hours per week and supposed to be employed continuously for at least 1 year. According to a general status survey on the diversification of forms of employment in 2007, 99% of regular employees were covered by employment insurance but only 60% of non-regular employees were. Of these, only 48% of part-time employees and 31% of temporary employees were covered. Reflecting the gender gap in non-regular employment, among employees, more than 75% of men are covered by employment insurance while only 62–63% of women are covered (Annual Report on Employment Insurance). The conditions for being able to receive employment insurance benefits are: (1) being covered by employment insurance for at least 12 months of the 2 years previous to leaving employment; (2) in the case of bankruptcy or of being dismissed, the period of insurance coverage is at least 6 months of the 1 year previous to termination of employment. The number of days that the benefit can be received is from 90 days to a maximum of 330 days, depending on the reason for termination of employment (longer for cases (2)), age and the length of time the person was covered by employment insurance. Most non-regular workers are employed for a fixed period, so employment termination (non-renewal of labor contract) is not recognized as case (2) bankruptcy or firing, even if the employee wishes to continue to work. This makes it more difficult to receive the benefit and they can only be received for a shorter period. Given all these conditions, if we look at the trends in actual numbers of persons who receive the benefit (fiscal year average), we see that the percentage of women rose from 47% in 2002 to 57% in 2006. Proportion of men among persons with benefits has declined because men tended to be unemployed longer (Figure 5), while the average unemployment rate peaked in 2002 and has been falling since.

Figure 5

Persons with unemployment benefit and the number of unemployed, by gender

2,500

s 2,000 d n

a 1,500 s u

o 1,000 h

T 500 0 with benefit unemployed with benefit unemployed female male

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Source: Fiscal year average number of persons with basic allowance of general jobseekers benefit from Annual Report on Employment Insurance of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and fiscal year average number of unemployed from Labor Force Survey.

Even if not all unemployed people meet the necessary conditions to receive benefits for unemployment, the relationship between the number of people receiving benefits and the number of the unemployed tells us something about how the system is functioning. Figure 4 shows numbers of persons receiving benefits and numbers of the unemployed by gender for recent several years. The number of people receiving benefits compared to the number of the unemployed has been falling for both men and women in recent years, but the ratio of women receiving benefits is higher than men. Thus since around 2000, women tended to be excluded within the labor market as their employment casualized, while men tended to be excluded from the labor market longer and from income security.

5. The Pension System as a Mechanism for Exclusion Extra-legality has expanded particularly in the pension scheme. For example, Social Insurance Agency office staff also helped employers to withdraw from the pension scheme fraudulently or falsify pension records. Such acts have accelerated the casualization of the labor market. In Japan, all residents aged 20 to 60 are required to subscribe to the National Pension Scheme. Employees in the private or public sector who work more than three-quarters of the full-time employee’s working hours, are insured as the Class 2 insured persons, and are covered by the Employees’ Pension (or the Mutual Aid Pension for public officials) through an income-related contribution over and above the Basic Pension. Their spouses are classified as the Class 3, and receive the basic pension without paying premiums. The self-employed, including business owners and family workers, the unemployed, students and others are classified as the Class 1. As of the end of fiscal 2006, the number of Class 1, Class 2 and Class 3 insured persons was 21.23 million, 38.36 million (33.79 million for the Employees’ Pension and 4.57 million for the Mutual Aid Pension), and 10.79 million, respectively (Social Insurance Agency, “Fiscal 2006 Overall state of the Social Insurance Schemes,” March 2008). Membership in the Employee’s Pension Scheme peaked in 1997. By the end of 2003, its coverage had declined by 1.35 million workers and 85,000 workplaces (5.0%). Part of the decrease seems to reflect cutbacks in full-time employees. At the same time however, it should not be 40

overlooked that not only reflecting the casualization of employment, the very structure of social insurance schemes has contributed to the shift from full-time to part-time employment. Under the current “uneven, vertically divided” structure that sets long term fulltime employees who are male breadwinners as the “model” persons receiving benefits, the employer does not have to apply the health insurance or the employees’ pension to part-timers whose working hours are less than three fourths of those of full-time workers, allowing the employer to reduce the burden of social insurance premiums. In addition, a considerable part of the decreased coverage of the Employees’ Pension Scheme is estimated to involve illegal avoidance of the system, i.e. extra-legality. The pension reform in 2004 did not change the vertical segmentation of the schemes, which engender exclusion and extra-legality. On September 15, 2006, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications reported the results of the administrative evaluation and inspection of the Employees’ Pension Insurance Scheme. It found that as of August-November 2005, among workplaces that were legally obliged to enroll in the scheme, 0.63 to 0.7 million (about 30%) were not enrolled, and the estimated number of employees of those workplaces was 2.67 million (about 7% of employees) (http://www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/2006/060915_1.html). In the early summer of 2007, the media reported that 50 million unidentified pension records had been discovered. At first, emphasis was placed on the problem of “unidentified pension records,” but later the problem of “missing pension records,” which implies that there are no records of premiums actually paid, began to draw attention. The “missing pension records” were more accurately cases of the “deleted pension records,” in other words, falsification. It was also revealed that the personnel of the Social Insurance Agency were involved in this falsification. It was not just a matter of mistyped figures or embezzlement by social insurance office staff, there were cases where the business owner claimed that the employee was in a trial period and that pension scheme was not applicable, which is not valid, or did not pay the insurance premiums deducted from employees’ salaries to the insurance office, or where salaries (standard remuneration), the basis from which premiums are calculated, were reported as lower than what was actually paid. These types of cases were assumed to exist from before, and the employers were the ones cooking the books. But the involvement of personnel of the Social Insurance Agency was much more active than just turning a blind eye to the employer’s falsifications and disguises; it was a case of staff actually encouraging and actively helping business owners to file false claims. This ended up reducing the “denominator” of pension payment rate and therefore increasing the payment rate, which constitutes the “performance” of social insurance offices. In the end, on September 9, 2008 the Social Insurance Agency finally admitted the active involvement of its staff, at a meeting of cabinet ministers concerned with the pension records problem, and even then, only one case was presented, where an owner of a small company in Tokyo had already testified and submitted documents 10. In any case, the Social Insurance Agency maintained that its involvement was not at the organizational level. However, the Health, Labour and Welfare Minister, Yoichi Masuzoe revealed at the House of Councilors Health, Labour and Welfare Committee meeting on September 18, 2008 that there were 69,000 records which had a high possibility of being falsified and admitted that he thought there was organizational involvement of personnel of the Social Insurance Agency. Moreover, it was revealed that these 69,000 records were just the tip of the iceberg. According to investigations by the third-party panel for confirming pension records and testimony from people involved, typical ways in which records were falsified included: (1) bringing down the standard remuneration by 5 or more grades; (2) reducing the standard remuneration over 6 or more months; and (3) immediately

10 http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/nenkin/dai7/sankou1.pdf 41

after reducing the standard remuneration, disqualifying the employee (making the employee not eligible for insurance). The 69,000 records referred to are merely the number of falsified records that utilize all three of the above methods. Cases which involve just one of the above methods number 1.44 million, with some cases overlapping. At the beginning of October 2008, Minister Masuzoe established, under his direct control, a “committee for investigating cases of standard remuneration retroactive adjustment” (Committee Chair: Shuya Nomura, Professor at Chuo University Law School). The problem is that the committee’s purview is limited to the above-mentioned 69,000 records. According to a report submitted on November 28, 2008, “not a negligible number” of cases has been uncovered where the total amount of reductions of monthly standard remunerations over time for a particular employer corresponds to the total amount of unpaid insurance premiums by that employer. This strongly suggests that the office used these falsifications to cancel out the accumulated unpaid insurance premiums, leading to the conclusion that falsifications were “organized at the actual level (of the social insurance office)” (Summary of the report of the committee for investigating cases of standard remuneration retroactive adjustment, November 28, 200811. It has also been revealed that there are cases where business owners have fiddled the insurance payments which are their due without lowering the standard remuneration. This further suggests that the number of cases of deleted pension payments is much more than the maximum 1.44 million mentioned above. Furthermore, the number of cases of falsification of records which were computerized before February 1986, is not even known (Asahi Shimbun, October 3, 2008). The fact that social insurance offices not only permitted tacitly but actually encouraged employers to erase pension records indicates that the Social Insurance Agency, as an organization that is supposed to exercise jurisdiction over the pension scheme, was a leading party to the extra-legality. That is why we would like to argue that the Japanese social insurance schemes have not only hollowed out, but have become a gigantic mechanism for social exclusion. For Japan, the very societal reproduction is at risk, and building a livelihood security system which is more equitable in terms of gender and age group is an urgent political task.

6. Conclusion Reforms and actions needed for building a really reliable livelihood security system are implied above. In addition we would like to point out from a gender equality perspective the necessity of sex-disaggregated data, gender statistics in other words that enables gender responsive analyses of policy outcomes and impacts. It should be seriously considered how to finely integrate in a universal livelihood security system contributions made by unpaid work of family members and volunteers to production and consumption as well as to tax system and social security schemes.

References In English Bhalla, Ajit S.; Frederick Lapeyre (2004) Poverty and Exclusion in a Global World. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave (second revised edition). Jones, R. S. (2007) “Income Inequality, Poverty and Social Spending in Japan,” Economic Department Working Papers No. 556, Paris: OECD. Whiteford, P. and Adema, W. (2007) “What Works Best in Reducing Child Poverty: A Benefit or Work Strategy?” OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 51, Paris: OECD.

11 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/2008/12/dl/tp1201-4a.pdf 42

In Japanese Abe, Aya (2006) “Hinkon no genjo to sono yoin – 1980-2000 nendai no hinkonritsu josho no youin bunseki” (Current conditions and factors of poverty: analysis of factors behind rising poverty rates from 1980 to 2000s), Oshio, Takashi, Eiji Tajika and Tetsuo Fukawa (eds.) Nihon no shotoku bunpai – kakusa kakudai to seisaku no yakuwari (Income distribution in Japan: widening disparities and the role of policy) Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, pp.111-137. Abe, Aya (2008) “Nihon no hinkon no jittai to hinkon seisaku” (The state of poverty and policies on poverty in Japan), Abe, Aya, Shigeki Kunieda, Wataru Suzuki, Masayoshi Hayashi (eds.), Seikatsu hogo no keizai bunseki, (Economic analysis of livelihood protection), Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Osawa, Mari (2007a): Comparative Livelihood Security Systems from a Gender Perspective, with a Focus on Japan. In: Walby, Sylvia, Heidi Gottfried, Karin Gottschall and Mari Osawa (ed.): Gendering the Knowledge Economy, Comparative Perspectives. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 81-108. Osawa, Mari (2007b) Gendai nihon no seikatsu hosho shisutemu – zahyo to yukue (Livelihood security system in modern Japan: coordinates and future), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ota, Kiyoshi (2006) “Nioho no shotoku saibunpai – kokusai hikaku de mita sono tokucho” (Income redistribution in Japan: its characteristics from the perspective of international cooperation) ESRI Discussion Paper Series No.171. Koseirodosho (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare) (2008) Hyojunhoshu sokyu teisei jianto ni kansuru chosaiinkai hokokusho (Report of the committee for investigating cases of standard remuneration retroactive adjustment, November 28, 2008), http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/2008/12/dl/tp1201-4a.pdf Shirahase, Sawako (2006) “Fubyodoka nihon no nakami – setai to jenda ni chumokushite” (Content of unequal Japan: focusing on households and gender) Shirahase, Sawako (ed.) Henka suru shakai no fubyodo – shosi koreika ni hisomu kakusa (Changing social inequality: disparities hidden in birthrate decline and population aging), Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, pp.47-78. Seikatsukeizaiseisaku Kenkyusho (Economic Policy Institute for Quality Life) (2007) Zeisei kaikaku ni mukete – kohei de zeishu chotatsuryoku ga takai zeisei o mezashite (Toward tax reform: for a fair tax system with high ability to collect taxes), EPI Books No.25. Naikakufu Danjokyodosankaku-kyoku (Cabinet Office, Gender Equality Bureau) (2008) Koreidanjo no Jiritsushitaseikatsu ni kansuru Chosakekka (Results of survey on self-sufficient life of elderly men and women), Danjokyodosankaku-kyoku HP http://www.gender.go.jp/index.html, Danjokyodosankakukaigi Kanshi Eikyochosa senmonchosakai related material. Yamada, Atsuhiro, Masahito Shikata, Soichiro Tanaka, Kohei Komamura (2008) “Dai-ichi hokoku: Hinkon kijun no kasanari—OECD sotaiteki hinkon kijun to seikatsu hogo kijun no kasanari” (First Report: Overlapping poverty standards: OECD relative poverty standards and livelihood protection standards), Report of 117th conference of social policy society, No. 2 thematic session “Tayo na hinkon to shotoku hosho” (Diverse poverty and income security).

G. Women in Power and Decision-making

Kay Fusano (Vice-Convenor, JAWW)

1. Women in politics This is one of the areas where progress is the slowest in Japan. It was made clear during an interactive dialogue on the equal participation of women and men in decision-making held during the 53rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women in 2009 that women exceeded 30 per cent representation in national assemblies in 24 countries with Rwanda taking the lead with 56 per cent of seats occupied by women. The number of women in national parliaments had increased globally from 11.6 percent of seats in 1995 to 18.4 per cent in 2008. In Japan, according to the data released by the Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office in March, 2009, the ratios of women in the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors are only 9.4 per cent and 18.2 per cent respectively, while the ratio of female ministers is 11.1 per cent1. In local governments the ratios of women members of prefectural assemblies and city, ward, town and village assemblies are as low as 8.0 per cent and 10.5 per cent respectively. What is worse, the ratios of women prefectural governors and mayors are 8.5 per cent and 1.0 per cent respectively. As a result, Japan ranks 58th in Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) and 98th in Gender Gap Index (GGI), although it ranks 8th in Human Development Index (HDI)2. It ranks 107th out of 130 countries in Gender Gap Subindex “Political Empowerment of Women” by World Economic Forum3.

Table 1: Japan’s Rank in HDI, GEM and GGI in 2008 HDI (179 countries) GEM (108 countries) GGI (130 countries) Rank Country Rank Country Rank Country 1 Iceland 1 Sweden 1 Norway 2 Norway 2 Norway 2 Finland 3 Canada 3 Finland 3 Sweden 4 Australia 4 Denmark 4 Iceland 5 Ireland 5 Iceland 5 New Zealand 6 Philippines 15 Singapore 8 Japan 12 Sri Lanka

45 Kazakhstan 58 Japan 52 Thailand

55 Uzbekistan

57 China

98 Japan

1 Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2009) Women and Men in Japan 2009, p. 7. http://www.gender.go.jp/english_contents/pamphlet/women-and-men09/index.html 2 UNDP, 2008, Human Development Report 2007/2008, UNDP 3 World Economic Forum (2008) The Global Gender Gap Report 2008, p. 96.

It was found in the above-mentioned interactive dialogue that temporary measures such as quotas4 or reserved seats were used to support and encourage women’s engagement in electoral processes and political parties. 5 In case of Japan, it is my understanding that quotas could effectively improve the ratio of women in decision-making bodies. However, political parties in Japan, including ruling and opposition parties, do not seem willing to adopt temporary measures to increase the number of women in politics.

2. Women in national government and local governments The above-mentioned dialogue during the 53rd CSW found that the use of targets and benchmarks to increase the number of women was a useful strategy. The Second Basic Plan for a Gender-equal Society approved by the Japanese Cabinet in December 2005 stipulated the target of “increasing the share of women in leadership positions to at least 30 per cent by 2020 in all fields in society.” The data released by the Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office in 2009, show that although the ratio of female national public employees in and above positions equivalent to directors of Ministries is only 1.9 per cent (2006), the ratios of female national public employees recruited (Level 1 recruitment examination) and female members in national advisory councils and committees reached 24.2 per cent and 32.4 per cent respectively in 2008.1.

Table 2: Ratios of Female Members in National Advisory Councils and Committees6 Year Ratio (%) Year Ratio (%) 1999 19.8 2005 30.9 2001 24.7 2007 32.3 2003 26.8 2008 32.4

In local governments, the ratios of female local public employees in and above positions equivalent to directors of prefectural governments and female local public employees in and above positions equivalent to directors of city, ward, town and village governments are 5.4 per cent and 8.9 per cent respectively in 2008. However, the ratios of female members in advisory councils and committees of prefectures and female members in advisory councils and committees of government-designated cities are 32.6 per cent and 30.7 per cent respectively in 20087.

Table 3: Ratios (%) of Female Members in Local Advisory Councils and Committees8 Year Prefectures Government-Designated Cities Cities & Wards Towns & Villages 2003 26.6 25.8 24.3 20.7

4 In 2005, the U.N. Secretary General recommended in his report on equal participation of women and men in decision-making processes at all levels (E/CN.6/2006/13) what is known as the ‘zippering’ principle or ‘zebra’ formula to be adopted under proportional representation electoral system: “Quotas are likely to be more effective in the context of closed-list proportional systems than in open-list proportional systems. In proportional representation systems, quotas are most effective when there is a high district to party magnitude or where there is a placement mandate specifying which positions women must hold on a party list. For example, a requirement that specifies women are to hold one of the first three positions or two of the first six positions, etc., will be more effective than a requirement that women hold one third of the positions on the list.” The report also argues that “Political parties, as the major gatekeepers in determining candidates for elective office, play a critical role in advancing or impeding women’s participation in decision-making bodies.” 5 Moderator’s summary, Equal participation of women and men in decision-making processes at all levels, E/CN.6/2009/CRP.8, p. 2. 6 Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2009) White Paper on Gender Equality 2009, p. 55 7 Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2009) Women and Men in Japan 2009, p. 7. 8 Ibid, p. 57

2004 28.3 27.2 25.3 22.2 2005 29.8 28.2 26.1 22.5 2006 31.3 29.2 26.4 23.8 2007 32.6 29.7 26.1 22.5 2008 32.6 30.7 26.2 22.6

It awaits further study to show whether setting numerical targets and benchmarks serves to increase the number of women.

3. Women in private corporations A survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare shows a little improvement in the ratio of women in managerial positions of enterprises:

Table 4: Women in Managerial Positions at Private Enterprises9 Year Manager (%) Section Chief (%) Section Clark (%) 2005 2.8 5.1 10.4 2006 3.7 5.8 10.8 2007 4.1 6.5 12.4 2008 4.1 6.6 12.7

What I think is one of the reasons why the number of women in managerial positions of enterprises is so small is the dual-track employment system Japanese corporations adopt. On December 24, 2008, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare released the results of a survey conducted by prefectural Equal Employment Opportunity Offices in the prefectural Labor Bureaus in 2007 on the dual-track employment system.10 With the dual-track system, new employees enter either a comprehensive career-track position (sogoshoku) or a general clerical non-career track position (ippanshoku). 25 companies out of 123 companies (having the dual-track employment system) surveyed hired more than one man and more than one woman as career-track employees in fiscal 1998. However, the ratio of the companies where women hired as career-track employees still remained on the career track in 2007 was 68 per cent. Moreover, 8 companies had no women hired as career-track employees in 1998 and were in managerial positions in 2007, and in 60 per cent of the companies, male managers hired as career-track employees in 1998 were in higher positions than female managers hired as career-track employees in 1998. Three out of the 123 companies were given administrative guidance because violated the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, while 85 per cent of them were given advice to promote desirable employment management according to the objective of the Law. Another reason why the number of women in managerial positions of enterprises is so small is the fact that 67.4 per cent of the women leave their employment at the time of childbirth11 and that it is very difficult for them to return to their former position after childbirth. Since the number of women in managerial positions of enterprises is so small, it is natural that we cannot find even a few women to represent economic and industrial organizations:

9 Ibid., p. 24 10 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2008/12/h1224-1.html Japanese Women No. 101, March 1, 2009, Fusae Ichikawa Memorial Association, p. 3. 11 Women and Men in Japan 2009, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, p. 11.

Table 5: Executives of Economic and Industrial Organizations12 Name Total No. No. of Women Ratio of Women (%) Japan Association of Corporate Executives 1,369 65 4.7 Japan Business Federation 598 0 0.0 Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry 64 0 0.0 Central Federation of Societies of Commerce 25 1 4.0 and Industry National Federation of Small Business 58 0 0.0 Associations

4. Women in agriculture, forestry and fisheries Women employees accounted for 42 per cent of all employees in agriculture/forestry/fisheries in 2005. In 2007 they accounted for 43 per cent of all employees in the agriculture/forestry/fisheries. 13 However, executives in agriculture, fisheries, and forestry organizations are as follows14:

Table 6: Executives in Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Organizations Name Total No. No. of Women Ratio of Women (%) Central Union of Agricultural 29 1 3.4 Cooperatives15 (JA-ZENCHU) National Federation of Agricultural 38 3 8.6 Cooperative Associations16 (JA-ZEN-NOH) JF Zengyoren (a nationwide federation 26 0 0.0 of JF (Japan Fisheries Cooperatives))17 National Federation of Forest Owners' 19 0 0.0 Co-operative Association (ZENMORI)

The data show that the patriarchal system and stereotypical gender roles are persistent in rural areas. However, JF Zengyoren has a women’s section, and 67,730 fisherwomen belonged to 38 prefectural fisherwomen’s cooperatives in 2007. The women’s section of JF Zengyoren has its own board and its twelve board officers are all women18.

5. Women in media Women’s issues are rarely dealt with in mass media. It is widely recognized that media have an important role to play in promoting gender equality. As they are influential in forming public opinions, it is of great concern that the level of women’s participation in media industries is very low.

Table 7: Journalists in News Agencies19

12 Women and Men in Japan 2008, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan.

13 Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2009) White Paper on Gender Equality 2009, 14 Women and Men in Japan 2008, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan. 15 http://www.zennoh.or.jp/zennoh-report/english/2008_p04-p05.pdf 16 Ibid. 17 http://www.zengyoren.or.jp/syokai/jf_eng1.html 18 JF-Zengyoren homepage. 19 Women and Men in Japan 2008, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan.

Year Total No. No. of Women Ratio of Women (%) 2005 20,315 2,436 12.0 2006 20,773 2,642 12.7 2007 19,124 2,631 13.8 2008 21,093 3,108 14.7 2009 21,103 3,129 14.8

Although there are 3,129 women journalists at present, there are no female executives in Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association (Nihon Shinbun Kyokai (NSK)), the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan (NAB), or NHK ((Japan Broadcasting Corporation).

6. Women in education and research The ratio of female members of boards of education is 27.9 per cent1. While more than 60% of full-time teachers at elementary school were female in 2007, the proportion of female teachers decreased as education proceeded to lower and upper secondary school. With regard to junior colleges and universities, while female teachers accounted for nearly 50% at junior colleges, their proportion was less than 20 % at universities20.

Table 8: Ratios of Women in Decision-Making Positions at Educational Institutions in 200821 Position Ratio (%) Assistant principals and above at elementary school 19.7 Assistant principals and above at lower secondary school 6.5 Assistant principals and above at upper secondary school 6.0 Lecturers and above at university 16.2

The ratio of women researchers is 13.0 per cent22. The Science Council of Japan has been making remarkable progress in women’s participation in its membership. Although the ratio of women in its membership had remained between 0.5 per cent and 1.9 per cent until 1997, it had been increasing since 2000 and reached 20 per cent in 2005. Since then it has kept the ratio of around 20 per cent up until now23.

7. Women in international fields Although the ratio of women ministers, counselors and above in diplomatic establishments abroad is only 5.4 per cent, Japanese women staff at international organizations (higher than professional positions) in 2007 reached 54.4 per cent24. One of the reasons why so many Japanese women are working abroad is the fact they cannot find jobs in Japan suitable for their competence.

8. Women in other professions The decision-making in the professional world is still dominated by men. For example, female pharmacists account for 67.1 per cent but the ratio of female executives of Japan Pharmaceutical Association is only 2.7 per cent.

Women and Men in Japan 2009, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan.

20 Women and Men in Japan 2009, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, p. 11. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Science Council of Japan Homepage. 24 Women and Men in Japan 2009, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, p. 11.

Table 9: Ratio of Women in other Professions25 Professions Ratio of Women (%) Medical doctors (2006) 17.2 Pharmacists (2006) 67.1 Veterinarians (2006) 22.1 Judges 15.4 Prosecutors 12.2 Lawyers (2008) 14.4 Certified public accountants (2008) 12.9

Table 10: Executives of Professional Organizations26 Organization Total No. No. of Women Ratio of Women (%) Japan Medical Association 30 0 0.0 Japan Dental Association 27 0 0.0 Japan Pharmaceutical Association 37 1 2.7 Japan Veterinary Medical Association 22 0 0.0 Japan Federation of Bar Associations 90 3 3.3 Japan Federation of Solicitor Associations 25 0 0.0 Japan Patent Attorneys Association 84 4 4.8 Japan Institute of Certified Public Accountants 83 5 6.0 Japan Federation of Certified Public Tax 131 2 1.5 Accountants’ Association

9. Future tasks (1) Stop the retrogressive trend According to the Global Gender Gap Report, Japan’s ranking in the Global Gender Gap Index tends to fall year by year: 80th in 2006, 91st in 2007, and 98th in 2008. Japan ranks first in literacy rate, enrolment in primary education, enrolment in secondary education, and healthy life expectancy27. Efforts to implement concrete measures to stop the gender gap are urgently needed especially on the part of political parties, media, corporations and professional organizations, in order for Japan to “occupy an honored place in an international society” as stipulated in the Preamble of the Constitution of Japan.

(2) Eliminate stereotyped perception of gender roles In August, 2007, a survey was conducted by the Gender Equality Bureau on the stereotyped perception of “Husband is expected to work outside the home, while wife is expected to take on domestic duties”28:

Table 10: Stereotyped perception of “Husband is expected to work outside the home, while wife is expected to take on domestic duties” Completely Rather agree Do not know/ Rather Completely

25 Women and Men in Japan 2009, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, p. 11, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2009) White Paper on Gender Equality 2009, 26 Women and Men in Japan 2008, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan 27 World Economic Forum (2008) The Global Gender Gap Report 2008, p. 96 28 Women and Men in Japan 2009, Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, p.21.

agree no answer disagree disagree N=3,118 13.8% 31.0% 3.2% 28.7% 23.4% Female (N=1,706) 12.0% 27.8% 3.2% 30.7% 26.2% Male (N=1,412) 15.9% 34.8% 3.1% 26.2% 20.0%

In a 1979 survey, more than 70 per cent of respondents supported the perception of gender roles. In the 2004 survey respondents opposed to the perception outnumbered those who agreed to it for the first time, and the result of the 2007 survey showed that those who oppose such perceptions had become the majority for the first time. However, while women who are against the perception outnumber those who support it, the number of men who support gender roles is still larger than those who oppose such perceptions. The survey result shows how important it is to educate boys at school on the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality.

(3) Give hopes to women In 2006 a survey was conducted on women’s entrepreneurship by the Cabinet Office29. To the question in the survey, “Is it difficult for ordinary women to be promoted to managerial positions?”, 59.2 per cent of women agreed:

Table 11: “Is it difficult for ordinary women to be promoted to managerial positions?” Completely Rather Do not agree Rather Completely Do not agree agree nor disagree disagree disagree know Total 10.9% 41.8% 21.3% 12.1% 10.7% 3.3% Female 13.4% 45.8% 20.0% 10.0% 7.7% 3.2% Male 0.2% 39.2% 22.1% 13.5% 12.6% 3.4%

The survey result shows that most women have anxiety about their future career. Considering that so many women are successful in international organizations, it is urgent for Japanese society to build capacity to make good use of competent women and give hopes to working women.

29 Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2009) White Paper on Gender Equality 2009,

H. Institutional Mechanisms for the Advancement of Women

Hiroko Hashimoto (Vice-Convenor, JAWW)

Since 2004 when JAWW prepared the Japan NGO Report 2004, the institutional mechanism for the advancement of women in Japan has made no significant progress at the national level mainly due to reemergence of right-wing conservatives. The undesirable trend has been further deteriorated by the economic recession. Similarly, there has been minimum progress in laws and national plans of actions with regard to gender equality. At local government level, machineries such as focal points for gender equality and women’s centers have been in a difficult situation for similar reasons. For example, in December 2007, a city in the suburb of Tokyo adopted a local ordinance for gender equality which included articles to respect full-time housewives and to promote gender-specific roles such as good motherhood. Another city council in the western part of Japan adopted a petition which discourages promotion of women’s studies and gender studies, in January 2008. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which had been Japan’s ruling party for more than 50 years was overwhelmingly defeated by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) at the general election on August 30, 2009. As some DPJ members are strong neo-conservatives, promotion of gender equality policy at both national and local levels is not likely to be achieved so easily under the new ruling party, although there is a common understanding among Japanese people that DPJ is less conservative.

1. National machineries and other governmental bodies 1) Structures As shown in the heading under “general account budget” in Table 2, Prime Minister Koizumi, as announced in his policy speech in 2005, had a policy to create a “small government” by cutting the national budget and the number of government officers. Therefore, from 2005 to 2006, the amount of Japan’s national general account decreased. Fortunately, the small government policy’s influence on the Gender Equality Bureau (GEB) has been a minimum as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Trend of the budget and the number of staff members of the Gender Equality Bureau (Unit for the budget: 1 million yen) year 1.Budget for the Gender Equality Bureau (GEB), 2.Number of staff members of the GEB Cabinet Office* 1999 215 2000 286 27 (regular, those seconds from a line ministries 5, assistants 3) 2001 405 50 (regular 38, seconded 1, administrative trainees, assistants 9) 2004 401 2005 412 2006 400 2007 428 55 (regular 40, seconded 2, administrative trainees 3, assistants 10) 2008 420 55 (regular 42, administrative trainees 3, assistants 10) *The GEB was upgraded in Jan. 2001 from an office (division level) Source: Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office 51

Although Japan is the second largest economy in the world, the total amount of the GEB’s budget is too small to undertake effective and influential policies for gender mainstreaming into the government. On May 26, 2009, Prime Minister Aso announced a plan to reorganize Ministries dealing with welfare and health services. Under the plan, the GEB would be merged into a new bureau dealing with women and children under a new Ministry of People’s Life. However, the reorganization plan was immediately cancelled as strong oppositions came from various arenas including women’s organizations saying the plan was not fully contemplated. The aborted plan indicates that there is a view within the government that the Gender Equality Bureau should be removed from the Cabinet Office to one of line ministries which has less authority and whose specific areas of operation are quite limited. The national machinery for gender equality in Japan is composed of the following three organizations: 1. Headquarters for the Promotion of Gender Equality 2. Council for Gender Equality, and 3. Gender Equality Bureau which serves as a secretariat for the Headquarters and the Council. The Headquarters chaired by the Prime Minister has convened only three times since 2004. The main agenda for the three meetings are as follows:

Table 2: Trend of Gender equality-related budget and general account budget (Unit for the budget: 1 billion yen) year 1999 2000 2001 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 3.Gender equality related budget (Budget for activities 7334 8223 8696 10604 4407* 4357* 4697* 4159* planned along with Basic Plan for gender equality） Figure in 3.(improving and maintaining living environment and 6097 6943 7171 7558 standards for aged person(Both pension and caring) Figure in 3, (maintaining living environment and 2071 2015 2056 2029 standards for aged person (caring) 4. general account 81860 84987 82652 82111 82182 79686 82909 83061 budget *Excludes national expenditure for pension. Source: Gender Equality Bureau, Cabinet Office and http://www.mof.go.jp/english/budget/budget.htm

Table 3: Agenda of the Headquarters for the Promotion of Gender Equality since 2004 Session Date Agenda 15th April 27, 2004. ・ Expanding recruitment and promotion of female government officials

16th April 4, 2006 ・ Recruiting more female members for national advisory councils

17th April 8, 2008 ・ The program for accelerating women’s participation in society Source: http://www.gender.go.jp/honbu/jisseki.html as of August 20, 2009 translated by the author

The Council for Gender Equality whose members include 12 Ministers and 12 experts used to convene 4 to 5 times a year until 2005. However, since 2006, the Council has convened only 3 times per year. As the Ministers are too busy to attend the Council, usually the time allotted to the Council meeting is 30 minutes to less than 1 hour. Although the Council has established Specialist Committees on four topics including gender impact assessment at the Council, gender budget and gender mainstreaming have not been listed among its agenda.

Table 4: No. of meetings convened by the Council for Gender Equality Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 No. of times the 4 4 4 4 5 3 3 3 Council was convened Source: http://www.gender.go.jp/danjo-kaigi/index-ka.html as of August 20, 2009 translated by the author

At the local level, a machinery to promote gender equality at the respective local governments, which corresponds to the Headquarters for Gender Equality of the national government, was established within every local government. In 34 out of 47 prefectures, those organizations are chaired by the governors. The number of staff members of the offices for gender equality of the 47 local governments varies from 3 to 17.

2) Budget and staff members Despite Japan’s “small government” policy, the number of GEB staff members of the GEB was increased when it was upgraded from an Office to a Bureau in 1991 as shown in Table 1. However, the current number of its staff members at 55 is extremely small as a national machinery of the second economic power in the world. Furthermore, unlike in other countries such as the Philippines and the Republic of Korea where the national machinery for gender equality has significantly progressed by engaging NGOs and other experts as its staff members, the GEB has rarely engaged outside experts on gender issues as its staff members. Most of the GEB staff members have been seconded from line ministries. At the local level, the budget of machineries for gender equality in all 47 prefectures and 17 large municipalities has shrunk mainly due to financial difficulties as well as pressures from conservative assembly members. In fact, it accounts for less than 0.1 % of the total amount of the general account of their respective governments, with two exceptions1. Furthermore, the budget for

1 They are Cities of Sendai and Kawasaki. In the Republic of Korea which has similar social norms on gender and international ranking of gender equality index as Japan, the percentage of the local government budget for gender equality is 1-2% of the total budget (Wonhong Kim et al. (2006) “Measures to reinforce roles of female local government officials to activate women’s policy of local government,” Women’s Studies Forum, vol. 22 , p. 105) 53

gender equality of 19 prefectures out of 47 is less than 0.01% of the general account of the government. Due to the financial difficulties which local government have faced, the number of staff members and budget of those machineries have been decreased year by year. Some offices for gender equality have been merged into another office such as an office for children, human rights, environment and people’s life. So far 45 prefectures have established women’s centers to implement their policies for gender equality. The management of those centers has been gradually outsourced. A greater amount of local government budget for gender equality has been used for running those women’s centers. The Japanese government, whether central or local, has not implemented a “gender-responsive budget” which is seen as the key to the enhancement of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The requisite to the implementation of a gender-responsive budget that takes into account fairness and equity of the budget (revenue and expenditure), as well as adequacy, effectiveness and efficiency of budget allocation among others from the perspective of gender equality is to ensure women’s participation in the policy-making processes in all political, economic, and social spheres, in addition to creating and/or improving various institutions that enable it.

2. Actions to be taken. 1) Integrating gender perspectives in legislation, public policies, programs and projects Since 2004, laws which promote gender equality, including laws regarding spousal violence, equal employment, child care and family care leaves and the penal code have been revised. The Law for the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims was significantly improved in 2004 as well as 2007 when the law was revised, by accommodating comments/opinions from civil society such as shelters and NGOs. The revision include the expanding the definition of batterers and extension of the duration of stay-away order. However, the definition of indirect discrimination which was added to Equal Employment Law is extremely narrow, as criticized by CEDAW2 in August 2009. As Japan was classified as Tier 2 Watch List in Trafficking in Persons Report in 20043 by the US Department of State, the government reluctantly started to revise laws and regulations, such as the Immigration Control Law and the Penal Code and formulated Japan's Action Plan of Measures to Combat Trafficking in Persons4. In 2005, Japan ratified the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Those efforts resulted in improving Japan’s rank to Tier 2 in 1995. However, while all G7 countries other than Japan, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan are among 25 countries classified as Tier 1, there is no hope for Japan to improve the rank to Tier 1 as the government has no plans to formulate anti-trafficking in persons (TIP) law. Besides, the Bureau for Gender Equality is reluctant to work with on this issue, in particular regarding assisting victims of TIP. The civil code which has several gender-discriminatory articles, including a. Article 900 which discriminates children born from legally unmarried couples, which often limits women’s lifestyle, thus considered as discriminatory against women, b. Article 750 which forces married couples to use one surname (96% of women change their surname when they marry), and c. Article 733 which forbids women to remarry for six months after divorce, has not been revised. The Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality was adopted by the Cabinet in December 2005. While it sets as many as 42 numerical goals, the Plan is backward in its contents in comparison with

2 CEDAW/C/JPN/CO/6 Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women para. 21 3 http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/index.htm 4 http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/i_crime/people/index_a.html 54

the first Plan. For example, a paragraph on reproductive health/rights as one of the health issues to be addressed by the government has been deleted, and the definition of “gender” has been limited to “socially developed” gender by deleting the phrase “culturally developed”. In addition, the term “unpaid work,” used for domestic chores that should be examined through a Basic Survey on Social Life has been dropped as the right-wing including some parliamentarians, attacked the word by insisting that the domestic chores are mothers’ sacred work which should not be derogated by economic accounting. As there were strong conservative voices among the ruling party, including the then Prime Minister Abe, the Gender Equality Bureau had to obey nonsense directions from the ruling party to weaken the Plan. At the local government level, the number of local governments which enacted local ordinances for gender equality and/or formulated plans of action for gender equality has increased as shown in Table 5. Despite these trends, the contents of those local ordinances and plans of action are weakened as local governments were cautious about the right-wing attack as mentioned earlier. What is worse, one local government cancelled, in January 2008, a gathering of citizens on the prevention of domestic violence, as right-wing activists attacked the government by denouncing the speaker of the gathering as an advocate of family disintegration. As they used loudspeakers, the local government found it difficult to hold the gathering and cancelled it. Later, another city was also attacked for planning a similar gathering. In this case, the mayor determined to organize it, paying no attention to the complaint. This difference lies in whether the head of the local government has a determination to face those right-wing attacks.

Table 5: Status of local governments which have enacted local ordinances and/or formulated plans of action for gender equality as of April 1, 2008 No. of local gov’ts which No. of local gov’ts which Types of local Total no. of formulated plan of actions have enacted local ordinances governments local gov’ts for gender equality for gender equality 1,034 397 Total 1,811 (57.1%) (21.9%) 713 322 Cities 806 (88.5%) (40.0%) 321 75 Village and towns 1,005 (31.9%) (7.5%) Prepared and translated data from http://www.gender.go.jp/research/suishinjokyo/suisin-index.html

2) Compilation and disseminating gender-disaggregated data and information for planning and evaluation: The Gender Equality Bureau has promoted gender-disaggregated data. A bimonthly journal issued by the Bureau carried 12 series of articles on gender statistics in various areas from 2006 to 2007. Topics of those articles ranged from salary to child care leaves, fertility rates, community activities such as volunteer activities, rural women, and a time budget for couples. However, the Bureau has not undertaken any significant programs and activities to evaluate women’s unpaid work since 2001. Nonetheless, the term “unpaid work” has been deleted from the second Basic Plan for Gender Equality according to the strong direction from a working group of the ruling party.

4. Future tasks for women NGOs to improve national machinery for the advancement of women There is a huge amount of work to be done by women NGOs to improve institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women in Japan, whose Gender Gap Index ranked 98th out of 130 countries in 2008. Below are the most urgent issues which women NGOs should undertake and immediately lobby the government for. We hope that the DPJ’s landslide victory at the 8/30 election in 2009 may help women NGOs undertake these tasks.

1) Taking effective actions to promote gender mainstreaming including gender budget There has been no comprehensive research that examines whether dwindling of the budget is reasonably offset by the setback in the movement toward gender equality and the empowerment of women. We, women NGOs, should verify the argument and simultaneously take action calling for appropriate budget allocation. Taking a close look at local governments’ budgets, a positive correlation would emerge between budgets for gender equality and the women’s movements taking place in the communities on a daily and continuous basis. Women NGO members have a mission to embark on the execution of gender budgeting, including looking for innovative sources of revenue that are rooted in the community. We, members of NGOs, have to start to explore how to put forward effective gender budgeting in, or more precisely, throughout Japan, keeping linkage with members of the Parliament and local assemblies in mind; this should entail increased efforts on our part.

2) Reviewing current laws and regulations from a gender perspective to revise laws As CEDAW5 urged the Japanese government to amend the Civil Code to set a minimum age for marriage at 18 for both men and women, and to abolish a six-month waiting period required for women to remarry, among others. Furthermore, the Committee requested the government to provide, within two years, detailed written information on the implementation of the recommendations on the revision of the Civil Code as well as special measures to promote gender equality. Special measures stipulated in the Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society have not been implemented in the areas of women’s political participation and employment. NGOs should work to prepare draft laws/regulations for the special measures to promote women’s participation in decision making including politics and employment. Also, NGOs should be active in revising gender discriminatory laws, including local ordinances and regulations.

3) Reflecting the opinions/comments of women NGOs in the contents of the third Basic Plan for Gender Equality In December 2008, the Specialist Committee on Basic Issues under the Council for Gender Equality had its first meeting to launch drafting of the Third Basic Plan. With a view to formulate the Third Basic Plan in fiscal 2010, the Government started to review the implementation of the Second Basic Plan at each ministry in April 2009. The Gender Equality Bureau will request public comments in fiscal 2010. NGOs should start to lobby those Ministries as well as the Gender Equality Bureau (GEB) during the review of activities of each ministry as early as in 2009 and continue to do so in 2010. We hope that the DPJ’s landslide victory could enable us to conduct successful lobbying of Parliamentarians and the government.

5 CEDAW/C/JPN/CO/6 Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, para. 18 56

I. Human Rights of Women Mikiko Otani (Attorney at Law)

1. Legislation In the past five years or so, there have been many progresses in the Japanese legislation for the protection of women’s human rights in such areas as domestic violence, prohibition of indirect discrimination at workplaces, support for crime victims, participation of crime victims in criminal proceedings, criminalization of trafficking in persons (crime of sales of persons) and distribution of entitlements of pensions upon divorce. However, further efforts are required to eradicate discrimination against women and strengthen the protection of women’s human rights. As the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) strongly recommended to the Japanese government as a priority for the follow-up to its Concluding Observations adopted in August 2009, the amendment of the still existing discriminatory laws against women in the Civil Code and in the Family Registration Law is a matter of urgent concern.1 Children born out of wedlock are clearly discriminated in inheritance in the Civil Code and in the family registry system where such status as children born out of wedlock and their mothers should explicitly appear in the family registry. Public criticism and discrimination against unmarried mothers and their children are institutionalized in the Japanese legislation, which has in turn encouraged prejudice against them in society. Moreover, the discriminatory provisions in the Civil Code still remain despite the recommendations by the Legislative Council, an advisory panel to the Justice Ministry over a decade ago and by the Committee in its 2003 Concluding Observations. The existence of discriminatory provisions in such basic national law as the Civil Code is symbolic of Japan’s tolerance towards discrimination against women. Therefore the revision is urgently required on the three issues: equalization of the minimum age for marriage at 18 for both women and men by raising the current lower age of 16 only for women; abolishment of the six-month waiting period required only for women before remarriage; and introduction of the system for the choice of surnames for married couples. Discriminatory provisions against women also exist in other laws. The Penal Code punishes a woman who causes her own abortion2 and the Maternal Protection Law requires a woman who seeks an abortion to obtain the authorization of her male partner. Both are discriminatory provisions against women and should be immediately abolished. Furthermore Article 56 of the Income Tax Law does not recognize the value of labor of the family members who work for a self-employed person as the tax deductable expenses of the business owners. As a result, women constituting 80% of the family employees are subjected to various disadvantages as they are considered to have no income. This provision resulting in discrimination against women should be abolished.

1 CEDAW/C/JPN/CO/6, paras.18 and 59 18. The Committee urges the State party to take immediate action to amend the Civil Code with a view to setting the minimum age for marriage at 18 for both women and men, abolishing the six-month waiting period required for women but not men before remarriage and adopting a system to allow for the choice of surnames for married couples. It further urges the State party to repeal the discriminatory provisions in the Civil Code and in the Family Registration Law that discriminate against children born out of marriage and their mothers. The Committee points out that the obligations undertaken under the Convention by the State party upon ratification should not be solely dependent on the results of public opinion surveys, but on its obligations to align national laws in line with the provisions of the Convention as it is a part of its national legal system. 59. The Committee requests the State party to provide, within two years, detailed written information on the implementation of the recommendations contained in paragraphs 18 and 28 above. 2 Article 212 (Abortion) When a pregnant woman causes her own abortion by drugs or any other means, imprisonment with work for not more than 1 year shall be imposed. 57

Areas where further legislative measures are required to strengthen the protection of women’s rights include trafficking in persons. The Japanese government drew up the Action Plan of Measures to Combat Trafficking in Persons3 in 2004 and has implemented various measures contained in this Action Plan. However, Japan has yet to ratify the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. One of the concerns, however, is the unified definition of trafficking in persons in the national legislation. To resolve this problem, enactment of a comprehensive law to provide support and protection for the victims of trafficking in persons is called for. Legislation itself is not sufficient for the protection of women’s human rights but its enforcement is critical. In this regard, the recently reported geographical disparity in issuance of Protection Orders under the Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims (Art. 10) is a matter of concern.4

2. Judicial Remedies and Access to Justice 2-1 The Comprehensive Legal Support Act For the full enjoyment of women’s human rights, the government should ensure that women have access to justice without barriers and for that purpose the effective legal aid system is needed. The Comprehensive Legal Support Act (hereinafter referred to as “Act”) was enacted in 2004 with the purpose “to contribute to the formation of a freer and fairer society by providing not only the basic principles, the responsibilities of the national and local governments and other basic matters, but also the organization and operation of the Japan Legal Support Center5 which is the core body of comprehensive support, with respect to the implementation and the establishment of systems of comprehensive legal support to further facilitate the use of judicial decisions and other systems for the settlement of disputes based on laws, and to make it easier to receive support from attorneys at law and legal professional corporations, as well as judicial scriveners and other related legal experts and specialists” (Art. 1). The Act provides the legal aid for those who are not financially capable of paying the necessary expenses incurred in preparation and performance to exercise their own rights in civil judicial decision proceedings, etc. or who may experience serious financial difficulties if such expenses were to be paid by themselves (Art.30 (ii)). Some progresses can be found with regard to the access to justice for women. First, “Call Center” of the Japan Legal Support Center improved access to its services by widely advertising the one phone number accessible from everywhere across Japan. Second, the new Act extended legal aid support for the crime victims including women victims of sexual and other forms of violence who want to use the systems for participation of victims in criminal proceedings and recovery of damages and alleviation of the pain of victims and other systems for assistance (Art. 30 (v)). However, there are some deficiencies with the legal aid system under this Act. First, the financial support is not for free but the loan (Art. 30 (ii)). The Japan Legal Support Center will lend the money to those who need legal services but do not have enough financial means to pay the attorney’s fee or other legal costs. The users of the legal aid have to pay back such money to the Japan Legal Support Center by installments during the course of legal services or by lump sum payment at the end of the case from the money paid by the other party as a result of the legal services provided with the legal aid. When the users are receiving the government financial support (public assistance) or in the similar indigent conditions their debt may be partly or totally waived by the decision of the Japan Legal Support Center after the case is over. However, women who do not have income or have limited

3 http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/i_crime/people/index_a.html 4 Asahi Newspaper, 27 July 2009 5 http://www.houterasu.or.jp/content/e0425.pdf 58

income working in part time or other forms of non-regular employment are concerned about the debt incurred by using the legal aid and often hesitate to use the attorney’s legal service with the legal aid. Second, undocumented migrant women are excluded from the legal aid service with the government budget under the Act. Article 30 provides the scope of business of the Japan Legal Support Center, and the eligibility of the assistance is limited only to “such citizens or foreign nationals lawfully residing in this country” (Art. 30 (ii)). To fill this gap, the fund of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations is provided through the Japan Legal Support Center as the “entrusted business” to those undocumented migrants who are not covered by the government funded legal aid service under the Act. These problems hinder women from using the justice system and should be resolved.

2-2 Underrepresentation of Women and Gender Bias in the Judiciary Another impediment to women's full enjoyment of equal rights in Japan is a lack of awareness about women’s rights or gender bias in the justice system. Women attorneys and judges have increased both in number and ratio in the last fifteen years. The ratio of women for both professions roughly doubled. As of 2008. the ratio of women in the total number of attorneys at law and judges are 14.4% (3,599 out of 25,041 in number) and 15.4% (537 out of 3,491 in number), respectively.6 However, both ratios have yet to reach even 20%. This persisting underrepresentation of women in the justice system has continued even after the rapid increase of the population of the legal profession under the newly introduced law school system enacted in 20047. This has been contributing to the problems not only in terms of women’s access to justice due to their preference for retaining women attorneys but also in terms of lack of proper understanding of the women’s rights in the judicial proceedings, where women’s experiences of prejudice or further victimization are not uncommon.

2-3 Protection of Privacy of Victims of Sexual Crimes under the Saiban-in (Lay Judge) System The new Saiban-in system started its operation on 21 May 2009. Under this system, lay persons randomly selected from the general public participate in the trials for most serious crimes. They will determine together with the professional judges whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty and determine the sentence if the defendant is found guilty. The purpose of this system is to involve the general public in the justice system. As the crimes to which the Saiban-in system is applied include sexual crimes, there is an increasing concern for the inadequate protection of the privacy of women victims of sexual crimes.

3. Institutional Frameworks: National Human Rights Institute and Optional Protocol to CEDAW For the effective protection of women’s human rights, the national human rights institutes established in compliance with the Paris Principles play critically important roles. They can provide remedies to human rights violations in addition to the judicial remedies. Their expected roles also

6 http://www.nichibenren.or.jp/ja/publication/books/data/hakusyo_tokusyu1_000.pdf 7 Following the reform of the legal training system based on the recommendations of the Judicial System Reform Council in FY2001, the Law School system started in 2004 and the first new National Bar Examination was implemented in 2006. Since then, the new training of legal apprentices has been conducted for those who have passed the new examinations. Along with the further advancement in the elimination and relaxation of national regulations and the changes in socio-economic circumstances at home and abroad, the law and the judiciary are expected to play a more important role in creating a society with more freedom and fairness. In light of such a situation, the reform was carried out with the objective of developing a number of legal professions equipped with advanced legal expertise, a wide-ranging education, a global perspective, a well-rounded character and professional ethics, who are capable of meeting a variety of requests from the public. (Note by the Japanese Supreme Court) (http://www.courts.go.jp/english/institute/institute.html) 59

include providing human rights education and making policy recommendations. In Japan, the Human Rights Protection Bill to establish a Human Rights Commission was introduced into the Diet in 2002. However, this Bill had a number of problems and one of the most serious flaws about the proposed Human Rights Commission was the lack of independence from the government. The Bill was to place the Human Rights Commission under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice, which is a governmental agency that has been involved in serious human rights problems in the areas of detention and correction systems or immigration control and refugee issues. Due to the strong objection from civil society groups, the Bill failed to be adopted in the Diet. There has been no progress since then toward the establishment of a national human rights institution in Japan. Another institutional framework necessary to enhance the protection of women’s human rights at the international level is the individual communication procedures under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Such individual communication procedures exist also under other international human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, both of which contribute to the advancement of protection of women’s human rights. However, Japan has not accepted any of those individual communication procedures, for the reason of concerns about their possible conflicts with the independence of the judiciary, which has been considered by scholars and other civil society actors as an unreasonable and unfounded excuse for the long inaction toward acceptance of those procedures. In September 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in coalition with other two parties formed a new cabinet under the new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Since two of the coalition ruling parties, namely the DPJ and the Social Democratic Party, acceptance of individual communication procedures in their parties’ pledge and the new Minister of Justice of the DPJ, Keiko Chiba (lawyer by training (female)), publicly announced that the establishment of a national human rights institute and the acceptance of the individual communication procedures are among the top three priorities, the expectation for the realization of these two long outstanding objectives has been increased.

J. Women and the Media

Yasuko K. Muramatsu with Yoko Kunihiro, Rika Tanioka, Satoko Matsuura, Reiko Aoki, Miiko Kodama, Akiko Sugawa, Miho Takeshita, Kaori Hayashi (Gender and Communication Network), Keiko Ikeda (Our Planet TV) and Toshiko Miyazaki (Forum for Citizen’s Television and Media)

1. Little Change in Women’s Stereotypical Images in the Mass Media While free papers for young generations based on advertisement income without journalistic or critical viewpoints increase, a number of monthly journals and magazines have ceased publication one after another. Magazines for young women still cover the same contents such as fashion, diet and how to get attention of men. Male fashion magazines feature how to "get" girls. It is difficult to find any positive changes in printed media. The economic crisis which has hit hard the TV media overall lowered the quality of programs and commercials. The production of programs is usually outsourced to subcontractors which are forced to work with a lower budget and worse working situations. Contents producing sections where many women dream to work for, demand severer working environments except a small number of the privileged. Work-and-life-balanced life is still a long way to go for media workers and even their real situations are yet to be researched accurately. In TV drama production women scenario writers and directors are outstanding, and in their stories female detectives, doctors, lawyers, and prosecutors play main roles. On the other hand, more and more quiz and variety shows exaggerate the negative images of women and insult young female announcers who have poor knowledge or cooking skills. All women in the shows are slim, fashionable and “kawaii” (cute), and they are all in the same style, if not, they are viewed as targets of plastic surgery or as objects to be “cured”. While the radio demonstrates its substantial power in time of natural disasters, it has gradually lost its know-how about creative programs due to a continuous decrease in commercial income and the lower cost of program production. TV dramas depicting themes such as GID (gender identity disorder) and DV contributed to increasing public attention and raising the awareness of audiences. F to M transgendered people and gays are increasingly seen in variety shows, but female transgendered people scarcely appear in those shows. In the face of criticisms a variety show program featuring a female fortuneteller giving advice based on the traditional gender roles lasted for many years. Each broadcasting station has its own compliance section but poorly recognizes its social responsibility with regard to gender equality. Even though it is necessary for us to seek a better system to evaluate the quality of TV programs other than audience rating, such research may be discouraged because of the economic recessions. BPO (Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization) receives a great number of complaints on the lowered quality of TV programs, with the number of men twice that of women. It needs further research on whether this difference could be explained by either information gaps or media literacy gaps between men and women. The government announced the total digitalization of TV would be completed in the summer of the year 2011. This may further widen the information gap among the poor and the elderly. The government should fulfill its responsibility in promoting digitalization in broadcasting.

2. Little Progress in the Number and Working Conditions of Women in the Mass Media According to a 2008 survey by the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association, there are only 6,852 women (13.6%) among 50,042 total staff of all 102 newspaper companies and news agencies which belong to the Association. Out of the total staff, there are 21,093 journalists, of which 3,108 are women (14.7%). A 4.5% increase rate in the last ten years is as small as before, but among newly employed journalists, women account for 30%, which show that the ratio of women is slowly increasing in number. A survey in 2007 by the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan (NAB) reveals that 5,193 (21.1%) are women among 24,631 employees in 200 companies. In 1997, more than half of women staff were under 29 years old, but lately women staff in their 30's represent half of all staff. 1,069 women are in chief positions (only 10.5% of all chiefs), nearly double the figure a decade ago (598). About 30% of newly recruited employees in commercial broadcasters, as in newspaper companies, are now women. In 2005, the first women CEO was nominated in a key TV station company. The NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), the only public broadcaster in Japan is still low in the number of women employees, compared to commercial broadcasters. Lately it has introduced positive actions and according to these, 45% of new recruits are women. In 2005 the first woman vice president was nominated but in 2009 all CEOs are men (eleven members). These statistics and situations cover only full-time workers and therefore do not show the situation of women in the mass media at all. The recent economic recessions and Internet popularization have affected the mass media dramatically. A decrease in commercial income has reduced the net income of commercial broadcasting companies. The companies are trying hard to cut costs by lowering their production cost. TV program producing processes tends to be outsourced as a whole to small production companies or human resource companies, and the main TV stations only hold the rights of the production and total management. Women tend to be employed in smaller production companies rather than main TV stations so that gender equality is promoted to a greater degree in smaller companies. But in most cases the working conditions of these companies are worse than those of broadcasting stations, such as long overtime working hours and unstable status of work. Full-time workers, contract workers and other workers in various working conditions are involved in creating one TV program. Among those, women workers tend to be in the worst and poorest working status. Thus, equal pay for equal work has not been achieved at all. NHK also has to deal with cost reduction, as it plans to reduce its viewing fee by 10 percent by the year 2012. That income reduction has to be managed by cost cuts of the workers. The job status of announcers is where gender imbalance is particularly outstanding. In Japan, young female announcers are treated as an icon of TV entertainment programs and this trend has not changed at all. In local TV men are employed as full-time workers and women as contract workers with a shorter term of years. This tendency is detrimental to the know-how training and education system in TV stations.

3. Vivacious Alternative Media by Women in Local Communities Women are actively seen in various media activities of NGO/NPOs, especially in Internet media activities as well as in the local community activities with the help of rapid progress of Internet technologies. In 2004, the Internet TV station called "Our Planet TV" was started by women who were formerly producers at TV stations. Women staff members support visual productions and their programs are broadcasted by Internet broadcasting. In 2009, WAN (Women's Action Network), the web

portal-site providing information and economic activities of/for/by women began. The Internet radio station “Radio PURPLE” is also run by a women shelter for DV survivors, to eradicate violence against women. The “Com Rights," an NGO run mainly by women, acts for lively discussions for establishing a new communication and broadcasting system. These alternative media activists gather every year to hold a meeting. In 2009, the citizens’ alternative media festival was held in Tokyo and the topic such as the use of mobile phones as a lifeline for single mothers and DV survivors was discussed as one of the topics on "Gender and the Media". An NGO called "Co-Co-Room" in Osaka has started a center named "Com'on Media Center" to support creative activities of "non-full time" young and middle aged part time workers. An NGO café called "Cafe TE-Le-Le" regularly shows self produced short movies. These various grassroots media actions, that are mainly produced and managed by women, contribute to empowering marginalized people, those who otherwise have been outcasted in the society, to speak out. The problem is that these activities do not have access to the mass media because the public access as basic human rights is yet to be guaranteed. Most of the staffs, activists, and/or participants are volunteer workers and they do not receive enough salary. Even in some NGOs/NPOs that receive rich funds, representatives earn less than a half of what they have been paid in a big broadcasting station. Furthermore, these full timer staff choose offers with highly paid jobs instead of highly creative ones in order to share their income with other staff members. The community radio broadcasting systems systemized in 1992 have been chaired and run by many women in many places, such as OOSUMI community radio and FM KUSATSU. These radio stations support ethnic minority women who marry to a Japanese or live as oversea workers. AMARC (World Association for Radio Community) Japan Association is a gender sensitive organization. However, because many community radio companies have connections with local business people or local governments, some radio stations have difficulties in doing non-profit activities. A woman chairperson of a community radio was dismissed for the reason that her social activity through the radio was disadvantageous to the company’s business. While “AC JAPAN” (Japan Advertising Council) is known as an organization that creates public advertising which appeals to the public concerning social problems, its 71 CEOs are all male. It is problematic that influential advertising is produced by such an institution.

4. Current Problems of ICT The use of ICT as a tool in the development of the women’s movement in Japan can be traced to the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, where the Internet and mailing lists exerted a significant impact through their role in transmitting information in real-time to Japanese audiences. Women’s groups have created their own websites, individuals disseminate information via personal blogs, and mailing lists are increasingly used to exchange information. In addition, ICT is an important means to create jobs for women, including women who seek re-employment after raising children, as well as for women engaged in agriculture and fisheries industries with an eye toward inter-regional product sales. In January 2001, the government of Japan published its e-Japan Strategy in which it set out to “make Japan the world’s most advanced IT nation.” By 2008, its IT New Reform Strategy had succeeded in achieving progress toward the establishment of a broadband user environment, while also positioning Japan as a world leader in the area of mobile Internet communication. Meanwhile, the percentage of Internet users in Japan has climbed from 45.5% in 2004 to 75% in 2008. Similar remarkable growth has been achieved in mobile phone usage, where the percentage of users has risen to 74.4%. However, whereas more than 90% of Japanese between the ages of 13 and 40 are mobile phone users, the rate among people over 60 years of age is much lower, hinting at clear generational

differences in usage that exist also between genders. Computer usage among low-income households, in particular, is less than 50%. Already, computer skills have become an essential requirement for work. In assisting women in difficult economic situations, such as single mothers and women survivors of domestic violence, to find jobs, the acquisition of such computer skills has become indispensable. Since 2006, The National Council of Women’s Centers has offered computer courses at gender equality centers and domestic violence shelters. It is precisely in responding to these differences in computer skills that the national gender policy should be put to use. Given the need for IT training and support to accommodate varying lifestyles, including the elderly and disabled who face barriers to ICT access, the goal must be to create an information society in which everyone can enjoy a fulfilling life. While ICT education is currently being introduced as a compulsory subject in schools, there is a need for training not only in technical skills, but also in information literacy. Specifically, ICT has become a tool for child pornography and human trafficking, and the number of dating sites is also increasing year by year in Japan. Training and PR activities must be deployed to raise gender-sensitive social awareness about the dangers of communication and about security, as well as about contents on the Internet. The role of women in ICT-related employment currently centers on data entry and other low-income manual and technical work. It is necessary for women to attain higher-level technical skills, to be promoted to management positions with decision-making authority and to expand in the range of types of work they perform in IT industry. There are not many women involved in ICT policies promoted at a national level. The challenge for NGOs has not changed since the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing: to make active use of ICT, to build a global network that influences government policy, and to share information related to gender perspectives and human rights.

5. Child Pornography and Sexual Violence on the Internet Currently, images sexually depicting children are being distributed more than they were in 2004. "The Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and the Protection of Children" (enacted in 1999) bans the production, sales and provision of child pornography. However, because it does not prohibit purchase and possession, it does not hinder its distribution, as a result. The Act does not prohibit resale on the web or by linking to the blogs, which also severely offends the victims who have discovered the images in which they were taken. No official support for the victims has been offered. It is said that child pornography images have made as much as 100 million yen through large communication networks and the world-wide distribution via file-sharing software. But due to the illegal trade, the revenue for the profit has not been reported and not even taxed. In a case charged in 2005, 150 people including elementary school pupils who applied for “Models Wanted” ads on the website were called up to a hotel and sexually assaulted, which was videotaped. The film in the form of DVD was sold. It has been allegedly reported that it is still being traded on the Internet. One of the reasons to target young people is that the desired image can be easily obtained without force because they do not have the knowledge of the actions they were involved in. The victims have reported that those who distributed the images of sexual nudity and exposing genitals of children were the victims’ kin such as their fathers and uncles. There is a case that perpetrators through mobile phones pretending as children surged into the Web community for children and shopped around for boys and girls who they liked, trying to contact them to get their profile photos or photos of nudity. In another case, voyeurs secretly photographed inside the skirts of junior high and high school girls from behind by using the camera function of mobile phones, and traded the photos on the Internet. As cases of the sales in large discount stores and online bookstores and DVD shops, “adult

videos” have been sold in shops as well as general merchandise, in which children wearing a swimsuit are forced to make a sexual pose. Animation videos, manga comics and video games, which depict the sexual abuse of children, and copies of the video directly entitled "Child Pornography" have also been sold. At the end of 2008, it was reported that sales of the animated cartoon video game "Rapeplay" was prohibited in Europe, the United States, and Canada because of its content characterized by heinous violence (assault, contempt against females, and abuse against the minors, etc.). In the video game the highest score can be obtained by sexually maltreating the mother and her two daughters (one of whom is a high school student), and getting them pregnant. In response to the voice to request to discontinue its sale and recall it, the sales agency made the sale discontinuance public in Japan in the spring of 2009. However, it has been sold on the Internet. CERO (Computer Entertainment Rating Organization), a self-restraint agency composed of computer game production entrepreneurs etc., has not taken any proactive actions to tackle these situations. The police reported in August that in the first half of the year (from January to June)2009 there were 382 cases of violation against the Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and the Protection of Children, out of which 289 cases were prosecuted and the child victims accounted for 218. Furthermore, out of 382, the number of cases concerning the Internet was 194, which continues to increase after the enactment of the Law in 2000. However, it is thought that this is only the tip of the iceberg. In Japan, social criticism concerning regular dealings of "child's sex" as a "commodity" for adults is not necessarily active. Administration of justice cannot make a lucid judgment because the definition of sexual violence in the criminal law is vague, and the victims continue to be exposed to violence. This makes people more or less hesitant in looking straight at the damages of sexual violence. If the illegality of sexual violence is explicitly defined by clarifying the situations whether victims are under absolute subordination and intense violation, or whether there exists an outrageous human-right violation, it is thought that there is a possibility that the social tendency to eliminate depictions of sexual violence will arise.

6. Significant Decision of the Supreme Court Against VAWW-NET-Japan VAWW-NET-Japan, or Violence Against Women in War Network, organized a Tribunal in December, 2000. The tribunal, including participation of international legal experts and former comfort women (sexual slaves), accused nine defendant the former Japanese Military Systems, including Emperor Hirohito. An NHK’s subsidiary production company approached VAWW-NET to cover the tribunal. During the process of the covering and editing, conservative politicians, Shinzo Abe, who later became prime minister, and Shoichi Nakagawa, questioned NHK executives as to its contents. Then, the executives forced the production team to carry out more intentional edit against their will. In the end, the documentary did not contain any mention concerning the conviction of Emperor Hirohito for war crimes but did include the negative comments of the tribunal by a right-wing scholar. VAWW-NET sued NHK and two subsidiaries for having violated their right of expectation and not fulfilling their obligation to explain. In 2004, Tokyo District Court made a judgment that a subsidiary company was guilty but NHK was not charged. Tokyo High Court ruled, in 2007, as a vindication for VAWW-NET and a rebuke to NHK after the producers’ testimony at the risk of their employment. The sentence said that NHK abandoned its editing rights by essentially not upholding them from the politicians, who caused the violation of the rights of the suitor. However, the Supreme Court overturned the High Court decision in 2008. The decision neither questioned the responsibility of the politicians nor of the NHK management, but mentioned the general importance

of the autonomy of the editing rights of the media. It is an only hope that BPO, or Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization, supports the VAWW-NET’s statement. In the “Opinion” of April 28, 2009, BPO questioned the facts of NHK executives’ meeting with politicians before airing the concerned program, and distorting it immediately after the meeting. BPO made a claim of ethics against NHK, saying that freedom of expression should be essentially preserved by the autonomy of broadcasters. Nevertheless, the president of NHK only responded “NHK should refrain from any action that causes our audiences to doubt its independence and autonomy as a public broadcaster. No one is asked to explain to the National Diet members prior to broadcast, and neither will this happen in the future”. This incident includes violation of freedom of expression by politicians, of internal freedom by organization executives, and especially, of the right of women who cooperated for and portrayed in the program. These politicians’ ideological background suggests their intention to make men’s sexual violence invisible from the society and their taboo on discussing the Emperor system. They abhor women’s global solidarity fighting against men’s state power, too. Therefore, this incident reveals the intrinsic problem of women and the media in Japan.

7. Media Literacy and the Roles of Citizens In the twenty first century the changes of the media seem to accelerate its steps toward innovation of "Media Society". Especially daily communications among the youth seem to have changed drastically by the diffusion of cellular phones and broadband. The effects of this Information Technology Revolution on "economy" are much emphasized in Japan; however, from the world point of view this Information Communication Technology needs to be recognized also as an important tool to activate mutual human communications among the people around the world. In Japan there is a discussion how the development of the new technology contributes to activate the e-commerce, but it is not so actively discussed on how we can utilize these new technologies wisely to develop a participatory and open communications and discussions among citizens. After September 11, the necessity to accept the plural values has been widely recognized world wide, and we, who live in the media society, need to utilize the media carefully and wisely to widen our views and thoughts, rather than just watch them or consume them passively to spend time. If we look back, it has rarely been discussed how we can continue to share our common views and values each other to live peacefully in the communities or how we can exchange our individual ideas, thoughts and opinions each other in our communities, nationwide and even internationally. The Japanese NPO, FCT (Forum for Citizens' Television and Media) is an organization which advocates the importance of media literacy training in order to make the citizens read media critically and analytically. In its workshops participants watch television news or some segments of dramas, and let the audience discuss on, for example, how the women and men are depicted in some particular ways, and why they were made in that way. It is quite important that the participated citizens talk quite freely with each other from various points of view, such as gender, social status, age or nationalities, and exchange opinions on how they are depicted, so that we can realize what stereotypes the media are offering us or not. Based on such analyses of newspaper articles, television news or dramas, FCT tries to make people to talk about what they noticed and make discussions on how and why the particular person is depicted in a particular way. Through the experience of such discussions on news programs or dramas, etc, the FCT tries to stimulate the citizens to have deeper insights towards what messages are offered by the media, from the gender point of view (if there is gender stereotypes or not) as well as age-stereotypes. Via such workshops the citizens become able to make more analytical and critical reading and come to realize the bias and stereotypes which they unconsciously held over the ages, men, women and jobs, etc.

Lastly it can be said that it is quite important to place gender issues in media literacy analyses, because by analyzing each scene of television programs carefully, we can still find out how differently women and men are treated, depending on their ages and characters in the various programs.

K. Gender and the Environment - Mainstreaming Women's Sensitivity Makes a Difference to the Environment -

Akiko Domoto* (Ex-Governor of Chiba, Japan; Japan's Network for Women and Health (WHJ); Biodiversity Network Japan) Eri Nakajima* (Environmental Policy Bureau, Ministry of the Environment) Yuko Honda* (Chiba Biodiversity Center) Translated by Tom Hamaguchi

By what name will the 21st century be called in future? Many people say it will be the century of the environment. Saved or destroyed, either way the environment would assume "the" decisive role in this century. We need concerted efforts of human beings to turn around the deteriorating state of the environment. We cannot afford the luxury of losing any aspects that may provide support. The gender perspective is one of them.

A Disregarded Perspective: Gender

The term "gender" refers to socially and culturally constructed difference/discrimination between male and female. The gender perspective is brought by women's sensitivity and awareness based on their lives in various roles including mother and consumer. Not a negligible number of environmental issues have been raised through women's sensitivity and awareness.

What is especially important is that women themselves make proposals from their sensitivity and awareness, take action while getting males involved along the way, and turn the wheels of society as a whole. Gender-sensitive policies should be materialized at national and local levels. Issues which may be shared in common globally should be pointed out and agreed on in the international arena. That is to say, we women should not give up the gender perspective halfway. The gender perspective should not be left ambiguous, but should be carried through to the end. We have to mainstream the gender perspective toward the change of social structure in order to achieve sustainable societies.

Gender mainstreaming has become a mutual understanding in pursuing gender issues. The United Nations Social and Economic Council (ECOSOC) in its Agreed Conclusions in 1997 defined the term as follows: "Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality." ECOSOC adopted the resolution "Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective Into All Policies and Programmes in the United Nations System" in 2005.

Going back in time, gender issues have been striving to enter into mainstream in the international setting. In 1985, the 3rd World Conference on Women convened in Nairobi agreed that addressing environmental issues is essential to raising women’s status. In 1992 at the UN Conference on

Environment and Development (Earth Summit), the “Agenda 21” called for urgent measures to avert the ongoing rapid environmental and economic degradation, and clarified the roles of women in decision-making and in the implementation of sustainable development activities in order to achieve desired goals. The adoption of the “Beijing Declaration” and “Beijing Platform for Action” at the 4th World Conference on Women in 1995 renewed international commitment to the empowerment of women. It certainly helped enact the Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society in Japan in 1999. Women's participation in social activities grew to an unprecedented degree. Then, are gender issues "mainstreamed" in environmental policies at the national and regional levels in Japan?

Regrettably, it is hard to answer "Yes" to this question. The reason is twofold. First, the gender-sensitive perspective is not yet reflected in social policies and within the context of society as a whole. Second, governmental policies are claimed to be formulated in a "gender-neutral" way, but in essence are usually based on a masculine model and thus formulated in a "gender-blind" way. In spite of this, women's environmental activities are quite active at the citizen levels. How to assemble and universalize such energy and willingness is the challenge we are facing now. In short, gender issues have been addressed to some extent, but are not yet mainstreamed.

On the other hand, the history and tradition of Japan suggest that her inhabitants lived in harmony with nature, not confronting with it. Women, in particular, through their daily life and experience in pregnancy and child-raising as catalysts, instantaneously get a sense of polluted and impoverished natural environment, acknowledge the importance of nature conservation and then of biodiversity from a "life-nurturing" perspective, and take subsequent actions.

So what we have here in Japan is a mixture of two different aspects: some equilibrium in harmony with nature, and an all-out industrialized society. Below we will present a brief background to these two aspects and some illustrative examples in Japan in the following sections, in the hope they may provide a hint of movement in the context of non-European countries.

SATOYAMA in Transition, and Women's Place in It

Nature has many faces. Some regions are left intact in wilderness. Some natural landscapes receive human interactions to make most of their potential. SATOYAMA has been such an existence in Japan. The term SATO-YAMA is composed of two Chinese characters, SATO (Li) and YAMA (Shan): SATO means 'village', 'home' or rather 'where people live'; and YAMA simply means 'mountain.' The nature in SATOYAMA is composed of managed environments that have been created and maintained within the lifestyles of local people engaged in farming and forestry. SATOYAMA is in the periphery of human habitation, shared among villagers where they went to gather firewood and edible plants. Villagers looked after such shared spaces for their own benefits. But their activities had certain influences on the plants and other components in SATOYAMA, keeping the landscapes productive and sustainable.

Japan had a long history of hunter/gatherer society for over 10,000 years. Rice cropping is said to have continued for a few thousand years. Rice farming villages had a division of labor by gender. Men took major roles ranging from cultivating to harvesting in rice cropping. Women tended to assume other work, including silkworm breeding and weaving. Gathering firewood in SATOYAMA was another example. Historically, nature was depicted as a woman as in "mother nature" and religious faiths often gave feminine character to divinity. But the places for women with flesh and blood were not high in

villages. Women were not included in decision-making process in their villages.

After the Second World War, many SATOYAMAs disappeared in the process of urbanization. In SATOYAMA life, the role-sharing of various activities between men and women was different from that of modern Japan. Women had certain important roles in the setting with SATOYAMA. There was a diversity of tasks in Japanese villages, and women took charge of substantial part of them. But the way of women's lives was transformed into lower-paid or non-paid labor. The division of labor in which "men support the household and women carry out household chores" became the immobilized norm, eventually making Japan "the best student" of industrialized society. "Full-time housewives" became a common existence in Japan. Today women are somehow encouraged to work outside, but they are often forced to retire upon marriage or childbirth. The Japanese social security system presumes a set of "a salaried male worker and his full-time housewife with their children." It blatantly and subtly imposes difficulties in labor and welfare on women's side. Despite the claimed equality, women's social status did not intrinsically change with those in the former SATOYAMA days.

Yet SATOYAMA did not go extinct. There exist many SATOYAMAs in Japan, and a number of groups all over Japan are engaged on keeping up and reviving SATOYAMAs. The sense of SATOYAMA, in which people project their images of sharing of and caring for a common existence, is still living in some form or another.

The sense of SATOYAMA is not limited to land. You may perceive something similar in the seas and coasts of Japan. Fishing is a man's world and men far outnumber women on the seas as fishing people, however, husband-wife fishing teams, occasionally father-daughter fishing teams too, can be found along the coasts of Japan from north to south. Man-woman fishing teams are often the norm in small-scale, low-input artisanal type fishing activities. When considering potentials for sustainable coastal fisheries in Japan, these silent numbers are in fact vital contributors to resource use and management. Yet, these numbers go unnoticed. Even the statistical logs of governments in Japan are testimony to this. There are over 3000 fishing ports along the coastlines of the Japanese Archipelago. No official numbers for fisherwomen who work on the boats that moor at these ports exist.

Women Saved the Day in Kitakyushu

Land, sea ... what about sky? Anti-pollution movements in Japan were initiated by women. Kitakyushu City, one of the four largest industrial zones in Japan with century-old track records mainly in steel industry, had the sky covered not only with black smoke but with “seven-colored smoke.” It was known as the “Symbol of Prosperity.” But it really was the source of suffering for local people with its soot and dust.

It was in 1945, just after WWII, when the local women, the very victims of soot and smoke, stood up saying “We Want Our Blue Skies Back” and started their movement in full swing. At the time, many children suffered from asthma, adults complained of sore eyes and throats, and laundries hung outdoors turned black. Over the period between the 1950s and 1960s, those housewives made up their mind to “find out the actual conditions of pollution.” With support from university researchers they got enough scientific and objective data to convince corporations and governments, and even created an independent film “We Want Our Blue Skies Back” to try to influence public opinion.

Of course, they faced pressure against and interference in their movement. However, those housewives

who were aware of the actual physical harm of air pollution, especially the health hazard to children, endured the hardship. As painstaking field studies continued, husbands, local residents and union members who were originally against the movement started to join in. Eventually local councils and government got involved and the whole activities developed into a local pollution banishment movement. Talks with corporations also started. With 20 years of movement and considerable technological improvement, the pollution was conquered. In consequence, the formerly clouded sky in gray color regained its blueness in Kitakyushu City.

The significance of the citizens' movement in Kitakyushu City and its true value lie in the fact that they have transformed a pollution problem into a social issue, making the movement as an origin of Japan’s anti-pollution movements. In the 1970s, the rapid economic growth in Japan produced an unacceptable level of pollution as typified by Minamata Disease, Yokkaichi Asthma and Itai-itai Disease that triggered pollution litigations and named then-held sessions of the Diet as "Pollution Diet."

In 1990, the Kitakyushu Forum on Asian Women (KFAW)1 was established in Kitakyushu City as a “Hometown Revitalization Project” to improve women’s status and unity in the Asian region. KFAW consistently addresses "women and the environment" issues to date, inheriting the wishes of those women who had led the "We Want Our Blue Skies Back" movement. KFAW organizes a series of international conferences and exchanges views with women from around the world. They are dynamically undertaking international activities toward the conservation of global environment and the empowerment of women. The Japanese Government rarely promotes "gender and development" policies both domestically and internationally. In some cases "gender and development" policies have been carried out by non-profit organizations including KFAW with partial funding from the Government.

The movement for pollution control first started in Kitakyushu had spread throughout Japan. But the undertaking in “gender and the environment” did not. The importance of incorporating the gender-sensitive perspective into every policy was not really acknowledged on a nationwide scale. What is essential is to put forward gender-based suggestions directly to the decision-making bodies. And women themselves should make efforts to participate in the process. Eventually, we want gender-sensitive and inclusive policies to be developed at both national and local levels. This very point is the challenge we face in Japan.

Global Warming Curbed by Women

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its fourth IPCC Assessment Report "Climate Change 2007," has indicated that the human-induced activities are the likely causes of global warming and, at the same time, the climate change from warming would rapidly deteriorate biodiversity and affect human health greatly. According to a report from the World Health Organization (WHO), an annual average of 150 thousand or more people lost their lives during 1970-2000 because of the climate change. The major causes of death and illness include malaria, diarrhea and malnutrition. It is apparent that children and women, pregnant women in particular, are vulnerable to infectious diseases, and the damage limitation and preventive measures from the gender perspective became an issue of urgency. To that end, it is absolutely necessary that those women who may directly suffer should take part in the process of formulating measures and in the place of

1 http://www.kfaw.or.jp/about/index.html.en 71

decision-making both internationally and domestically.

There have been some undertakings to this end, in the world and in Japan. The Kiko (= Climate) Network, supported by individuals, organizations and regional networks from all over Japan, is one of the largest NGOs tackling the climate change issue. Meet Mie Asaoka, a lawyer practicing in Kyoto, Japan. She took the initiative in establishing the Network in order to work for the 3rd Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Kyoto in 1997 to make it a success. She has been involved in pollution litigations including Minamata Disease and gender issues as a lawyer and has been active in lobbying to propose better and stringent national and international climate change policy as the representative of the Kiko Network. She stresses the significance of realizing low carbon society where even children, women and other socially excluded people can enjoy a fruitful lifestyle, based on her experience as a female lawyer who stands by socially vulnerable people.

Formulating a Biodiversity Strategy

As for "mainstreaming" gender issues, Japan has been rather slow to respond, compared with those we have witnessed in the global setting. Though "biodiversity and gender" has been a key international concern, very few pieces of research in the fields of management and use of natural resources in Japan focused attention on gender thus far. Masculine models prioritize economic efficiency over other aspects even in environmental protection. When it comes to the conservation of global biodiversity, such masculine models do not necessarily reflect the reality. What is required are feminine models, which are abundant in "life-nurturing" perspectives through daily lives.

In October 2010, a major meeting for discussing the conservation of biodiversity, The 10th Conference among the Contracting Parties of the Convention on Biodiversity (COP10), will be convened in Aichi, Japan. There will be a motion to propose the importance of SATOYAMA at the occasion as the "SATOYAMA Initiative" from the Government of Japan. It is important to embed a gender-sensitive perspective into biodiversity conservation, by reviewing life and mentality of SATOYAMA for COP10. The agenda for COP10 includes the evaluation of the status of achievement for the 2010 Biodiversity Target, i.e. to substantially reduce the rate of the loss of biodiversity by 2010, and it also includes the discussion of the framework for the next milestone targets. The gender-sensitive perspective should be incorporated into the forthcoming target setting and gender mainstreaming should be addressed throughout all the agendas that would be discussed at the occasion.

Chiba Prefecture (then Governor Akiko Domoto) formulated "The First Prefectural Biodiversity Strategy of Chiba" in March 2008 as a regional strategy to conserve and revitalize biodiversity, the first of its kind in Japan. It was a forward-thinking endeavor in which residents in Chiba Prefecture formed a deliberative body named the "Citizen's Conference on Biodiversity in Chiba" themselves and prepared from scratch a report including a series of recommendations with NPOs’ help. It turned out that the Strategy would focus on global warming and biodiversity in a closely integrated manner and the biodiversity perspective would be incorporated in planning and implementing of every Prefectural policy through the viewpoints of life and livelihood. The role of women was of critical importance in formulating the Strategy.

Women actively took part in formulating the Strategy as chairpersons of sectoral meetings and as members of the Steering Committee: women chaired 12 out of 32 sectoral meetings and filled 2 out of

8 seats of the Steering Committee. An ongoing mailing list has 20 women among 66 registered subscribers, as of April 2009.

These women had a diverse range of backgrounds including city council member, environmental learning advisor, consumer cooperative staff and veterinarian. Their fields of activities also vary as broadly diverse as conserving SATOYAMA, promoting environmental education, addressing food and agricultural issues, and making use of natural environment activities for music and drama.

A housewife from Kisarazu, Chiba, for example, puts an educational activity called "Let Children Inherit Natural Environment" into practice. She attended the Citizen’s Conference meetings with three children with an elementary school pupil as the eldest. Another woman in her 80s has been leading a fight against the destruction of the ecosystem caused by soil disposal and industrial waste.

And there are still many others. For example, Mariko Hamaguchi is engaged in the conservation of indigenous seeds as a "seed saver." Today it seems the self-sufficiency rate of seeds in Japan has fallen below 10%. Traditional varieties of seeds are rapidly being replaced by modern varieties. To find lesser known, subsistence-based precious seeds and inherit them to future generations with the knowledge on seed utilization is the utmost mission of seed savers. That's why she and her friends recommended that activities such as research for discovery of less known seeds through compiling a guidebook on seeds of Chiba crops, releasing of seeds in laboratories to farmers, dietary education that starts from seeds, formation of relevant platforms, and establishment of people's seed banks should be included in the Chiba Biodiversity Strategy.

Minamata: Nature in Human

Women are affected by environmental pollution, especially during the child bearing and nurturing years. Minamata Disease illustrates such an example in the extreme. The international community was filled with horror at the sight of pollution patients from Japan who made their appearances at the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. It was a moment Japan was exposed as a country with serious pollution disputes. Dr. Buichi Ohishi, then Minister for the Environment Agency, delivered a speech with a sense of remorse. "We face serious environmental destruction that represents the negative side of rapid economic growth. It is beginning to harm human minds," he said in his speech.

The "Minamata Disease" which had emerged among residents in the vicinity of the Minamata Gulf of Kumamoto Prefecture produced a very large number of victims with organic mercury poisoning from industrial liquid waste. The most serious case was the "Fetal Minamata Disease." A certain amount of organic mercury was transferred to fetuses via the placentas of mothers, resulting in the occurrence of severe Minamata Disease in their new-born infants. Higher concentration of organic mercury was accumulated in the fetuses than in the bodies of mothers. Mothers did not suffer damages as seriously as their babies. The sentiment that the fetuses suffered on behalf of them tortured those mothers with unbearable sadness.

The mother-to-child transfer of chemical pollution continues in a variety of forms even today. Breast milk, for example, is said to be polluted itself from all kinds of chemicals. The causal link between environmental pollution and breast cancer is also being indicated. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan released a recommendation of seafood intake in 2003. The government encouraged

pregnant women to abstain from taking large fish including swordfish, alfonsino, sharks and whales. The Web site of the Ministry shows a rough indication of breeds and intake levels of fishery products of which pregnant women should be aware of in "Advice for Pregnant Women on Fish Consumption concerning Mercury Contamination."

It's no mistake that we are currently in the environmental crisis at a global scale. In fact, soil, groundwater and air pollution are threatening our livelihood differently than before. Notably in Asia, air pollution by mercury is becoming an issue in recent years. Improper mercury processing and discharge in factories and other facilities is not only contaminating fish and shellfish, but also bringing cross-border pollution with the contaminated air. International academic societies have pointed out that a long-term intake of mercury, even with a minute amount of it, can damage nerve tissues, affect fetuses with higher receptivity to mercury, cause children's developmental impairments and learning disorders including memory dysfunctions, and give harmful effects to nerve tissues and hearts even for adults. It has become a serious international issue. It is a gender-sensitive issue which women should speak out against and stir public opinion from the gender point of view. The global environmental problem is an issue for the whole humankind which needs to be addressed, agreed upon and resolved both internationally and domestically.

In Japan, unmanned/radio-controlled helicopters are occasionally used for aerial spraying of pesticide over farm plots. It causes genuine concern about the adverse effects of sprayed organophosphate pesticide. The consequence of health hazard by low-concentrated organophosphorus, as in symptoms such as allergies, differs depending on the human body's receptivity to foreign/chemical substances. Some scientists indicate that infants and toddlers may suffer brain dysfunction through repetitive inhaling of organophosphorus in the air. The chances of such inhaling are quite high for the children commuting to and from schools. The troublesome reality is that we are yet to establish the causal relationship between organophosphorus and the effects on nerve tissues of children in their growth. However, the aerial spraying of pesticide has been already banned in the European Union (EU). From the gender-sensitive perspective, the aerial spraying of pesticide with a potential health hazard should be banned, and many women are running campaigns against it in Japan.

Businesswomen in Green

Previously the number of businesswomen was comparatively small, so their appearances were not frequent in the environmental movements. But it is changing. An example was seen in a series of meetings which were held under the title of “The Environmental Businesswomen’s Meetings on a Virtuous Cycle for the Environment and Economy in Japan.”2 During the first Round of the Meetings in 2004, a number of female entrepreneurs who had founded their own eco-businesses discussed a variety of topics including the processes, issues and possibilities of businesses in the environment-related fields, and made relevant recommendations. In 2005 the second Round of the Meetings were convened with new members. Then in April 2007 several members of the first and second Round meetings established an association called Environmental Business Women (EBW) for networking businesswomen, supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs and disseminating information. They are hosting a contest named "eco japan cup"3 for unearthing and growing seeds of green business as a follow-up to the environmental entrepreneur-training event "Environmental Dynamite! 2005" held on the occasion of the EXPO 2005 AICHI JAPAN. EBW aims to firmly

2 http://www.env.go.jp/en/policy/biz_women/index.html 3 http://www.eco-japan-cup.com/english/ 74

establish a positive feedback cycle between the environment and the economy, while expanding the network of female entrepreneurs in the environmental business.

Creating a virtuous cycle of the environment and the economy is essential for turning Japan into a country that is truly beautiful and comfortable. Involving the people who are sensitive to environment and living in economic and social activities, let the improved environment boost the economy, and in turn let the stimulated economy improve the state of the environment. Such a virtuous cycle is definitely required for better tomorrow. Indeed, Japan had successfully responded to the first and second oil shocks in the 1970s. But the success is mainly in the energy-saving technologies to which men tend to attach too much importance. There is still plenty of room to improve how energy and natural resources could be used more efficiently and effectively, with a feminine touch in business.

Women and Sustainable Communities

To solve environmental issues by following instructions from the central government is not quite effective. From garbage disposal to waste recycling to natural environment conservation, many women who were sensitive to family, local and health issues launched a number of movements themselves prompted by their consciousness as the involved parties. A number of activities including the "Sekken (soap)" movements and the after-mentioned Nanohana Projects have spread all over Japan thus far, but their motives and contents are not the same. What they have in common are: self-reliance of the community, sound material-cycle society, formation of a sustainable community, and the respective participants' autonomy. They are unique in their own way—not top-down but bottom-up, not uniformed but diversified, and of course not centrally-led but community-led. Their activities would deepen the ties among local people and revitalize communities. What we can get a sense of here is the gender-flavored community building.

Let us have a look at the Nanohana Projects. Ayako Fujii has been involved in environmental preservation activities for more than 30 years. She devotes herself to spreading the soap made from used oil as a substitute of synthetic detergent, as well as septic tanks, in order to prevent water pollution of Lake Biwa. She has unrolled a project to produce bio-diesel fuel by growing rapeseed in the abandoned field with local participants and by collecting used oil from factories and households as the "Nanohana (Rapeseed Blossom) Projects." The approach of her projects closely relates to our daily lifestyle, so that ordinary housewives can easily respond and take part in. The Nanohana Projects are now spread not only throughout Japan but also among other Asian countries.

Kazuko Sato is a head of directors of the Soft Energy Projects. She has been promoting installation of community-owned renewable energy facilities and providing local communities with practical environmental education using hands-on instruments such as solar cookers to demonstrate how to save energy. She works to promote solar cookers in Japan. In its project in 2009, her organization planted 250 trees in an African village suffering from severe deforestation and conducted a feasibility study on using solar cookers there.

In the 1970s, many women started co-operative society projects in which they purchase together everyday products from producers at a fair price. Since they need safe and healthy products for their families, their projects sought environmentally friendly products such as foods without artificial additives, products made from paper instead of plastics, and bottles which can be reused. A number of "workers’ collectives" have been also established by women, through which they produce products

and services by themselves for a better community and lifestyle.

WE21 Japan (Women's Empowerment 21 Japan)4 runs recycle shops selling clothes and general goods donated by local citizens in Kanagawa Prefecture next to Tokyo. These shops are operated by women in a form of workers' collective and part of their profits is donated for women’s activities in Asia. Annually WE21 Japan’s projects attract 550,000 participants and bring in 300 million yen of economic value. In the history of co-operative society projects, many women have taken their initiatives to change and improve their lifestyles and communities.

Women have been taking the lead in exploring new areas for environmental communications. Miyako Maekita, for example, founded "SUSTENA" (named after "sustainable")5 as an advertising media creative agency for environmental NGOs in 2002. She contributes herself to increasing the population of environmentally-conscious people through organizing and spreading an event named "Candle Night" inspired by the Voluntary Blackout movement in Canada.

Challenges for the Future

The 20th century was the century of development. If you cast light from the environmental and gender perspectives on the systems that have been imbued with the economic-centric values and rushing forward with masculine principles, you will see serious problems emerging such as degrading quality of life and threatened subsistence. There are women, the mothers in child-rearing among others, who suffer from increasing poverty and economic disparity in developing countries, as well as food shortage and health hazard caused by air and water pollution.

Biodiversity is vanishing at an alarming speed, in the context of advancing global warming. We know polar bears are suffering from the loss of sea ice. But they are not alone; a great deal of animals, plants, insects and other living creatures have gone extinct or are on the verge of extinction. Natural resources are also being depleted. We face a global crisis of the environment from various sectors, and because of mutual dependence between nature and human beings, human beings are affected in their livelihood in the respective regions. The yields in agriculture, fishery and forestry are obviously affected too. We also notice that the disruption of natural balances may cause reduced natural resources.

Are we able to solve such conditions politically, technologically or economically? The global society is ailing to a degree individual and short-term symptomatic treatments could not provide cure. What we need right now is to change values from economic-centric ones to life-centric ones, and to transform social structure in accordance with the refined values. Gender is not a feminine principle that should conflict with masculine models, but is an indispensable aspect that goes hand-in-hand with masculine principles for nurturing fair and sustainable societies. It is another piece of ideology built on the solid foundation of diversity. Mainstreaming the gender perspective amounts to establishing a new "paradigm" to realize and actualize a sustainable global community in the 21st century. It would be a paradigm shift from the 20th century to the 21st century. As mentioned earlier, the gender perspective may be one of the aspects we cannot afford the luxury of losing for the environment. Rather, we have the conviction that the gender-sensitive perspective will play the tipping-point role in turning around the deteriorating state of the environment in the years to come.

4 http://www.we21japan.org/English/ 5 http://www.sustena.org/english/ 76

Japan has achieved a rapid economic growth in the past. And, the values from masculine models, with which stronger economy and increased production through innovation are sought after, still dominate the mainstream in Japan to date. However, the world is being headed to a paradigm shift along with the gender-sensitive perspective. We women who live, work and take action in Japan would like to share the awareness of "gender and the environment" and "gender mainstreaming" with the women and men all over the world, especially those in Asian and Pacific countries. May this message from Japan be conveyed to you.

------*We would like to thank contributors who helped us by providing valuable pieces of information through the course of writing this document, including Naoto Anzai (GOOD NEWS Japan), Ayako Fujii (Nanohana Project Network), Mariko Hamaguchi (CSO Peace Seed), Tomoko Hoshino (Environment Partnership Council/Global Environment Information Centre), Michikazu Iseri (Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun), Yaeko Itai (Kusunoki Clinic), Kunihisa Kozawa (Gunma Prefectural Institute of Public Health and Environmental Sciences), Anne McDonald (United Nations University Institute of Advance Studies Operating Unit Ishikawa/Kanazawa), Yoshiko Misumi (Kitakyushu Forum on Asian Women), and Toshihiko Nakamura (Natural History Museum and Institute, Chiba).

L. The Girl-child: Obstacles and Challenges

Masako Tanaka (JAWW) Mariko Asano (JAWW)

Introduction The priority theme of CSW 51 in 2007 was “Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination and Violence Against the Girl-Child.” JAWW prepared an NGO report on this priority theme and published a book entitled Joji nitaisuru Sabetsu to Boryoku: Jittai to Teppai nimuketa Torikumi (Violence and Discrimination Against the Girl-Child: Facts and Efforts toward its Eradication) (in Japanese)1 in 2007. The situations reported here are based on the data collected for the publication of this book.

1. No National Plan of Action for the Girl-Child The Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality by the National Government in 2005 interprets the girl-child to be included in the category of women. Therefore, there is no National Plan of Action specifically for the girl-child. As a result, statistical data describing the situation of the girl-child have not fully been compiled. At a meeting of the Government with NGOs held shortly after CSW 51, NGOs pointed out the necessity to compile statistics specifically for the girl-child categorized by their age in order to make the situation of the girl-child visible. The gender statistics by age for the girl-child should be established. Figure 1: Number of cases of child prostitution/pornography

2. Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination 2000 and Violence against the Girl-Child 1500

2-1 Child prostitution and child pornography 1000 st At the 1 World Congress against Commercial 500 Sexual Exploitation of Children (now called World 0 Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 and Adolescents) held in Stockholm in 1996, Japan child prostitution child pornography was criticized by name. This criticism drove female lawmakers in Japan into formulating a law Figure 2: Number of perpetrators of child prostitution/pornography against sexual exploitation of children with a 1400 support of a cross-party group of lawmakers of 1200 men and women.2 A decade has passed since the 1000 800 enforcement of the Act on Punishment of Activities 600 400 Relating to Child Prostitution and Child 200 3 Pornography, and the Protection of Children in 0 November 1999.4 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 child prostitution child pornography

1 Fusano, Kay and Tanaka Masako (2007) Joji nitaisuru Sabetsu to Boryoku: Jittai to Teppai nimuketa Torikumi (Violence and Discrimination Against the Girl-Child: Facts and Efforts toward its Eradication), Akashi Shoten 2 Moriyama, Mayumi and Seiko Noda (2005) Yokuwakaru Kaisei Jidokaishun/Jido Poruno Kinshi ho (A Guide to the Revised Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and the Protection of Children), Gyosei (in Japanese) 3 http://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/law/detail_main?id=100&vm=&re= 4 Interview to ruling and opposition parties – Ms. Kaori Marutani vs Keiko Chiba, JOSEI-TENBO, No. 614: p.6-13, 2009. 78

In the past 9 years, child prostitution represents a somewhat decreasing trend in the number of both violations of the act and perpetrators after reaching Figure 3: Number of victims under age its peak in 2002 although it saw a slight increase in 2006. 18 of child prostitution/pornography In contrast, child pornography has quadrupled in the 2000 number of cases since 2000 and reached a record high in 1500 the number of perpetrators—approximately 2.5 times 1000 since they started taking statistics in 2000 (Figures 1 and 500 2). The number of victims under 18 has nearly tripled 0 (Figure 3) and 254 cases out of 676 total cases were 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 5 through the Internet. However, these statistics are not child prostitution child pornography gender-disaggregated. During the 171st ordinary session of the Diet in June 2009, a revised bill of the Law for Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (Law No. 52, 26 May, 1999) was submitted to the committee on Judicial Affairs of the House of Representatives6. The focus of the discussion was on whether to criminalize and prohibit possession of sexual graphics of those under 18 years old, so-called “simple possession” as a way to reduce the number of victims of child pornography. According to the Japan Committee for UNICEF, Japan and Russia are the only countries among G8 members which have not prohibited “simple possession.”7 In March 2008, the UNICEF launched the Say ‘No’ to Child Pornography campaign and raised public awareness considerably8. There were growing expectations that the Law be amended for the first time since the last amendment in June 2004, which strengthened penalties. However because of the dissolution of the House of Representatives, the bill was scrapped. There is a backlash against gender equality education and sex education. Unfortunately Japanese society, in general, is tolerant about child pornography, such that it has not learned a lesson from “zero tolerance policy” against child pornography” that is adopted worldwide or from U.S. Ambassador Schieffer’s commentary9: “The term "child pornography" misrepresents the heinous nature of this crime. … children are not willing or paid participants. In fact, the majority of images and videos depict the violent and brutal sexual assault of children... We are talking about child rape.” Japan is far behind in view of the protection of the human rights of women and children.

2-2 Online-dating services Total 1,592 criminal cases (a 9.2% increase over the previous year’s) involving so-called online dating services were reported to the National Police Agency in 2008. They may be punished by the Law for Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, the Dating Site Control Law, youth protection ordinances, and others depending on the case. Out of the total, 98.7% were using mobile phones for Internet access to online dating services. Among 852 crime victims, 790 (92.7%) were female and 724 (85.0%) were under 18 (720 girls and 4 boys). This indicates children, especially girls, are likely to fall victim to sexual abuse and exploitation. Table 1 shows high school girls constitute as much as 63.0% of school children who were victimized.

Table 1 Number of victims of online dating services among primary, middle, high school students

5 Juvenile Division, Community Safety Bureau, National Policy Agency (February 2001) “Summary of Juvenile Crime, January to December 2008” (http://www.npa.go.jp/safetylife/syonen38/syonenhikou_h20.pdf) 6 Video: meeting of the Committee on Judicial Affairs, House of Representatives, 26 June, 2009 http://www.shugiintv.go.jp/en/index.php (in Japanese) 7 Interview with ruling and opposition parties – Ms. Kaori Marutani vs Keiko Chiba, JOSEI-TENBO, No. 614, pp. 6-13, 2009. 8 http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/japan_46426.html 9 http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/columns/commentary/20080131dy01.htm 79

(2008) Primary High Middle School School School Total Students Students Students Total 2 (±0) 211 (-100) 328 541 (-207) (-307) 326 539 Female 2 (±0) 211 (-100) (-208) (-308) Male 0 (±0) 0 (±0) 2 (+1) 2 (+1) Note: The category “High school Students” here include non-students as well; ( ) indicates year-to-year basis) Source: National Police Agency (http://www.npa.go.jp/cyber/deai/data/index.html)

2-3 School sexual harassment Sexual harassment in schools occurs mainly between a male teacher and a girl-child. It is a form of sexual abuse. The number of school teachers, including public primary, middle, and high schools, who were submitted to disciplinary punishment for indecent behavior or sexual harassment was 166 in 2004 and 142 in 2005, as shown in Table 2. The data released by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Science Technology (MEXT) are based on the information from local Boards of Education. It is not clear whether the very recent situation has ameliorated or not because MEXT has not released the data since 2006. In both years, approximately 40% of punished teachers were allowed to return to a teaching position. Fifteen cases of repeat offenses were reported in fiscal 2004, and one case in fiscal 2005, as shown in Table 5. To prevent repeat offenses, local Boards of Education should formulate obligatory remedy programs for punished teachers before they return to a teaching position. The Boards of Education of Kanagawa Prefecture published a guidebook “STOP! ZA SUKURU SEKUHARA” (Stop School Sexual Harassment) showing concrete measures to prevent sexual harassment in schools for teachers, school boards, and parents10.

Table 2 The number/ratio of public school teachers disciplined for indecent behavior/sexual harassment Fiscal 2004 Fiscal 2005 Total number of punished teachers 168 142 number of dismissed teachers 95 86 number of repeat offenders 15 (9%) 1 (0.7%) Ratio of high school teachers among all 48.8% 36.6% punished teachers Ratio of middle school teachers among all 31.9% 33.1% punished teachers Ratio of primary school teachers among all 15.7% 25.4% punished teachers Source: http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/18/12/06121205.htm http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/18/12/06121205/012.htm

2-4 Date DV The term “date DV” refers to violence by friends in dating relationships. In the opening remarks

10 http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/osirase/40/4001/jinken/shiryo.html (in Japanese) 80

of a seminar in CSW 51, Ms. Carolyn Hannan pointed out a “date rape” as newly emerging violence against young women. In Japan, the Cabinet Office conducts a survey on violence between women and men’11 every 3 years. The trend of date DV was surveyed in 2005 and 2008, of which data for 2008 are shown in Table 3. The problem here is that the data treat teen and those in their 20s as one group; however, from the standpoint of the girl-child, these two should be separated.

Table 3 Violence committed by close friends when the respondents were at ages 10-29 (%) (2008) Type of violence Women Men Physical assaults 7.7 2.9 Mental assaults/intimidation 7.8 3.1 Sexual coercion 4.8 0.8 Have suffered one of the above at least once 13.6 4.3 Source: http://www.gender.go.jp/e-vaw/chousa/h2103top.html Notes: 1. % of respondents out of 943 women and 799 men) 2. Physical assaults include kicking, punching, pelting, knocking over 3. Mental assaults include verbal abuse that would deny one’s personal integrity, closely checking up on personal friendship, and intimidation with a possible physical harm to one or any of her/his family members. 4. Sexual coercion refers to sexual affairs against one’s will

In 2007, Yokohama City conducted a fact-finding opinion survey on date DV with high school and college/university students living in Yokohama City as respondents12. Unlike the survey by the Cabinet Office, the survey separates the data for high school students and those for college/university students. The respondents who experienced the violence at least once amounted to 33.7% of girls and 27.1% of boys out of a total of 338 high school students, and 44.8% of girls and 28.2% of boys out of 244 college students. Yokohama City is now campaigning against date DV collaborating with civil groups by updating the checklist of violence on the website and holding seminars against date DV for young people, teachers, and parents.

2-5 Child abuse (1) Child abuse and young mothers The number of the cases of child abuse is on the increase according to the data released by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) in July 2009 (Table 7).

Table 4 Child abuse cases handled by child consultation offices in Japan

Year 2005 2006 2007 2008 Number of cases 34,451 37,323 40,639 42,662 Source: http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2009/07/h0714-1.html

In 2007, the Child Abuse Prevention Law and the Child Welfare Law were revised and enforced in April 2008. The revised Laws enable staff members of child guidance centers to unlock doors in order to enter the homes of abused children so that they could secure those children’s safety. However, it has been reported that 142 children were abuse to death between 2007 and 2008, and 126 children died between 2005 and 2006.13 A case study of fatalities analyzed by the Expert Committee on Child

11 http://www.gender.go.jp/e-vaw/chousa/h2103top.html 12 http://www.city.yokohama.jp/me/shimin/danjo/chousa/19datedvcyousa/19datedvcyousaall.pdf 13 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2009/07/h0714-1.html 81

Abuse under MHLW indicates that half of the killed children were babies under the age of one. Most of them were killed one month after the birth. About 60% of the mothers who committed child abuse had one of the following difficulties: “young pregnancy,” “unwanted pregnancy,” or they had never received perinatal health checkups (None of them had a maternity child health handbook with them). The Committee has concluded that the problems young mothers face during the perinatal period would be a serious factor for child abuse. In many cases it is seen that those young mothers have mental problems such as anxiety about child rearing, postpartum depression, and the inability to control emotion. The government is urged to establish a counseling system such as 24-hour toll-free telephone counseling by specialists for young women having fears about child-rearing, particularly those in undesired pregnancy.

(2) Domestic violence and child abuse The children living with their parents who commit domestic violence receive serious damage in their mental health such as sleeping disorder, eating disorder, and psychological diseases like guilty conscience or trauma. It is known that these psychological diseases retard the normal development of children’s mind and body. The Child Abuse Prevention Law stipulates that spousal violence in the family with is also child abuse. The Cabinet Office’s survey on the violence between women and men in 2006 reports the number of children living with parents who commit domestic violence, but not in the survey of 2008 data were not taken. To reduce the number of victim children, a system for early discovery of victim children as well as a psychosomatic cure system should be urgently established.

2-6 Current situation of trafficking in Japan and its measures In the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in 199414, the Committee requested encouraged the Japanese government to “take specific and effective measures” to address the issues of “commercial sexual exploitation” and “prostitution of immigrant women in Japan” as well as war-related crimes. Since then trafficking in Japan has started to decrease. Trafficking in Persons Report 200915by the Office of the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs and Bureau of Public Affairs, June 2009, designates Japan as Tier 2; .Japan has been on Tier 2 List since 2001, except in 2002 when it was put on Tier 2 Watch List. Ms. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons especially women and children, made a fact-finding visit to Japan from 12th to 18th July, 200916. Taking the opportunity to meet and talk with government officials and NGOs, she expressed concerns over the current Japanese situation of human trafficking17 and the seriousness of the problem. In many cases people are trafficked from Asian countries for forced sex work or exploitative cheap labor. Recently more and more people who had initially come to Japan as trainees on the Industrial Trainee and Technical Internship Program recommended by the government end up in being subjected to forced cheap labor at extremely low wages. Now that trafficking has gone underground, it is taking a heavy toll. Special Rapporteur’s Preliminary Recommendations to the Government of Japan to strengthen protection measures include: establishment of shelters providing a multi-lingual hotline and assistance to victims of trafficking, adoption of a specific law to avoid exploitation of foreign workers, and others. A full report of this visit will be presented at the UN’s Human Rights Council in 2010. In the Country Narrative of Trafficking in Persons Report 2004 (June 2004), the government of

14 Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women: Japan. 31/05/95. A/50/38, para. 634 http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/human/conv_women2.html 15 Trafficking in Persons Report, Releases and Remarks, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/index.htm 16 Visit of the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children to Japan, 12-18 July 2009 http://unic.or.jp/unic/press_release/1210#entry-english http://unic.or.jp/unic/press_release/1211 17 http://unic.or.jp/unic/press_release/1211/#entry-english 82

Japan has been stated as a country “not fully complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking” and was put on Tier 2 Watch List. Since 2004, the Japanese government has been making efforts to form meetings among related ministries and agencies, and to work for victim protection and for reducing domestic demand as a country of destination through formulating an action plan for anti-trafficking. In April 2004, the Japanese government established at the Cabinet the Inter-Ministerial Liaison Committee (Task Force) on human trafficking consisting of the Cabinet Office, the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare headed by the Cabinet Secretariat18; in December 2004, the Committee adopted “Japan’s Action Plan of Measures to Combat Trafficking in Persons.”19 For countries of origin, the Japanese government began funding for countermeasures for human trafficking and measures for protecting children from being victimized. However identification of trafficking remains inadequate and there are any reliable statistics that reflect the actual extent and forms of human trafficking in Japan. For example, in the case of girls, it is assumed that they disguise their age as older for legal reasons20. For this, collection of data on victims by age is called for; however, the fact that a great many cases go unreported makes it difficult for the Ministry of Finance to take budgetary measures necessary for such data collection. The Japanese government is nevertheless urged to grasp the actual condition of human trafficking being taking place in some way or other. As for Japanese NGOs’ movements in the area of human trafficking, JNATIP (Japan Network Against Human Trafficking in Persons)21 merits attention. Since its formation in 2003, JNATIP has been working towards the goal of developing laws addressing harm prevention, victim relief and the punishment of perpetrators. Its activities to date include creation of a “data book” illustrating the details of the situation of human trafficking, drafting of a bill, and launching of a consciousness raising campaign.

3. Current Situation of the Sexuality of Children and Sex Education 3-1 Sexual experience of teenagers According to a triennial survey on the actual situation on the sexuality and sex behaviors of children and Students in Tokyo conducted in 2008 by TO-SEI-KEN, a study group on sexual education of children in kindergartens and primary, middle, high, and mentally handicapped schools in Tokyo, girls begin to show interest in the opposite sex considerably earlier than boys22. While sexual experience rates among high school students continue to rise, the percentage of high school students who agree with the view that high school students can have sexual contact as long as they use contraception and take preventive anti-infection measures dropped compared with the previous survey.

Table 5 Sexual experience rates of students (%) Sex 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 20052) 20083) Seniors in High School 1) Male 27.7 20.7 27.3 28.6 37.8 37. 3 35.7 47.3 Female 18.5 17.1 22.3 34.0 39.0 45.6 44.3 46.5 Juniors in High School FemaleMale 12.724.2 12.517.4 18.024.0 29.525.6 34.833.5 40.933.2 26.423.5 s 30.427.9 Freshmen in High School Male 18.5 13.7 15.1 17.3 25.0 24.8 12.3 24.5 Female 6.6 6.4 9.2 17.6 22.1 25.5 14.6 24.3 3rd Year Students in Middle Male 12.0 10.4 8.8 6.5 15.3 12.3 4.3 5.5

18 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Japan’s Actions to Combat Trafficking in Persons” (http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/i_crime/people/pamphlet.pdf) 19 http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/i_crime/people/index_a.html 20 International Labour Office (2004) Human Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation in Japan (http://www.ilo.org/public/english/region/asro/tokyo/downloads/r-japantrafficking.pdf) 21 http://jnatip.blogspot.com/2008/01/about-jnatip.html 22 http://www.jfpa.or.jp/01-topics/index081112.html 83

Female 1.6 3.4 2.9 7.2 8.0 9.1 9.8 8.3 c2nd Year Students in Middle Male 7.7 5.6 4.4 4.0 9.5 6.9 1.4 School Female 1.5 2.6 1.5 3.1 3.6 4.2 5.1 1st Year Students in Middle Male 4.9 3.7 1.8 2.4 5.2 5.2 0.4 School Female 0.8 2.2 0.8 1.4 2.0 1.3 0.9 1) 1987-2002 cumulative percentage of sexual experience 2) First-time sexual experience rates 3) Not surveyed for 1st and 2nd year students in middle school Source: http://www.jfpa.or.jp/01-topics/index081112.html

3-2 Current situation of and issues in sexuality education Helpline counselors volunteering for Child Line Japan23 are calling for the renewed necessity of sex education as they receive so many phone calls from children on ‘sex’. It is said that children who regularly talk with their parents begin to exhibit sexual behavior at an older age than those who do not. Although girls wish to rely on their mothers most concerning sex, there are many mothers who cannot respond to their daughters face to face because they themselves have not received proper sex education. In order to prevent future infection of STIs and protect themselves from sexual abuse, it is essential for people not only to have knowledge about STIs and other diseases, but also to be able to recognize the importance respecting their physical body as well as their partners’ and to take their reproductive health/rights to heart from a very young age. More opportunities for girls and their parents (mothers) to learn about sex together should be provided.24 In the fall of 2008, the Gender Equality Bureau, under the Cabinet Office conducted a survey on violence between men and women nationwide aged 20 and over (responses from 1,454 men and 1,675 women)25. Of those women, 123 (7.3%) said they have been subjected to forced sexual intercourse. Among those 123, 15.5% said they had such experience as pre-school or primary school children, up from 12.2% in the previous survey in 2005. When asked whether they sought any help from others, over 60% of these 123 women answered no. This demonstrates the urgent need for solid measures to prevent sexual violence as well as to establish steps to follow in case of victimization.

4. The Girl-Child in Science and Technology: Challenges

In Japan, the ratio of girls who choose science and technology as their major to the total girl students going to university had been about 11% for a long time. The ratio of women researchers working in science and technology fields was 12.4% in 2007 lower than that in the US (32.5% in 2006) and European countries (15.5 to 45.5% in 2006).26 In 2006 the Japanese government presented the 3rd Basic Plan of Science and Technology, in which the promotion of utilization of women researchers was highlighted.27 28 The Plan estimates that the prospective recruitment target of women researchers in natural sciences to be 25% on average (Physics 20%, Engineering 15%, Agriculture 30%, Healthcare 30%), considering the current gender ratio in the doctorate courses of graduate schools in the relevant field. According to the Plan, the government will promote the provision of

23 http://www.childline.or.jp/ 24 Yomiuri Shimbun serial articles on learning about sexual health, Nov. 22-26, 2005 http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/komachi/news/rensai/20051122ok02.htm http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/komachi/news/rensai/20051123ok01.htm http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/komachi/news/rensai/20051124ok01.htm http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/komachi/news/rensai/20051125ok01.html http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/komachi/news/rensai/20051126ok01.htm 25 http://www.gender.go.jp/e-vaw/chousa/h2103zenbun.html 26 Cabinet Office (2007) White Paper on Gender Equality 2007 27 http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/basic/3rd-BP2006-2010-chapter3.html (in English) 28 http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/kagaku/kihon/06032816/001/001/009.htm#1 (in Japanese) 84

information such as familiar examples or role models that could be useful for girls wishing to go into science and technology fields, and reinforce the efforts to arouse girls’ interests in those fields, in order to increase the number of girls who like science and mathematics. In response to the Plan, in 2006, MEXT started a program to publicly invite proposals for initiatives that would serve as a model project to enable women researchers to simultaneously perform the duties of researchers and mothers and continue their career, using a special coordination fund (3 years).29 Up to 2008, 33 Universities and Research Institutes have obtained the funds (0.5 and 0.4 million dollars each). The programs provided by those universities and institutes often include support for child care for mother scientists, dispatching of research assistants during child care leave, and career counseling by specialists or mentors. In 2006, MEXT started another program to encourage girls in high and middle schools who like science and technology and choose to major in science and technology. In 2009, a new fund for the employment of women researchers was created for science, engineering or agriculture fields. Selected organizations can use the fund for their research expenses, personnel expenses of newly employed researchers, and the recruitment of research assistants. It is too early to determine the effectiveness of these measures; however at least the number of women researchers has shown a little increase. (11.9% in 2006, 12.4% in 2007, and 13.0% in 2008).

Conclusion

We can summarize the current issues of the girl-child as below: (1) The gender statistics disaggregated by age should be developed to render the situation specific to girls visible. (2) The Law for Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography should urgently be revised to criminalize possession of sexual graphics of those under 18 years old, or “simple possession,” in order to reduce the number of victims of child pornography. (3) The Japanese government should take drastic measures including victim data collection by age to prevent trafficking of girls into Japan. (4) To prevent the repeat offense of sexual harassment in schools, local Boards of Education should formulate remedy programs that obligate punished teachers to complete before they return to a teaching position. (5) To prevent child abuse, counseling systems such as 24-hour toll-free telephone counseling by specialists for the young women having fears about child-rearing and especially those in undesired pregnancy are urgently needed. (6) Considering that many of the victims of “date rape” currently have no access to help and care, the national and local governments are urged to take vigorous measures to both prevent victimization and provide care for victims.

29 http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/jinzai/koubo/06060127/002.htm 85

Part II: 5 areas of concern

1. Elderly Women

Takako Sodei and Keiko Higuchi (Women’s Association for the Better Aging Society (WABAS))

1. Women live longer than men The total Japanese population as of 2008 is 127.69 million; 28.22 million are aged 65 and over, which accounts for 22.1% of the total population. Among the elderly population, 12.04 million are men and 16.17 million, women; the ratio is 74.5 men to 100.0 women. The young old (aged between 65 and 74) are 15 million (88.9 men to100.0 women) and the old old (aged 75 and over) are 13.22 million (60.6 men to 100.0 women). The number of centenarians (those over 100 years old) was about 35,000 in 2007, of which 85.7% were women. The average life expectancy at birth as of 2007 is 79.19 for men (the third in the world) and 85.99 for women (the first in the world). According to “The Estimation of the Future Japanese Population” by the National Institute of Population and Social Research in 2006, it is estimated to reach 83.67 for men and 90.34 for women in 2055. What are the reasons behind the fact that women, especially Japanese women, live longer than men? Gender difference in longevity is caused by both biological and socio-cultural factors. Biologically, females are much stronger than males, because they are responsible for leaving the next generation. In general, women are more resistant to diseases and stress than men. However, socio-cultural factors have more effects on gender difference in longevity. While women in Japan are prevented from reaching decision-making positions, they are more likely to be free from the stress and the burden of work and live longer than men. On the contrary, men who try to monopolize such positions tend to shorten their own life. These gender differences have had a number of serious consequences. First, in the current competitive society, those in the decision-making positions are always suffering from the severe stress in order to survive. At present, most diseases are caused by stress. It is mostly men who suddenly collapse from a heart attack, a stomach ulcer, or high blood pressure. Second, in order to relieve work-related stress, more men than women drink and smoke, which will have ill effects on their health. Third, more men than women commit suicide. In Japan, more than 30,000 people kill themselves every year. Suicide rates among middle-aged men are quite high, because of unemployment, stress from overwork, burdens of job responsibility, harassment at work, bankruptcy and so forth. By contrast, a few women commit suicide because work-related stress, as many women have a less stressful job. Fourth, the death caused by traffic or industrial accidents are much frequent among men than women, because they have more chance to engage in occupations requiring long drive and high risk. Fifth, apart from work, men are likely to engage in dangerous sports like car racing, mountain climbing, diving, sailing boat, etc. More men than women die during their leisure activities. Sixth, in the gender role differentiated society, men are not allowed to show their weak point. Men tend to hide their ill health, because they are expected to act vigorously at work so that they will not lose their positions even if they are suffering from such severe disease as cancer. On the contrary, women are freer to complain saying they are tired or suffering from a headache or stomachache and have more time to visit doctors. Men are often found too late to be treated when they visit doctors because they are too busy. All these differences have a significant implication for the lives of women and men. That is, the social structure based on gender role differentiation (men are at work and women at home) and the

ideology which approves such differentiation narrows the scope of women’s activities. Even after the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was enacted in 1985 and the Basic Law for the Gender Equal Society in 1999, women have less chance than men to be promoted to decision-making positions in political and economic activities. Despite its high standard of living as well as high educational standard, Japan’s Gender Empowerment Measure is quite low (58th of 75 countries in 2008), because the female ratio of Diet members and business managers are lower than other countries: 9.4% for the House of Representatives (as of April 2007) and 10.7% for administrative positions in private enterprises in 2008. More women than men work as part-timers with a less pay and responsibility. Furthermore, the lifestyle related to gender role differentiation also causes difference in longevity. Women are more concerned about nutrition and eating habits. They do grocery shopping, cook for themselves and take more time for meals. However, men have more chance to eat out or eat ready-made food which contains too much salt and fat. Average Japanese salaried men spend only a few minutes for their lunch. Dr. Chouji Nakamura, specialist in nutrition, recommends “feminization of eating habits” in order to live longer.

2. Women are poor in their old age Everywhere in the world, elderly women living alone are the core of poor people, which is often described as “feminization of poverty.” Until 1980, more than half of old people lived in three generation households in Japan. In 2007, however, the ratio of three generation households to the total households with people aged 65 and over was only 18.3%. In 1980, the ratio of couple-only households was 16.2% and the ratio of single households was 10.7%, but the former rose to 29.8% and the latter to 22.5% in 2007. There is a myth that the Japanese elderly are living in three-generation households, but its ratio is on decline year by year. Focusing on individuals rather than households, the ratio of older persons living with a child decreased from 69.0% in 1980 to 43.6% in 2007. The ratio of those living with a spouse only went up from 19.6% in 1980 to 36.7% in 2007, and those living alone, from 8.5% to 15.7% (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions of the People on Health and Welfare). More elderly women than elderly men are living alone. The ratio of single households to the total elderly population was 4.3% for men and 11.2% for women in 1980, which increased to 9.7% and 19.0% in 2005, respectively. In 2005, 81.8% of elderly men were married, while it was only 47.1% for elderly women. The ratio of widows among elderly women was 43.9%, while the ratio of widowers was only 11.0% among elderly men. As women generally live longer and marry younger than men, they have more chance to outlive (Ministry of General Affairs, National Census). Since the latter part of the 1990s when both our economy turned for the worse and the aging of the population accelerated, there has been a statement circulated intentionally by the government as well as the party in power, saying that elderly people are not necessarily poor, and they should support the social security system by paying adequate premiums and tax rather than remaining as the beneficiaries from the system. The average annual income per person of elderly households was 1,955,000 yen in 2006, as opposed to 2,071,000 yen for all households. The gap appears to be rather small. On average, elderly people had more savings and higher rates of home ownership than younger generations. However, we should pay more attention to the diversity among the elderly. Some elderly businessmen or politicians are quite rich, while most of them, especially elderly women, are poor. The average annual income of elderly men living alone was 2,409,000 yen, while it was 1,662,000 yen for elderly women, which is less than 70% of men’s income (Ministry of Health, Comprehensive Survey of the Living Conditions of People on Health and Welfare (2005), Report on the National Survey of Public Assistance Recipients, 2007).

Why are elderly women so poor? The major reason is that they have only limited sources of income. Some of elderly women today have never worked, while others have worked without pay as such family workers as farmers, or at small factories or small shops. Recently, there are many who have been employed, but because of low salaries and short length of service, they receive only a small pension in their old age. Even if they worked as a full-time worker, their old age pension is a little more than a half of men’s pension: 2,177,000 yen for men and 1,197,000 yen for women (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Survey of the Old Age Pension Recipient, 2006). Among the employed women, more than a half worked as part-timers, whose salary is much lower than that of full-time workers, and they are easily dismissed with a short notice. One of the reasons why so many Japanese married women work as part-timers is that Japan’s tax system and social security system are quite favorable to full-time homemakers; if their annual income does not exceed 1.3 million yen, they are covered by their husband’s health insurance and long-term care insurance without paying premiums into the system. Moreover, if their annual income does not exceed 1.03 million yen, they do not have to pay any income tax, and their husband can enjoy dependent tax exemption from their income. Also, if their annual income does not exceed 1 million yen, they do not have to pay any residential tax. Thus, many married women work as part-timers with the annual income less than 1 million yen, which makes their income low and their status unstable. Although the number of employed couples exceeds that of couples with full-time homemakers now, it is not so easy to abolish such systems, because, on one hand, employers of supermarkets and restaurants who heavily depend on cheap labor of middle-aged women are strongly against the abolishment, while, on the other hand, there are many who want to stay as a dependent wife to their husband. After April 1, 2007, the total pension premiums during the marriage period can be divided at most in half through negotiation between husband and wife when a couple divorce. If the negotiation fails, the case will go to the family court. After April 1, 2008, in the case of full-time homemakers, the total pension premiums are automatically divided half. A divorced wife can receive a half of her former husband’s old age pension until she dies in accordance with the period of their marriage when she reaches 65 years old even if she remarries. This may appear quite favorable to full-time homemakers, but in reality they have to wait until 65 years old. Besides, a half of their former husband’s pension is not so big. Most of the divorced women have to work as part-time workers at a low wage because it is not so easy for middle-aged women to find a full-time job. Some of them work at double or triple jobs a day, or else they become public assistance recipients. Divorced elderly women are the poorest of all. Among women aged between 55 and 74 living alone, the ratio of the annual income less than 600,000 yen (lower than the level of public assistance) is 1.9% for the never-married, and 3.0% for widows, while it is 12.5% for the divorced (Gender Equality Bureau, The Survey of Independent Life of Elderly Men and Women, 2008). 28.2% of women aged between 60 and 69 work with pay. Among those over 65 without job, one out of ten wants to work. 20.9% of those who want to work say they need money, while it is 15.8% among the male counterparts (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Basic Survey of the Employment Structure, 2007). Poverty among elderly women is caused by the gender-segregated structure of the Japanese society, which forces them to take on low-wage peripheral jobs as well as by tax and social security systems which restrict women’s life course. Although the number has slightly decreased recently, there are more than 100,000 fraud cases a year, and the victims are mostly women aged 70 and over with dementia. Typical cases are as follows: one pretended as a son or a nephew asks by phone to transfer a big amount of money to his bank account saying he has caused a traffic accident or a loss to the company, or a salesman sells such phony goods as a very expensive down coverlet, water purifier, ventilation, etc. The adult guardianship

system was started in 2000 in order to protect the elderly from such economic loss as fraud, but the system is not working effectively because many old people do not know or understand the system.

3. Care for the elderly Care for the elderly has been a major concern for women because more women than men have a chance to be a caregiver as well as a care recipient. Traditionally in Japan, it was the first son who inherited the family name and family property and took the responsibility for his parents’ old age; he lived with his parents and his wife took a role of a caregiver when the parents became old and frail. The co-residing daughters-in-law have long been primary caregivers. However, there has been a big change in caregivers. Recent data show that of older persons who need care, 60% co-resided with family members. Of these family caregivers, 41.7% are spouses, 29.8% are children (mainly daughters), and 23.8% are children’s spouses (mainly daughters-in-law). A decrease in the number of daughters-in-law and an increase in the number of spouses have been brought about by changes in the structure of elder households; that is, a decrease in the number of three-generation households and an increase in the number of couple-only households. A majority of family caregivers are women (71.9%) and more than half are over 60 years old, which means that the elderly take care of the elderly, and sometimes the demented take care of the demented (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Comprehensive Survey of Living Condition of the People on Health and Welfare, 2007). In addition to changes in the household structure, attitudes toward eldercare have also changed. In the past, both the old and the young accepted the idea that it was a responsibility of the first son’s wife to take a role of caregivers. Recent data show that 80.7% of elderly men want their wives to be caregivers, while 63.1% of elderly women want their children to be caregivers and 35.0% want their husbands to be caregivers. Such gender differences seem to be generated by differences in marital status; more men are married and more women are widowed. Those who want their daughters-in-law to be caregivers are only 9.3% of men and 16.1% of women, which is lower than home helpers (28.1% of men and 45.3% of women) (Cabinet Office, Attitudes toward Health of Old People, 2007). Even after the Elder Abuse Prevention and Caregiver Support Law was enacted in November, 2005 and came into force on April 1, 2006, there are still many elder abuse cases. According to the survey of 1,816 local governments by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2007, 13,273 cases were found; 77.4% of the abused were females, and about a half were 80 years old and over, and 85.7% of the abused elderly co-resided with the abuser. These abused elderly women are often poor and frail, so they have to depend on the abuser. As is common to any family violence, the abused try to hide the fact of being abused. Therefore, the actual number of cases should be much greater. Of 14,776 abusers (in some cases, the elderly were abused by multiple family members), 40.6% were sons, 15.8% were husbands, 15.0% were daughters, 9.9% were spouses of children,4.5% were wives and 4.5% were grandchildren. These abusing sons often have such problems as unemployment, bankruptcy, divorces, not having married, and mental disorders. Physical abuse (hitting, slapping or kicking) was commonly found among male abusers, and psychological abuse (neglect, shouting or telling the elderly “You had better die soon.”) was commonly found among female abusers. Of 264 homicide or double suicide cases related to the care for the elderly which appeared in major newspapers from 1998 to 2005, the offenders were mostly men; 34.8% were husbands, 33.7% , were sons, 14.8% were wives, 7.6% were daughters, 1.3% were sons-in-law, and 1.9% were daughters-in-law. In other words, elderly women have more chance to be killed by their caregivers. Typical cases are that exhausted husbands or sons kill their bedridden and/or demented wife or mother in order to alleviate her pain as well as his burden of care. In many cases, offenders try to kill themselves after they commit homicide, but often they fail. In consideration of extenuating

circumstances, the accused defendants are sentenced to a rather short period in prison often with some years of suspension.

4. Men are also segregated in a gender role differentiated society In Japan and elsewhere elderly women are suffering from poverty and abuse. However, men are not always happy in their old age. Although financially better off than women, they are socially and psychologically more isolated than women. Of women aged between 55 and 74 living alone, 11.2% say that they have no one to talk to, while it is 26.9% for men (Gender Equality Bureau, Ibid.). With an increase in the number of the elderly living alone, so-called “kodokushi“ (isolated death where a dead body is found a few days after the death, or sometimes several weeks after) has been increasing in urban areas where people are indifferent to each other. It is mostly elderly men that are found dead because they are socially isolated. In Japan, men spend most of their time at work. As a result, they have no friend in the community where they live, because most of them do not have the skill to communicate with neighbors. In a gender role differentiated society, care has always been women’s responsibility. Thus, care for children, the sick, the handicapped and the elderly have long been in the hands of women, whereas men have been free from such responsibilities. About a quarter of a century ago, almost all family caregivers were women, but now one out of four family caregivers to the elderly are men, because there is no female caregiver at home, or even if there is any, she cannot or does not want to be a caregiver because she is working. Most male caregivers have no experience of housekeeping as well as caregiving. They become at a loss about what to do when someone in the family needs care. Some of them succeed in accumulating various information on the Internet and accessing services they need. However, most men do not have any networks in the community and hence cannot access community services. Those who cannot acquire adequate information and services are likely to become desperate and abuse or kill the elderly. In other words, not only women but also men are victimized in this gender segregated society where men are isolated at home as well as in the community, which sometimes leads to a tragedy in their old age. In March, 2009, a nationwide network of male caregivers and their supporters called “Man Nursing and Support Person’s Nationwide Networks”1 started in Kyoto, which is the first of its kind that cooperates and exchanges information among male caregivers and their supporters, whereas women started such organizations a long time ago.

5. NGO activities for the empowerment of elderly women Since Japan became an aging society in 1970 where the ratio of the elderly population exceeded 7% to the total population, many have been concerned about the future of the pension system, medical care and labor shortage, but they were mainly men’s problem because women were protected by their household head who were always men. Before 1980, there were many women’s groups or organizations which aimed at improving women’s status, rights, working conditions, health conditions, and living standards. However, targets of these groups were mostly young women or at most women younger in their 40s. Women themselves ignored elderly women because active members were mostly in their 30s and 40s. In September 10, 1982, more than 600 women ranging from professionals to ordinary housewives got together to hold “The Symposium on Problems of the Elderly” organized for the first time by women. Major topics were such problems as family caregiving and poverty. At that time, family caregivers were mostly daughters-in-law and women received a little or no pension in their old age.

1 http://dansei-kaigo.jp/aboutus/ 90

After the symposium, WABAS (Women’s Association for the Better Aging Society)2 was founded in March, 1983; both authors were the founding members (Keiko Higuchi as Representative). At the outset, individual members totaled about 500 and group members 13, but now it has grown to 1100 and 100, respectively. More than 90% of WABAS members are women, but there are a few men who understand women’s issues. In 2005, WABAS changed from a voluntary association to a non-profit organization (Keiko Higuchi, President and Takako Sodei, Vice-President) and was officially approved in 2008 as a member of NGOs in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. We have conducted several surveys on family caregivers and health, work and housing of elderly women. Based on our survey results, we have submitted several proposals to the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare on improving the Long Term Care Insurance System, the medical care system and the housing conditions of the elderly. Now many of our members serve as important members of committees on aging at both national and local levels. Among our members, there are many politicians at both national and local levels who are quite active in improving the status and living conditions of elderly women regardless of their political parties. Of all activities, the most remarkable seems to be the enactment of the Long Term Care Insurance Act in 1997. Since its enforcement in 2000, we have been watching, evaluating, criticizing and trying to improve the system. In 2008, we played an important role to pass the law aiming at a 3% rise in the number of caregiving agents, although we had originally asked for a “30,000 yen wage rise a month for every care worker.” As is always common to any developed countries, care work is a thankless job with a low pay and unstable status. The average income of care workers is about 60% of that of all industries. However, we should pay more attention to differences in the length of service, the ratio of female workers, and the ratio of part-time workers. In Japan, the average length of service of employees is 11.8 years for men and 8.7 years for women, and usually their wage goes up with age (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the 2007 Basic Survey of Wage Structure), while it is only 3.1 years for both male and female care workers because their turnover rate is quite high and their wage does not go up relative to the length of service. The female ratio of care workers is 74% and more than half are part-timers, which lowers their wage (Care Work Foundation, the 2007 Survey on Care Work at Caregiving Agents)3. At present, we are still working for improving the Long Term Care Insurance System. When we started our group, most members were on the side of caregivers, but after 26 years most of us are now on the side of care recipients. Even though we founding members are getting old, we will keep speaking out for the empowerment of elderly women and try to convey our messages to the next generation. While the ratio of elderly women is increasing in the world population, their voice is hardly heard because they are women and old. Recently we began to put more energy into international activities, organizing and participating in international conferences. On June 30, 2007, WABAS held an international symposium titled “Women Speak on Aging Asia,” inviting a Korean congresswoman, the vice-president of the Korean Association of University Women4, a representative of Senior League Korea5, and a representative of the Licensed Filipino Caregivers Association in Japan (LFCAJ)6. At present, our relationships with Asian countries are limited, but we are planning to strengthen our tie with other Asian countries like China, India, Indonesia, and Thailand, because all Asian countries are

2 http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~wabas/ 3 http://www.kaigo-center.or.jp/report/h19_chousa_01.html 4 http://www.kauw.or.kr 5 http://www.seniorleague.or.kr/comti/sun.html 6 http://pinoypower.blog.ocn.ne.jp/ 91

now facing the problem of population aging. In 2008, WABAS sponsored a workshop “Participation by Older Women will Change the World” at the 9th Biennial Global Conference of International Federation on Ageing held in Montreal, Canada and drew a great deal of attention from participants. While our main objective is to improve the status and living conditions of elderly women through their empowerment, we do not limit our activities to the issues of women. Now there are many NGO groups other than WABAS working for family caregivers, pension, medical care, housing for the elderly, and terminal care among others that have male members. It is our hope that both men and women as well as all NGO groups will unite and cooperate with each other in order to realize a gender-equal aging society.

2. Migrant Women: Present State and Pressing Issues Ruri Ito (Hitotsubashi University) and Chiho Ogaya (Yokohama National University)1

1. Introduction: Migrant Women under the Ideology of “Mono-Ethnic Nation” Japanese immigration policy has basically consisted of controlling the border, with a strong emphasis on regulating so-called “overstayers”.2 Despite recent debates over the need to create a multicultural model of society, until recently few, if any, measures have been taken to actively integrate “foreign nationals” as members of Japanese society.3 A rapidly changing reality contradicts this lagging policy reform, however. According to the Ministry of Justice, the number of registered foreign nationals has been steadily rising since the 1980’s, so that in 2008, it had reached over 2,200,000 with 190 nationalities, representing 1.74% of the total population. Women make up 53.5% of these registered 4 foreign nationals, outnumbering men. Figure 1 Registered Foreigners by Figure 1 shows the impact of “new immigration”5 since Nationality: Top Five Groups in 1986 & 2008 the 1980s in terms of number and nationality. In 1986, 800 700 Koreans – that is to say, immigrants mainly made up of those 600 s

d 500 n a who arrived during the Japanese colonial period and their s 400 u o h

T 300 descendants – composed the predominant group, but in two 200 decades, the landscape has completely changed. First, a rapid 100 0 increase of new Chinese immigrants through the Industrial DPRK/ROK China Brazil Philippines Peru Training Program (ITP) and Technical Internship Program 1986 2008 DPRK: Democratic People's Republic of Korea (TIP), as well as student and marriage visas expanded the ROK: Republic of Korea Source:Immigration Bureau, Ministry of Justice, Japan numbers of Chinese. Second, due to the immigration Statistics on Registered Foreign Nationals in 1986 and 2008 policy that privileges “nikkei” or immigrants of Japanese descent who are free to work without restrictions, the Figure 2 Registered Foreigners by Nationality & Gender (Dec. 2008) number of Brazilians immigrants grew. Third, Filipinas, a 400 s d

n 350 a s

u 300 notably feminized group, expanded largely through the o h

T 250 vehicle of entertainer and marriage visas, but most recently 200 150 100 the increase is seen among the holders of permanent 50 0 resident visas. The latter makes up over one third of all DPRK/ROK China Brazil Philippines

Filipinos today. As Figure 2 indicates, the ratio of women Men Women Source: Same as Figure 1 1 Both authors are members of the Research Collective on International Migration and Gender (IMAGE), Tokyo. The authors are grateful to Hiroko Hara, Miwako Shimazu and Tani Barlow, for their invaluable help to improve this text. 2 As a result of the government’s five-year plan (2004-08) to halve the number of “illegal foreign residents”, the number of “overstayers” decreased from 219,418 in 2004 to 113,072 in 2009. Women compose 48.3% of the “overstayers” in 2009. Koreans (15,495) and Filipinas (11,892) are the major nationalities for women, whereas for men, Chinese (10,969) are the largest group followed by Koreans (8,703). 3 Discussions on “multicultural co-living (tabunka kyosei)” focus mostly on Brazilian children’s schooling problems and delinquency, which is considered as a serious problem in those collectivities where there is a high concentration of Brazilian workers. 4 Ministry of Justice, http://www.moj.go.jp/PRESS/090710-1/090710-1.html 5 The expression distinguishes the tide of immigration that started in the early 1980s from the “old immigration” that dates back in the pre-war period. 93

to men is high for Chinese and Koreans as well. Official statistics so far do not distinguish the two categories of “foreigners” and “migrants” and adopt exclusively the category of “foreign nationals”.6 This means that the category of “migrant women”, the subject of this section and a category which has been promoted by NGOs since the Beijing Conference, still even as of now, does not exist in the official vocabulary of the Japanese government.7 The politics of how to name the question should not to be underestimated, as it defines the general frame of people’s perception regarding migrant women. The prevailing ideology of mono-ethnic nation coupled with the binary of national/foreign excludes migrant women, by condemning their presence as “foreign” and hence rendering them invisible. At best, they are subject to humanitarian rescue actions. Since the Revised Immigration Law of 19908, the situation of women migrants in Japan has considerably diversified not only in terms of nationality but also their patterns of settlement. Even among so-called new immigrants, it is not unusual to see Filipinas who have resided in Japan for over 20 years or Brazilians over 15 years. Nonetheless, despite their prolonged stay and settlement, the integration of women migrants into mainstream society has not seen as much progress as one could have expected. In order to grasp women migrants’ present state, we will highlight four areas of concern: i) entertainers and the revision of criteria for obtaining visa (landing permission), ii) migrant women and the labor market, iii) poverty and domestic violence, and iv) children’s education and the burden imposed on migrant women. Despite the vulnerable position in which women migrants find themselves, we would like to note their potential as agents of change in Japanese society as is indicated in the initiating role they played to reform the Japanese Nationality Law 9 in 2008. Finally, we will draw out some recommendations for future immigration policy.

2. Entertainers and the Revised Criteria of Landing Permission In response to the U.S. State Department’s Human Trafficking Report that placed Japan on the Tier 2 Watch List in June 2004, Japanese government compiled its Action Plan of Measures to Combat Trafficking in Persons10 (December 2004) and in February 2005, the Ministry of Justice amended its criteria for permission for entertainers to enter the territory. No longer recognizing accreditations issued by the governments of the Philippines and the Republic of Korea, the Japanese government required applicants to possess either two years of work experience or education, in effect returning the system prior to 1981. As a result of this amendment, the number of new migrants entering for the purposes of entertainment at the end of 2006 totaled 8,608 persons which returned the ratio to its 1981 level, an average of one-tenth of 2004’s showing. NGOs supporting Filipino women migrants in Japan welcomed

6 For this reason, second, third and fourth generation Korean residents born and raised in Japan, for example, are grouped under the same category of “foreigners” with new Korean immigrants, whose arrival is more recent. In this report, Korean resident women are included in the section on minority women. 7 For instance, Japan’s Sixth Periodic Report on the Implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women uses the term “non-Japanese women” when referring to “migrant women”. (http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/human/women_rep6.pdf) 8 The Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act of 1981 was revised extensively in 1990 to adapt itself mainly to the problems deriving from “new immigration.” 9 http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/information/tnl-01.html 10 http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/i_crime/people/index_a.html 94

this amendment and the subsequent creation of “trafficking in persons” as a crime within the Penal Law (Art 226-2 and 3)11 in June 2005.12 However, the reform has a number of limits13 of which we will note only two. Firstly, since the male demand for women’s commercial sexual service in Japan has not declined, there are concerns that the recruitment of women migrants in the sector may simply go underground.14 Secondly, whereas NGOs are expected to play a crucial role in the protection of the victims of trafficking, they are poorly financed and left without real means to put the reform into effect.

3. Migrant Women Workers Migrant women’s access to the Japanese labor market is severely limited. While the labor participation rate of women varies depending on their nationality15, those who are able to find jobs work in precarious situations, as badly paid factory workers, cleaners or hostesses. On the whole, language remains the major barrier. This is true for Filipinas who have acquired oral communication skills in Japanese but have difficulty in reading and writing. Recently, due to the acute shortage of labor in elder care institutions, the sector of care labor has attracted the attention as one of the rare possible employments for migrant women. However, there, also, language seems to stand as a serious obstacle. Studies show that in the case of “nikkei” workers, their status as “haken (temporary worker)” or “ukeoi (contract workers)” restricts their access to training at workplace. On top of this, “nikkei” women

11 Article 226-2 (Buying or Selling of Human Beings) (1) A person who buys another shall be punished by imprisonment with work for not less than 3 months but not more than 5 years. (2) A person who buys a minor shall be punished by imprisonment with work for not less than 3 months but not more than 7 years. (3) A person who buys another for the purpose of profit, indecency, marriage or threat to the life or body, shall be punished by imprisonment with work for not less than 1 year but not more than 10 years, (4) The preceding paragraph shall apply to a person who sells another. (5) A person who sells or buys another for the purpose of transporting him/her from one country to another country shall be punished by imprisonment with work for not less than 2 years. Article 226-3 (Transportation of Kidnapped Persons out of a Country) A person who transports another kidnapped by force or enticement or another who has been bought or sold, from one country to another country, shall be punished by imprisonment with work for not less than 2 years. 12 However, NGOs in the Philippines had divided opinions. While some supported the new criteria, others expressed concerns over the “negative” effects on those who are not victims of human trafficking. See Julie Javellana-Santos, OFW Journalism Consortium, Inc., “Japan’s new rules provoke differing views from NGOs.” OFWJC Newspacket, Vol. 4 No.1, 15 March 2005. http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/2005/V19n1/OFWJC.htm [Access date: 9 September 2009] 13 For details, see Yoko Yoshida, “Nihon ni okeru jinshin torihiki no kadai,” Asia-Pacific Human Rights Review, 2006, pp. 38-48. 14 This concern is not without grounds, as demonstrated by a fraud case in Shizuoka. According to the police, over 280 short-term visas were issued since spring 2007 to introduce Filipinas, who allegedly worked for a charity show, sponsored by a non-profit organization. It turned out that the president of this NPO used to work for an assembly member and former vice-minister, who is suspected of having pressured the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to issue the visas. The NPO president is said to have paid at least 5 million yen to a Filipino high ranking bureaucrat for recruiting women. Cf. Asahi Shimbun, December 29, 2008. 15 According to the Census, while the labor participation rate for Brazilian women was 74.2% in 2000 and 72.7% in 2005, it was 42.9% and 53.9% for Filipino women for the same period. There is a gap of around 20 points between these two groups of women, but also we note that the rate increased by 11 points for Filipino women in a time span of five years. 95

often face wage discrimination based on gender. In August 2009, for the first time, three “nikkei” Brazilian women workers filed a lawsuit against their former employer, a Toyota subcontractor, for wage discrimination based on gender.16 Another area of concern is the deteriorating working conditions among migrant workers under ITP and TIP programs, where cases of “karoshi (death from overwork)” have been increasing over the recent years, reaching 34 in the year 2008. Of some 68,000 ITP trainees and 19,000 TIP interns in 2008, women make up 55% and 52% respectively.17 About 80% of all trainees and interns are from China. These programs have been criticized as a new version of trafficking in persons by NGOs18.

4. Poverty and Domestic Violence The Census of 2000 and 2005 shows that unemployment is increasing for both women and men migrants, but it tends to hit women migrants more severely than their male compatriots, particularly under the present recession. Added to this, women are put in vulnerable conditions because of the articulated discrimination of gender and race relations. This is especially true for those who choose to become single parents because their Japanese partners have committed domestic violence (DV) against them. As is pointed out by KALAKASAN, an empowerment group of Filipino DV survivors, the path to poverty among Filipino women starts back in their country prior to migration.19 The majority of Filipino women coming to work in Japan as entertainers tend to be from the lower class. When compared with others, who can afford to pay the placement fee, or at least, who can rely on the family or community network to pay, those coming to Japan have accrued debts already upon arrival. This was also one of the reasons why they were prone to be trapped in trafficking. As one study shows, the poorer the women are, the more they depend on brokers, and consequently they are subject to maltreatment or poor working conditions at the worksite in Japan.20 Generally, the night clubs where Filipinas work are relatively cheap, and draw customers who are also largely from lower social strata.21 Consequently, poor migrant women usually meet poor men in Japan and subsequently marry them and easily fall into economic

16 See “Onaji shigoto de chingin ni danjosa (Same job but wage disparity between men and women),” Chunichi Shimbun, August 29, 2009. The “nikkei” Brazilian women worked from 6 to 9 years and received 1,000 to 1,050 yen per hour, when their husbands received approximately 1,300 yen for the same job. 17 See Onnatachi no 21 Seiki, No.51 (A Special Issue on the Feminization of Trainee and Internship program), August 2007. 18 A new training program has been implemented under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Indonesia and the Philippines to introduce nurses and careworkers in Japanese hospitals and elder care institutions. The first group from Indonesia arrived in 2008 and from the Philippines in 2009. Although a considerable number of men are included among them, the majority are women. Some NGOs fear that these EPA programs may bring about situations alike ITP and TIP. 19 KALAKASAN Migrant Women Empowerment Center and IMADR (The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism Japan Committee)-JC, Transforming Lives: Abused Migrant Women in Japan Blaze a Trail toward Empowerment, Tokyo: Buraku Liberation Publishing House, 2006. 20 Nanako Inaba, “Filipino Ijyu-Jyosei no Kiseki: Nihon ni okeru Teihenso no Keisei o meguru Mondai (Trajectories of Filipino Migrant Women: Questions on the Formation of Lower Class in Japan),” in Research Collective IMAGE (International Migration and Gender) ed., Ajia ni okeru Saiseisan Ryoiki no Gurobaruka to Jenda Haichi (Globalization of the Reproductive Sphere and Gender Configuration in Asia), Transnational Sociology Program, Hitotsubashi University, 2009, pp. 121-131. 21 See Rhacel Parreñas, Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization, N.Y.: New York University Press, 2008, Chapter 6. 96

distress. It is not uncommon for their male partners to have multiple-debts incurred before or during marriage. Also for migrant women married to Japanese nationals, DV is one of the most recurrent problems threatening their well-being. In many cases migrant women tolerate DV from their spouses in order to renew their visas. In some cases, without the support and the consent of their husbands, women migrants may turn “undocumented”, yet remain legally married to a Japanese national. In this context, it is significant that as a result of lobbying by support groups for women migrants, the Revised DV Prevention Law of 200422 now specifies that the law be applied to victims regardless of nationality and other obstacles (Article 23)23. In other words, even in a case where the victim happens to be an undocumented foreigner, her protection as a victim of DV gives her priority over other requirements imposed by the Immigration Law and shelters her from being legally apprehended and eventually sent back to her country. The actual practice of these regulations, however, needs to be verified. Cases are reported that the enforcement of Article 23 at the local collectivity level is not sufficient. In order to make the Revised DV Prevention Law effective, measures such as providing guidelines and training programs for individuals and agencies working in the fields of domestic violence prevention and immigration control are needed. Above all, it should be made clear to the related agents that the protection of women migrants’ human rights must be put before administrative requirements. These measures become all the more important since the most recent 2009 Partial Amendment of the Immigration Law has set a new clause under Article 22-4 (revocation of the status of residence) concerning “spouses of Japanese nationals” and “spouses of permanent residents”.24 In effect, Article 22-4 (7) stipulates that the status of residence may be revoked if the person “failed to continue to engage in the activities corresponding to that status for more than six months.” As the Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan (Ijuren)25 asserts in its petition, this stipulation has at least two problems26. First, the definition of activities as a “spouse” is unclear. Also, defining what activities a person should perform as a “spouse”--particularly as a female spouse--goes against the democratization within families and the respect for the diverse forms of families. Second, the fact that the clause does not put into question the “activities” of the Japanese national or the permanent residency holder to whom a non-Japanese spouse is married implies that the non-Japanese spouse’s status is inferior

22 The original Law for the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims (DV Prevention Law) was promulgated in April 2001 and contained no clauses on nationality. However, in actual practice, migrant women were often kept from public assistance due to problems with language, access to related facilities, and residential status. 23 Article 23 (Consideration, etc. by related officials) (1) Officials related to the protection of victims, investigations and judicial decisions pertaining to spousal violence (referred to as "related officials" in the following paragraph) shall, in the performance of their duties, take into consideration of the psychological and physical conditions of the victims and their environment, etc., respect their human rights regardless of their nationality or disability, etc., and give due consideration to ensuring their safety and protecting their privacy. 24 The clause on “spouses of Japanese nationals” and “spouse of permanent resident” (Article 22-4 (7)) will be enforced within three years after the promulgation of the 2009 Partial Amendment Immigration Law (promulgated on July 15, 2009). http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S26/S26SE319.html 25 http://www.jca.apc.org/migrant-net/English/English.html 26 http://www.jca.apc.org/migrant-net/Japanese/Japanese.html (News on March 25, 2009) 97

to his or her partner’s. Although the clause adds in parentheses that the stipulation shall be exempted in case the person has “justifiable reason for not engaging in the activities while residing in Japan” as a “spouse,” as we have pointed out, migrant women are often deprived of resources (language, access to public authorities, etc.) and will be severely disadvantaged in justifying the reason for not engaging in the designated activities as a spouse. For this reason, it is crucial to enhance support systems for migrant women to prevent them from being unjustly penalized.

5. The Difficult Task of Educating Children For migrant women whose children have reached school age, education of their children becomes a new hurdle to settlement. As of 2008, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) reports that there are 28,575 students who need support for learning the Japanese language: 19,504 in elementary schools, 7,576 in junior high schools, 1,365 in senior high schools, and others in other secondary schools and special education schools. The number is increasing particularly fast in junior high schools.27 Around 40% of these children are Portuguese speaking children, i.e. “nikkei” from Brazil. However, if we look at the increase rate, Chinese speaking children (+15.4%) and Filipino speaking children (+16.3%) are notable. This reflects the fact that Chinese and Filipino women are the largest groups among spouses of Japanese nationals.28 As schools in Japan expect mothers to play the role of educator at home and to be in close connection with teachers, migrant women, who are often isolated and deprived of information due to their own language barrier, find the institutional pressures to raise children extremely harsh. Coping with the gender norm of “mother” becomes an even larger stress, when their children are bullied at school and particularly when the children start internalizing the dominant negative views on their mothers’ culture. Migrant women sometimes have to make a difficult choice of prioritizing economic survival as head of a single parent household over supporting their children’s education.

6. Women Migrants as Agents of Change Struggles by women migrant groups such as KALAKASAN or Brazilian women factory workers, as well as individual women migrants’ daily struggles for survival, including single mothers and their children, challenge Japanese discriminatory practices that are rooted in sexism and the ideology of the mono-ethnic nation. In this vein, one of the most notable cases in recent years would be the jointly filed suit, initiated by JFC Network29 in 2005 to seek nationality for nine Japanese-Filipino children, born out of wedlock and

27 The number increased by 26.7 points compared with the previous year. (http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/21/07/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2009/07/03/1279262_1_1.pdf) 28 In 2007, there were around 12,000 marriages with Japanese men for both Chinese and Filipino women. Added together, the two groups represent around 68% of all marriages between Japanese men and foreign women. In addition, in the case of Filipinos, there is a trend among migrant women, married to Japanese men, to bring their children who have grown up in the Philippines. These children face huge difficulties of adapting themselves not only in terms of language but also in terms of competitive school culture in Japan. 29 Citizen’s Network for Japanese-Filipino Children. 98

recognized by their fathers after birth. Article 3 of the Japanese Nationality Law recognizes the nationality of a child born out of wedlock between a Japanese father and a non-Japanese mother, under the following conditions: either the father recognizes paternity over the child in the womb or the parents get married after the child’s birth. The plaintiffs, including Filipino mothers, asserted that discrimination against children due to circumstances outside of their own will – stipulations requiring that their parents be married – violates the principle of equality before the law as guaranteed in Article 14 of the Constitution30. In June 2008, the Supreme Court gave a favorable ruling for the plaintiffs, which led to the reform of Article 3 in December 2008. The revised Article 331 will no longer require parents to be married in case a child, born out of wedlock and recognized by his or her father after birth, seeks Japanese nationality. The implications of this reform are multiple. Here it suffices to point out that although the lawsuit primarily dealt with the legitimate right of children born out of wedlock to a Japanese father to claim Japanese nationality, indirectly, it questioned the Japanese dominant idea of family, according to which children must be born of parents who are legally married. One of the latent dimensions of this lawsuit hence can be found in its advocacy for recognition of diverse forms of family, which is intricately tied to a more gender equal and multicultural society.

7. Recommendations: Towards Gender-mainstreaming of Immigration Policy Given the rapidly increasing immigrant population and their growing economic and social contribution to Japanese society, Japanese immigration policy should be developed further to actively include a social dimension explicitly to promote migrants’ participation in society. Particular attention should be directed toward women migrants and their children, since, as we have demonstrated above, they are the ones most likely to find themselves in vulnerable positions. In this regard, it is notable that, in response to the devastating consequences of the financial crisis of autumn 2008, the Office for the Coordination of Policies on Foreign Residents32 was established in the Cabinet Office in January 2009. The newly created Office commits itself to supporting long-term foreign residents principally in the fields of education for children and employment. However, it is important that these programs go beyond emergency measures and open an opportunity to formulate a comprehensive policy for promoting the settlement of migrant workers and their families. From the vantage point of migrant women, there is a need to develop programs to support migrant women’s participation in the society at large, so that they have greater access to decent work in the labor market and that their involvement in children’s education be facilitated. Special attention should be given

30 Article 14. All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin. 31 Article 3. A child (excluding a child who was once a Japanese national) under twenty years of age whose father or mother has acknowledged paternity or maternity respectively, may acquire Japanese nationality through a notification to the Minister of Justice, if the father or mother who made the acknowledgement was a Japanese national at the time of the child's birth, and such father or mother is presently a Japanese national or was a Japanese national at the time of his or her death. 2. A child who makes notification in accordance with the preceding paragraph shall acquire Japanese nationality at the time of the notification. 32 http://www8.cao.go.jp/teiju-portal/eng/taisaku/index.html 99

to migrant single mothers, who are under severe pressures to raise Japanese children in a hostile social and economic environment. Providing accessible Japanese language classes and other opportunities to increase social and cultural literacy necessary to live in Japan is central to this new dimension of immigration policy. In this regard, the role of local collectivities should be emphasized, since it is at the local level that a more holistic and community-based support system for the migrant children and women can be made possible. Furthermore, the Gender Equality Bureau should work closely with the Office for Long-Term Foreign Residents and the related Ministries (particularly, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) as well as with the NGOs supporting migrant women, to actively promote gender mainstreaming of immigration policy. In particular, the Gender Equality Bureau should work actively to provide relevant guidelines and training programs to related officials across Ministries, so as to sensitize them to migrant women’s human rights and to prioritize the protection of women migrants’ human rights over administrative procedures. Needless to say, efforts to eliminate the articulated discrimination of sexism and racism against migrant women in order to open social and economic opportunities are integral part of the Japanese government’s commitments to CEDAW. Also, making sure that migrant women are included and made visible by means of a gender equality policy is an effective way of imagining and proposing an alternative to the “mono-ethnic nation” model. Finally, in order to promote effectively migrant women’s rights and their family’s rights, we strongly urge the government to sign the International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

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3-1. Minority Women1: Sexual Minority Women Minako “Minata” Hara (All-Japan Kyosei-Net for LGBIT)

1. Beijing +15: Bringing up the issue of Sexual Minority Women on the Platform Although lesbians and bisexual women from around the world gathered at the Beijing Conference in 1995, the right to determine one’s sexual orientation was not listed in the Beijing Platform for Action in 19952. While issues of visible violence against women were unanimously acknowledged, the Platform failed to address the other less visible, yet equally painful experience of having to deny your own sexuality your whole life in contrast to the anti-violence campaign that gained momentum after Beijing. For many of us, the global women’s movement seemed to have become increasingly heterosexist and intolerant to sexual minorities. Feeling discouraged and unacknowledged, not a few lesbian activists left the feminist ranks to join the LGBT movement. The definition of “woman” was becoming too narrow for us. Fifteen years after the Beijing Conference, this Chapter examines to what extent measures, legal or otherwise, have been taken to address the issue of sexual minorities women in Japan, what the NGOs advocating LGBT rights have done to advance their status, and how effective they have been in attaining these goals, in spite of the sidelining in Beijing.

1-1 A chronological overview from circa 1995 to the present: major events and the efforts of NGOs working on LGBT issues. Although there are many LGBT communities throughout Japan, the presence of women activists is less apparent compared to gay men. Recently we have seen a surge of transgender activists who do not fit into the existing dualistic gender categories. 1995: LOUD opened in Nakano, Tokyo, as a community space for lesbian and bisexual women. Its premises are available for use by other groups who are sensitive to the issues of sexual orientation.3 1997: The Fuchu Youth Center Trial: Gay group OCCUR4 won over the Tokyo Metropolitan government in court. The Fuchu Youth Center under the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government refused to let OCCUR use its rooms on the grounds of homosexuality, which constitutes harassment. The incident of discrimination occurred in 1990 and the civil trial lasted from 1991 to 1997. 2000-: Annual LGBT Parade was organized in major cities including Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Sapporo, Fukuoka, etc. The "Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Parade" changed its name to “Tokyo Pride Parade in 2007 to reflect the inclusion of all sexual minorities and straight allies.5 2003: An openly MtF transgender candidate Aya Kamikawa was elected for Setagaya ward assembly in Tokyo. She was re-elected for the 2nd term in 2007, the 2nd on the list among 71 candidates. 2003: A feminist performance artist Tari Ito opened PA/F Space in Tokyo, which became a hub of lesbian-related events, projects, lectures, etc.

1 This Chapter is based on the “Minority Women Report 17: Sexual Minority Women” submitted to the CEDAW, summarized by Fumi Suzuki of Space Allies. (2009) 2 A report by Ayako Hattori, first published in Imago, November 1995 issue; Vol./6-12, Seidosha http://www.geocities.jp/lesfemi/travel/lesfemi_travel_beijing_jap.htm (in Japanese) 3 http://www.space-loud.org/loud/modules/english1/ 4 OCCUR: http://www.occur.or.jp/ (in Japanese) 5 http://www.tokyo-pride.org/ (in Japanese) 101

2003: QWRC（Queer and Women's Resource Center）was opened in Osaka to offer resources to the LGBT community. It organizes lectures, conducts telephone counseling sessions, and supports individuals and groups in creating discussion about sexuality and gender.6 2004: “The Act for Special Measures for the Handling of Gender for People with Gender Identity Disorders”7 was passed to allow transsexual (GID) people to change their registered gender. The bill was passed by tenacious lobbying by transgender activists and was revised in 2008. Over 800 people have changed their registered gender based on this special law as of 2009, but the requirements remain so strict that only a little over 10% have been eligible. 2007: Kanako Otsuji, an openly lesbian politician who served as an Osaka council member, ran for candidacy as one of the official candidates of Democratic Party of Japan in the Upper House elections. The challenge was unsuccessful but heightened the political interest of the LGBT community. 2008: Sexual Minorities Advocacy group “All-Japan Kyosei-Net for LGBIT” was formed by about ten lesbian, bisexual and heterosexual women to lobby the Diet, local governments, trade unions, and other public organizations on LGBT-related law and policy introduction. Its LGBIT Educational Project Team holds seminars in public facilities for educators, council members, and the general public. It also collaborates with other women’s organizations in Radio Purple, an Internet radio program on women’s issues.8 2008 to 2009： GayJapanNews, a Tokyo-based NGO with a mission to empower LGBT people in Japan that started out as an online LGBT news source, submitted its alternative reports to the UN human rights treaty bodies in collaboration with local LGBT groups and activists, regional LGBT networks and international human rights NGOs, including ARC International, Global Rights and IGLHRC. 2009: LGBT members of Japan NGO Network for CEDAW (JNNC) wrote up an alternative report for the 6th State Report on the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women regarding sexual minority women in Japan9 and petitioned the Japanese government to introduce measures and policy plans for lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women. The plea was not taken up by any member of the international committee, nor did it figure in their concluding observations, which reflected the low priority given to the issues of sexual minority women. In addition to a lack of general interest, the intolerance of some international delegates who are openly homophobic posed real obstacles to future international lobbying around sexual orientation and gender identity.

1-2 Concerns/problems to tackle

6 http://www.qwrc.org/ (in Japanese) 7 http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/HB/hb-04.pdf Note that the government translates the name of the Act as “The Act for Special Measures for the Treatment of Gender for People with Gender Identity Disorders.”(Underline by the author) 8 http://www.radiopurple.org/lgbt/ (in Japanese) 9 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/JNNC_joint_report_June_09.pdf 102

As we have seen above, there are no laws that fully protect the rights of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women in Japan. Moreover, there is no reference by the government to introduce measures or policies regarding lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women in the near future. Invisibility is a serious issue when one is in need of help. This applies not only to Japan, but to many other countries around the globe. Here are some basic problems that make sexual minority women invisible.

-Not many studies are made on women, and even if they are, no studies explore sexual orientation or gender identity; as such the problems of sexual minority women do not surface. -The definition of “woman” is too narrow. There is a de-facto bias in the programs based on the Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society and the people who run them. Whenever they talk about “women,” they really mean “(stereo)typical women,” i.e. heterosexual women who profess minimal gender discomfort. Whether assigned to be female by birth, by rearing or by gender identity, issues of sexual minorities women are often ignored and excluded from Gender-Equal Society programs on the sole basis that they are not “typical women,” i.e. not hetero-normative.

1-3 A list of priorities to improve the status of sexual minority women - Enact legislation that prohibits discrimination against sexual minority women and protects their rights. - Prohibit legal or de-facto discrimination, direct and indirect, against sexual minority women, youth and children at all levels of social education, school education and employment, and enact legislation to guarantee them equal opportunities. - Request all shelters to take measures to prevent violence on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and protect and support the victims of such violence and of domestic violence in same-sex relationships without exception. - Amend the legislation which benefits only married and unmarried opposite-sex couples, and ensure that benefits granted to unmarried cohabiting opposite-sex couples are equally granted to unmarried cohabiting same-sex couples. - Enact legislation to recognize same-sex relationships between women, including those whose biological sex does not match their gender identity, by guaranteeing them the right to have and raise children, as well as the right to sexual and reproductive health, including access to information and related services. - Urge the government to modify the existing, rigid system of medical/legal treatment of people with gender identity disorders, to one that addresses their diverse needs. - Urge the government to include “well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of one’s sexual orientation” among the grounds for granting asylum, within the definition of refugees in the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act.

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3-2. Minority Women: Ainu, Buraku, Zainichi Korean, and Ryukyu Women—Beijing +15: The Progress and the Challenges of the NGOs of Ainu, Buraku, Zainichi Korean, and Ryukyu Women in achieving self-determination and eliminating all forms of discrimination

Minako “Minata” Hara (All-Japan Kyosei-Net for LGBIT) Fifteen years after the Beijing Conference, this report examines: 1) to what extent legal and other public measures have been taken to eliminate discrimination against women of Ainu, Ryukyu, Zainichi Korean, and Buraku origins since the Beijing Platform for Action was proclaimed in 1995; and 2) what NGOs working on minority women’s rights have done to advance the status of minority women in Japan, and how effective they have been in attaining this goal. Although I belong to a different kind of minority group, i.e. sexual minorities, and two of my family members are newcomer migrants, I must admit I am just as ignorant as the average Japanese of the daily discrimination and difficulties the Ainu, Buraku, Zainichi Korean, and Ryuku women face in Japan. The reason I accepted to write up this report is to become better informed myself of the situation of other minority groups in Japan, and to gain a better understanding of my intersectionality and positionality.

1. Ainu Women are Indigenous Women 1-1 Introduction Let me begin this report with a brief explanation of the Ainu people. The Ainu originally lived in Ainu Mosir (“Human Land”), a wide area comprising Northeastern Honshu, Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands and Southern Sakhalin. They possessed a distinct religion and culture, and were known for their rich oral history. The Meiji period saw the assimilation of the Ainu. Their lands were taken in 1869, named “Hokkaido,” and annexed in 1877 as a “No-man’s land.” The immigration policies that followed reduced the Ainu people to a minority status. The 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigines' Protection Act (Hokkaido Kyudojin Hogoho) treated the indigenous Ainu as second-class citizens for a century until it was abolished in 1997. 1-2 The political position of indigenous women with a view to Beijing 1995 The Beijing Declaration of Indigenous Women extensively describes how indigenous women viewed the Beijing Conference. A statement drawn up by the Asia Indigenous Women's Network, Baguio City, Philippines, was approved and signed on 7 September 1995 at the Indigenous Women's Tent in the NGO Forum of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, 1995, in Beijing, China. It begins with a profound critique of the Beijing Draft Platform for Action that fails to criticize the “New World Order” for big industries, big agri-business corporations, etc. Then it sets out the Indigenous Women's proposals and demands to recognize and respect: - their right to self determination, “that the plural "s" in the term indigenous 'peoples' be put in all … documents, declarations, and conventions. That, hereafter, we will not be referred to as ethnic minorities or cultural communities but as Indigenous peoples.” - their right to their territories, “We demand that the international community and governments recognize and respect our rights to our territories. This includes our right to decide what to do with our lands and territories and to develop in an integrated, sustainable way, according to our own cosmo- vision.”

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- the right to development, education, and health as defined by each of their indigenous culture, “That the Indigenous health care systems and practices of Indigenous peoples be accorded the proper recognition and respect and the roles of Indigenous health practitioners and healers be further enhanced.” - the right to stop human rights violations and violence against indigenous women so that “…indigenous customary laws and justice systems which are supportive of women victims of violence be recognized and reinforced. That Indigenous laws, customs, and traditions which are discriminatory to women be eradicated.” - their rights to their intellectual and cultural heritage and their rights to control the biological diversity in their territories. “We call for a stop to the patenting of all life forms. This, to us, is the ultimate commodification of life which we hold sacred.” - the right to ensure political participation of indigenous women and enhance their capabilities and access to resources. 1-3 Legal and other public measures taken to eliminate discrimination against Ainu women since the Beijing Platform for Action was proclaimed in 1995 - In the 1990s, Nibutani Dam lawsuit, which involved the construction of a dam in Ainu’s sacred grounds, Sapporo District Court ruled for the first time in 1997 that the Ainu were people indigenous to Hokkaido. - Also in 1997, the so-called “Ainu Culture Law,” or “Act on the Promotion of Ainu Culture, and Dissemination and Enlightenment of Knowledge about Ainu Tradition, etc. (Act No. 52 of 2007)” was passed, and Japan recognized the Ainu as an “ethnic minority” for the first time. - In exchange, the 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigines' Protection Act (Hokkaido Kyudojin Hogoho), which treated Ainu as second-class citizens for a century, was finally abolished in 1997. - In September 2007, the United Nations' General Assembly approved the United Nations' Declaration on The Rights of Indigenous Peoples which recognizes the right of indigenous Nations to seek self-determination. In August 2007, A young scholar and daughter of a longtime Ainu activist, TAHARA Kaori, presented herself as a candidate for the Upper House elections. Representing the Ainu community, she promised to fight for the self-determination of the Ainu people if she were elected. She was appointed the deputy leader of Shinto Daichi, a Hokkaido-based new party founded by Muneo Suzuki, now a Dietman of the Upper House. She lost the elections but gained a substantial number of over 620,000 votes nationwide. - In June 2008, the Japanese Diet passed a resolution to officially recognize the Ainu as indigenous people, and to further implement related measures. The resolution was unanimously passed and approved in the Upper House plenary just before the G8 Summit held in Hokkaido. - In July 2008, Indigenous Peoples Summit in Ainu Mosir 2008 was celebrated in the sacred land of Nibutani and Sapporo inviting 11 indigenous nations and indigenous 24 peoples. A total of about 2,100 people participated in the four-day event. Intended as a counter event of the upcoming G8 Summit held in Hokkaido, Indigenous Peoples Summit made proposals to G8, the Japanese government, and to themselves. Proposals to the Japanese government included the formulation of concrete action plans and legislation to restore the assets robbed of the Ainu People. Reference: Official Report of Indigenous Peoples Summit in Ainu Mosir 2008, published by the Indigenous Peoples Summit in Ainu Mosir 2008Steering Committee, Sapporo, Japan http://www.ainumosir2008.com/en/about.html

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1-4 What NGOs have done to advance the status of Ainu women in Japan - In 2004, a survey on Ainu Women was conducted by a team of 12 Ainu women. 14 out of 54 branches and one district of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido participated, with replies from 241 women. Previous surveys conducted by scholars focused mostly on their interests in the Ainu culture and language, rather that for the benefit of the subjects themselves. The Japanese government spends millions on a survey about cranes every year, but says there is no budget to survey the Ainu people. A survey by the Hokkaido government is conducted every seven years but deals only with households; so it reveals very little about the condition of Ainu women. Here are some significant statistics: - 77 % were over 40 years of age, because the respondents were limited to the older population who were not working during the day. Also, there are less young people in the movement, partly because parents tend not to tell their children they are Ainu, in the hope of preventing the same kind of suffering and discrimination they had to go through. - Education: 60% had completed elementary or junior high school. Many were unable to attend school or continue schooling because of discrimination and/or poverty. The spiral of discrimination begins with education, which affects employment, marriage and household income. - Literacy rates: 72% said that their reading skill was “average,” and 67% said their writing skills were “average,” which means about 30% find it difficult to read and/or write. - Employment: only 6% worked full-time, and 26% part-time. Many work in the service industry, employed by small businesses without employment insurance. - Social security: about 10% are not enrolled in any kind of pension system. This would raise the rate of living assistance beneficiaries in the future. - 37% said that they suffered from violence from their spouse or partner. 14% said that they consulted a doctor, which could imply some kind of physical damage. Others cited family and relatives. It is stated in the survey report that some branches hesitated to cooperate because the research contained questions regarding violence against women within the Ainu community. They regarded the questions as divisive when more solidarity was needed.

2. The Buraku People 2-1 A brief history of the Buraku people and their liberation movement In Japan, discrimination based on descent against the Buraku people began in the 17th century based on social discrimination of medieval times. Buraku people were forced to undertake such jobs as processing dead cattle and leatherwork, and their domicile was restricted. These areas were called “Buraku” (literally meaning "hamlet“) or Hisabetsu Buraku, meaning “discriminated Buraku communities.” According to the latest official survey on Buraku areas in 1993, there are over 4,400 Buraku communities in Japan and approximately 900,000 Buraku people (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 1993). Buraku organizations and research bodies put their estimates at 6,000 areas and 3 million people. An epoch-making liberation movement began in 1922, with the founding of the National Levelers Association (Suiheisha) to unite against daily discrimination, but these activities were suppressed as Japan moved toward militarism. After WWII, in 1946, Buraku liberation movements were reunited and evolved into the present Buraku Liberation League (BLL).

2-2 The status of Buraku women with a view to Beijing 1995 Around this time, the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR-JC), founded by the Buraku Liberation League, began to address the multiple discrimination suffered by women of the Buraku and other minority groups.

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- 1988: Founding of the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR); an international human rights NPO and NGO founded by the Buraku people, IMADR acquired UN Human Rights NGO Status in 1993, and is in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). - 1993: Government Survey to Grasp the Actual Conditions of Dowa (Buraku) Areas - 1994: Establishment of the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center (HURIGHTS OSAKA) - 1994: International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism Japan Committee (IMADR-JC) held the Osaka Gathering of Minority and Indigenous Women. - 1994: Members of IMADR-JC attended the workshop on minorities at the First East Asian Women's Forum held in Japan, as part of regional preparations for the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. - 1995: In the NGO forum in Beijing, IMADR-JC held a workshop on minority and indigenous women. The forum provided the first occasion on the international level to publicize the issues minority women are facing in Japan, and to establish relations with other minority groups. - January 17, 1995: The Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake affected Buraku on a disproportionate scale. Later reports say about 90% of houses were destroyed in some Buraku districts, as compared with about 30% of nearby non-Buraku districts. This is another issue of multiple discrimination considering that more than 40% of the victims were females over 70 years old

* Above information was obtained from the following websites: International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR) website: http://www.imadr.org/about/ A report of a workshop focusing on multiple discrimination against minority women organized by IMADR at the Beijing Plus 5 Global Feminist Symposia (5-8 June 2000, City University of New York Graduate Center); http://blhrri.org/blhrri_e/news/new115/new11501.html

2-3 Legal and other public measures taken to eliminate discrimination against Buraku women since the Beijing Platform for Action was proclaimed in 1995 - 2000: Adoption of the "Resolution on Discrimination Based on Work and Descent," “The Law on the Promotion of Human Rights Education and Awareness-Raising” - 2001: The World Conference against Racism - 2002: Law on Special Measures for Dowa Projects (meaning Buraku) enacted in 1969 expired and would not be renewed. There was a need to conduct a survey to assess the actual conditions of Buraku communities. - 2004: Buraku Liberation won back the Diet seat after 10 Years 2-4 What NGOs have done to advance the status of Buraku women and other minority women in Japan - In 1999: IMADR-JC called on other NGOs to create the “Network Against Multiple Discrimination.” Summarized reports were submitted on multiple discrimination against in Ainu, Buraku, Korean residents, homeless women, Okinawans, and women with disabilities. - In 2000: Multiple discrimination against minority women in Japan is addressed at 'Beijing+5' in New York by IMADR-JC that women in minority groups are discriminated against because of their group identity, and also sacrificed by gender discrimination. Some notable issues presented by the Study Group on Multiple Discrimination (Japan) are: literacy education; poverty caused by discrimination; deprivation of opportunities passed on from one generation to next; widening of economic gaps through globalization; trafficking of indigenous

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women and children; and problems sidelined by the UN human rights regime and the Japanese government. - In 2003: In a Statement at JNNC Lunchtime Briefing with the UN CEDAW committee members, Reiko Yamazaki of the Buraku Liberation League pointed out such problems as unemployment, and marriage discrimination that can drive Buraku women to commit suicide. - The Buraku community, she added, runs a Community Learning Center to learn how to write and read and express themselves in words. - National and local governments have established councils to promote gender-equal participation but that is not enough, she said. Buraku women should be appointed to council members in order to better reflect their situation and viewpoints in policy-making. - 2004 to 2005: Women of three minority groups: Ainu, Buraku and Zainichi Koreans, conducted separate surveys to record what their fellow women were experiencing, and transform them into words and figures. In the first survey ever undertaken by minority women for minority women, Ainu, Buraku and Zainichi Korean women joined hands to discuss and identify their common concerns. The results have been published as a book: Minority Women Rise Up and Unite: Questionnaire Survey Reports and Proposals by Ainu, Buraku and Zainichi Korean Women (in Japanese, The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism, Japan Committee (IMADR-JC) (2007) Tachiagari Tsunagaru Mainoriti Josei, Kaiho Shuppansha)

Acknowledgment : This report has been compiled in courtesy of the following reference information and materials: 1) http://www.ipcb.org/resolutions/htmls/dec_beijing.html 2) The English translation by Malaya Ileto of the article by Yuriko Hara titled “Minority Women Rise Up and Unite Against Multiple Discrimination: Collaboration between Ainu, Buraku and Zainichi Korean Women” (For the forthcoming book by The Feminist Press, at The City University of New York, under the title: Japanese Women II, Kumiko Fujimura- Fanselow (ed.))

3. Zainichi Korean Women 3-1 A brief history of Zainichi Koreans “Zainichi Koreans” are people who, regardless of nationality, consider themselves to be descendents of people from the Korean peninsula. Many migrated to Japan alone or in families after 1910, as a result of Japan’s colonization of Korea, while others were forcibly sent to Japan. In 1945, when colonization ended, not all returned to Korea but stayed on in Japan due to the partition of Korea. As of 2006, there are nearly 600,000 Zainichi Koreans in Japan, including the 4th and 5th generations, with the 3rd generation now comprising a majority. The community is shrinking in recent years due to increased acquisition of Japanese nationality, marriage to Japanese nationals and generational changes. In 1982, about two-thirds gained the status of “special permanent resident” in Japan. However, they do not have the right to vote, either at the national or local levels (except in some municipalities) unless they acquire Japanese nationality.

Chronology of Japan’s Colonial Rule - In 1910, Japan colonized Korea and deprived Koreans of their lands and ways of living, leaving many in poverty. Under Japan’s colonial rule, Korean children were forced to use Japanese at school. - In 1923, “Hate crime” massacre occurs in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake. Many Korean residents were attacked, Korean women sexually assaulted, and massacred by neighborhood vigilante groups based on false rumors. - In 1937, at the height of the Sino-Japanese War, many Koreans were forcibly sent off to work in coalmines, munitions factories, construction sites and harbors. - At about this time, Japanese military gave out orders to gather “Comfort women (Ian-fu)” to pacify

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the sexual desire of the soldiers. With estimates ranging from 80.000 to 200.000, many colonized women were said to be coerced into sexual slavery during the war by the Japanese military. Though their exact numbers are unknown, the majority of them were Koreans. - In 1940, under Japan’s colonial policies, Koreans were forced to adopt Japanese surnames.

3-2 The status of Zainichi Korean women from Beijing 1995 and beyond Persistent discrimination based on ethnicity must be eradicaed in every scope of life: i. Use of a Japanese alias - Until the 80s, most foreign residents were told to change to Japanese-sounding names upon acquiring Japanese nationality. The fact that 90% of Zainichi Koreans use Japanese names is one indicator that social discrimination persists. ii. Low self-esteem Living in Japan works to oppress one’s identity as a Zainichi Korean and raises the issue of “who am I?” This is especially true for 3rd and 4th generation Zainichi who do not speak Korean, and makes it difficult to form one’s identity. iii. The Nationality clause limits employment, social security, etc. - In 1952, with the San Francisco Peace Treaty, all Koreans lost their Japanese nationality and were treated as non-nationals. From then onward, the new status limited their rights to education and welfare. No-hire policies against Zainichi Koreans and the exclusion of non-Japanese nationals from public sector jobs aggravated their discrimination in housing and marriage. The nationality clause was partly lifted for civil servants, but it is still limited to work “that does not concern the exercise of public power or decision-making on national matters." iv. Pension Law bars elderly Zainichi - Until 1982, there was a nationality clause in Japan’s State Pension Law that barred Zainichi and other non-Japanese residents from signing on to the State Pension system. It was lifted after Japan ratified the 1982 Refugee Convention, but as the government failed to take any remedial measures, this left elderly Zainichi Koreans without pension. v. Hate Crimes - From around 1994, Zainich Korean school girls wearing their Korean uniform were assaulted and had their “chima” (Korean skirts) cut. Suspicion over the possession of nuclear weapons by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea sparked these incidents. Although the pretext for this type of violence against minority women changes from time to time to “missile launches” or “abduction of Japanese nationals,” they are all “hate crimes” that have no justification. Strong, immediate measures should be taken by the government based on zero-tolerance policies. We must work for a safe social environment, becasue no one is safe in a city where a young Korean woman is attacked for walking down the street in a “Chima Chogori (Korean traditional attire). vi. Education - Until 1999, Zainichi Koreans graduating from a Korean high school in Japan were not eligible to take the entrance exams of Japanese universities like their Japanese counterparts, as the Korean schools do not follow the the government’s national curriculum. - From 2003 onwards, after various reforms, 70% of universities allow Korean school graduates to apply directly. - Meanwhile, there is no systematic ethnicity education in Japanese schools, so there are few opportunities to learn about one’s own roots or Korean history and culture. vii. Discrimination based on ethnicity in real estate: a problem shared by all minorities - In 2005, a Korean woman who was refused to be let an apartment because she was not Japanese filed a discrimination lawsuit, and won the case in the Japanese court. - A 2006 survey by the Information Center for Foreigners in Japan showed that 94% of foreign residents reported were refused by at least one real estate agent.

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- Similar complaints have been repeatedly expressed by single mothers, gay men and other sexual minorities, single women in general, and elderly women, which indicates the lack of an equal treatment policy in the government’s housing policies.

Source: - Women 2000, Japan NGO Report by Japan NGO Report Preparatory Committee, 13 August 1999 http://www.jca.apc.org/fem/index.html

3-3 What NGOs have done to advance the status of Zainichi women in Japan As we have seen so far, international relations between Japan and their mother countrries, the Democratici People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea, determine the status fo Zainichi Korean women to a great extent. Also, many of the aforementioned Zainichi discrimination issues concern the entire Zainichi community, rather than issues specific to Zainichi women. What, then, are the issues specific to the Zainichi woman? In 2003, five women of the Osaka-Kyoto region started the Zainichi Korean Women’s Survey, which eventually expanded to a 42-woman “Apeuro (meaning “forward or future” in Korean) Women’s Survey Project that Received responses from 818 women. The result of this survey is included in the aforementioned book on minority women (2007, see the endnote). Here are the issues of major concern: i. Use of Korean names: More than 50% said they used their Korean names in some capacity, and 33.5% used them in the workplace. About 20% said they had changed from a Korean name to a Japanese alias when entering high school or being employed. 16% reported experiencing discrimination on the basis of nationality or lineage while job-seeking or at work. A university student in Kyoto said she was hired for a job under her Japanese name, yet rejected when she used her Korean name. More tolerancy for difference and an attitude to welcome diversity are needed to enable the free use of one’s real name at school or in the workplace. ii. Low income, no pension: 23% said that they were suffering from financial difficulty. This is aggravated for Zainichi Koreans in their 80s and older, who are ineligible for pension payments. iii. Domestic Violence: 20 % of respondents replied “yes” to having been exposed to domestic violence. iv. Traditional roles of women: Asked about “Chaesa,” which is a traditional Korean rite of ancestor worship practiced by Zainichi Korean families to honor lost loved ones, 70% of women considered Chaesa to be vital to their Korean identity and wanted to continue Chaesa rites, although it requires more labor from women than men. About 40% said it required women too much labor and could be simplified. - In 2005, Women`s Active Museum War and Peace (WAM) opened in Tokyo as the world’s first museum to focus on violence against women during wars and armed conflicts from a gender perspective. They record the suffering of the so-called “comfort women” who were subjected to sexual slave labor by the Japanese military, the majority of whom were Korean women.

Source: - The English translation by Malaya Ileto of the article by Yuriko Hara titled “Minority Women Rise Up and Unite Against Multiple Discrimination: Collaboration between Ainu, Buraku and Zainichi Korean Women” (Forthcoming by The Feminist Press, at The City University of New York, under the title: Japanese Women II, Kumiko Fujimura- Fanselow (ed.)) - Toyonaka Association of Town Development for Human Rights Culture; March 2007 Seminar by http://www.tcct.zaq.ne.jp/jinken/koza/koza_2006/koza_07.3.16.pdf

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“Minority Women Rise Up and Unite: Questionnaire Survey Reports and Proposals by Ainu, Buraku and Zainichi Korean Women” (in Japanese, The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism, Japan Committee (IMADR-JC) (2007) Tachiagari Tsunagaru Mainoriti Josei, Kaiho Shuppansha). Women of three minority groups: Ainu, Buraku and Zainichi Koreans, conducted separate surveys to record what their fellow women were experiencing, and transform them into words and figures.

4. Women of Ryukyu/Okinawa: Indigenous People surrounded by Military Bases Since 1972, Okinawa has been a prefecture of Japan, so not many Japanese people regard them(selves) as indigenous people, even in Okinawa. And the Japanese government, which has recently recognized the Ainu people as indigenous, continues to ignore this issue. The people of Ryukyu, however, have all the characteristics of separate indigenous peoples, including history, language, tradition, culture and beliefs. In recent decades, private initiatives have been made to revive Uchinaguchi, the Ryukyu language, and promote the traditional arts and crafts.

4-1 A brief history of the people of Ryukyu: living with the military presence The Kingdom of Ryukyu, however, has its own history going back to the 14th century as a tributary state of the Chinese Empire. - In 1609, a Japanese expedition to Ryukyu Islands encouraged the Tokugawa shogunate to lay claim, but the people of Ryukyu continued to speak their own language and live their distinct cultural and spiritual beliefs and traditions. - In 1879, Japan’s Meiji government invaded Ryukyu and annexed it to Satsuma, and later made it a prefecture - Okinawa. Japan’s assimilation policies included a ban on the use of their language Uchinaguchi, as well as traditional customs, beliefs and practices. - In 1945, towards the end of WWII, Okinawa became the biggest battleground in Japan and suffered massive damages with countless civilian casualties. The Japanese military government has been criticized for sacrificing the entire Okinawa population as cannon fodders. With the surrender of Japan in WWII, Okinawa fell under the U.S. rule. The U.S. forces were stationed there. - In 1972, , Okinawa was “returned” to Japan without asking the Ryukyu people what they wanted.

Source: Refworld: World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Japan: Ryukyuans (Okinawans): by Minority Rights Group International (2008) http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/topic,463af2212,49747bcd2,49749cfdc,0.html

4-2 The status of Okinawan women with a view to Beijing 1995 and beyond The reversion by no means meant a change for the better. Based on the Special Measures Law for US Military Bases, the massive presence of U.S. military bases continued even after the reversion of Okinawa in 1972. As of 2008, 75% of U.S. military bases in Japan are still concentrated in Okinawa, which accounts for only 0.6% of the Japanese territory. Since the bases were set up, the environment has suffered, the people have been deprived of agricultural land, and the culture and traditions rooted in the land of the Ryukyu people have not been respected. Human rights of women and children are also being violated by the US military.

4-3 What NGOs have done to advance the status of women in Okinawa

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Forces united under the “Okinawa Women Act against Military Violence” and Rape Emergency Counseling Center – Okinawa “REICO” - In 1995, during the Beijing Conference, three U.S. Marines stationed at a U.S. military base in Okinawa were arrested for abducting and raping a schoolgirl. The incident led to the setting up of the Rape Emergency Counseling Center – Okinawa “REICO” later that year, and “Okinawa Women Act against Military Violence,” which are both active to date in their work against sexual violence and military presence. In setting up a REICO volunteer hotline and counseling program, a statement tells us, “we must change the situation of living side by side with military bases and military personnel in an atmosphere of constant fear and tension, so that our children may grow up in a healthy environment.” “Okinawa Women Act against Military Violence” conducted a signature campaign, engaged in a 12-day sit-in demonstration, and visited the both Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to issue their appeal. - In 1996, they set out on a two-week American Peace Caravan to build a network towards a peaceful society achieved without weapons, that guarantees the dignity of every person. They visited four cities to share the actualities of Okinawa and the U.S. military presence there with American women, U.S. Congresswomen, citizens in general, and members of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and Human Rights.

Their calls and petitions are as follows: - Since the U.S. forces landed in Okinawa in 1945, untold numbers of girls and women have been sexually assaulted by U.S. military personnel but that most of these crimes have gone unacknowledged, condoned and unpunished. - Although they may be committed by individual soldiers, the women hold the U.S. military responsible for preventing crimes of sexual violence. - We call for a public system to heal the trauma of the victims and restore their human dignity. - We petition the Japanese government to withdraw U.S. military personnel, to review the Japan- U.S. Security Treaty and the Status of Forces Agreement, and to award full compensation to all victims.

Source: Okinawa Women’s America Peace Caravan (February 3-17, 1996) http://barnard.edu/crow/archive/militarism/okinawa_womens_american_peace_caravan.pdf

Other controversial issues include: - Relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma (due for reversion but is actually being relocated within Okinawa) - 2007 school textbook omission regarding the mass suicides forced by the Japanese military in the battles of Okinawa during WWII. 110,000 people, including school children, attended the rally against the Japanese government. http://two--plus--two.blogspot.com/2007/10/textbook-controversy-frustrates-young.html

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3-3. Minority Women: Women with Disabilities

Minako “Minata” HARA (All-Japan Kyosei-Net for LGBIT)

Women with disabilities exist in every group, but are often relegated to an invisible position due to lack of information and transport assurance. The Japanese government’s surveys on the situation of persons with disabilities do not produce statistics by gender. As a result, the government cannot grasp the problems of women with disabilities or implement necessary policies. To do this, the government must conduct surveys of persons with disabilities and compile statistics disaggregated by gender. As early as in 1991, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recommended that signatory countries provide information on women with disabilities and on measures taken to deal with their particular situation (General Recommendation 18).1 Adopted in 2006, Article 6 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities expresses a clear recognition that women and girls with disabilities are subject to multiple discrimination and calls for appropriate measures to guarantee them the exercise and enjoyment of human rights. The situation in Japan is far from this ideal.

1. A chronological overview from before Beijing 1995 to the present:

1-1 Eugenic Protection Law: reproductive health/rights of women with disabilities In Japan, there is a widely-held prejudiced view that women with disabilities should not have children. - Enacted in 1948, the Eugenic Protection Law had provisions for sterilization of people with disabilities without consent. Many disabled women are reportedly urged to undergo sterilization, ovariectomy or hysterectomy. As long as society abides by a eugenics philosophy and treats disabled people differently from others, the reproductive rights of women with disabilities will never be guaranteed. - By 1994, 16,520 people were subjected to this provision, of which 68% of were women. Illegal sterilization could possibly be performed even today. - In 1994, at the UN International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo, Yuho Asaka of the DPI Women’s Network presented the problematic nature of Japan’s Eugenics Protection Law and raised awareness on the status of forced sterilization. This raised international interest and critical comments against the Japanese government. - In 1996, the Eugenic Protection Law, which discriminated against people with disabilities and congenital genetic diseases, was converted to the Maternal Protection Law2. The clause “to prevent the birth of progeny which is undesirable from a eugenic standpoint” was deleted. Abortion remains a crime, however, and policies to control women’s sexuality and reproductive choices continue today. - In 1998, the UN Human Rights Committee recommendation pointed out the necessity of compensation for "compulsory sterilization." The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, however, refused to adopt the required legal measures, and has neither carried out investigations nor provided compensation, arguing that sterilization was legal before the law's revision. Based on this law, healthy uteri of women residents in facilities for the disabled were also removed whenever it was deemed too difficult to manage the women's menstrual care. - In 1999, "Compulsory Sterilization Victims Hotline” was established nationwide by the initiative of NGOs for people with disabilities to grasp the extent of the problem. They received consultations involving serious cases of violation of human rights. - In 1999, the “Citizens’ Committee to Eliminate Disqualifying Clauses” was set up to campaign for

1 http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/recommendations/recomm.htm#recom18 2 Note that this name is the translation by the Japanese government; the literal translation of the Law is the Mother’s Body Protection Law. 113

the abolishment of unnecessary restrictions on qualification based on disability. - In 2003, the UN Human Rights Committee, in its recommendation (A/58/38 (SUPP)) to the Japanese government, following Japan’s fourth and fifth periodic reports, called on it to collect and analyze data disaggregated by gender and age. However, the Japanese government has yet to comply. - In 2004, the Act for Special Measures for the Handling of Gender for People with Gender Identity Disorders3 made it a requisite to remove gonads and conduct genital surgery for those wanting to change their registered gender, in an effort to prevent people with GID to have further children. There is a need to examine these requirements critically from a eugenics perspective. - In April 2006, the “Services and Supports for Persons with Disabilities Act”4 came into effect. Despite its impressive name, its real intention was to secure a financial basis of the disability services. Disability rights NGOs have criticized this Act for having increased service fees, burdened the disabled people and their families financially, and displaced existent service users through restructuring of the services. As I write this paper, drastic changes have occurred in the regime, and the new Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare has announced his intention to repeal the Act and formulate a new one.

Recommendations: - The Japanese government should provide relief to the victims of coercive sterilization regardless of the limitation of the statute and the denial of retroaction provided by the Japanese legal system. It should also provide compensation to the victims of forced sterilization. - In addition, measures for women with disabilities, especially for those with mental disorders or intellectual challenges, should be pursued more actively. - In facilities for women with disabilities, presence of male caregivers should be avoided to eliminate incidents of sexual violence/abuse. - The Japanese government should implement policies to recognize the multiple discrimination women with disabilities face.

1-2 Domestic violence-related issues involving women with disabilities

As a result of lobbying efforts of made by DPI Women’s Network and others groups, the clause “respect the human rights of victims who are disabled” was added to the revised 2004 Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims5. Although the state policies now recognize the need for support, many facilities cannot be accessed by disabled people. The following measures are just a beginning to prevent domestic violence against women with disabilities: - to grasp the reality to protect victims with disabilities; - to make physical and psychological recovery possible for persons with disabilities; - to make consultations and refuge facilities accessible to persons with disabilities; and - to provide women with disabilities with education, work, and income-earning opportunities to gain independence, which is necessary for recovery from abuse. In addition, lack of informational access, lack of communication, and the biased perception of the disabled victim pose further barriers. Disabled women are not fully included in the targets of domestic violence. In Japan, as in elsewhere, domestic violence cannot be separated from the low

3 http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/HB/hb-04.pdf Note that the government translates the name of the Act as“The Act for Special Measures for the Treatment of Gender for People with Gender Identity Disorders.”(Underline by the author) 4 http://www.kl.i.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/told/h17a12301en.2.1.txt 5 http://www.gender.go.jp/dv/sv2.pdf Article 23 (Consideration, etc. by related officials) (1) Officials related to the protection of victims, investigations and judicial decisions pertaining to spousal violence (referred to as "related officials" in the following paragraph) shall, in the performance of their duties, take into consideration of the psychological and physical conditions of the victims and their environment, etc., respect their human rights regardless of their nationality or disability, etc., and give due consideration to ensuring their safety and protecting their privacy. (underline by the author) 114

socio-economic status of women in general. The gender disparity is widening even among disabled people. Also, gender-sensitive viewpoints to meet the needs specific to women and transgender people should be introduced into the policies for people with disabilities. Topics of sexuality in general are difficult to bring up within groups of people with disabilities, and more so when it comes to sexual orientation or gender identity. Holding exchange sessions between minority groups is a good way to raise the awareness regarding people who belong to more than one minority group.

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4-1. Rural Women: Women in Agriculture

Masami Shinozaki (Japanese Red Cross Kyushu International College of Nursing)

1. Transition from post-WWII to the 1990s After the Second World War, the patriarchal family system called “ie” which was the foundation of the pre-war nationalistic state of Japan was annulled. Women acquired legal rights, and numerous governmental and nongovernmental movements to democratize rural society and promote women’s rights took place. However, it was only after the 1990s that these movements became apparently effective and started to enhance the status of women in agriculture, forestry and fisheries (hereafter referred to as rural women). In rural areas, under the strict farmland reform policy of “self-possession by self-cultivation,” the majority of family farm management bodies possessed only a very small tract of farmland. This was one of the reasons for the long persistence of the traditional ideas and practices of land succession solely to the eldest son. It is not realistic to equally divide a very small land among several children. Hence, rural communities which consisted of these “ie” type families kept their traditionally patriarchal and ‘household head dominant’ system. Rural women could not emancipate themselves for a long time after Japan’s post-war land reform; they could hardly possess farmland nor could they become the head of a household except when the family had no son as a successor or the family could not find a suitable husband for the daughter by adoption from outside. Women’s farming work and all other kinds of work at home and in the community were unpaid. They could neither spend money for themselves nor save money unless their parents-in-law retire. Often, they visited their own parents to take a rest and be given pin money. It is ironically true that most mothers in farming families did not want their daughters to marry farmers but wished to have a bride for the son. From the late 1960s onwards, more and more male farmers are left unmarried in rural areas. Changes took place during the period of high economic growth, when a huge number of young people, especially males, were absorbed into workforce through industrialization, which led to a tremendous increase in the number of part-time farmers. As a result, the farming population was feminized and aged. According to Otomo (2008)1, the main body of these female farmers consisted of the birth cohort born between 1936 and 1945. They were 15-24 years old in 1960, and 30-39 years old in 1975, the UN International Women’s Year. Now they are 64-73 years old. The White Paper on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery (MAFF) in 1995 wrote: “Over 60 percent of the agricultural labor is women.” Through the publication of this White Paper, rural women were recognized as indispensable agricultural labor force by the government. While the White Paper highlighted the feminization of the rural population, in reality, the ratio of women in the farming labor started to decrease in 1985, and that of core farmers in 1975, as Table 1 shows:

1 Otomo, Yukiko (2008) ”Chiiki Shakai niokeru Josei no Kurashi to Rodo no Henka” (Changes in Women’s Life and Labor in the Community), in Tsutumi, Masae et al. (eds.) Chiho karano Shakaigaku—No to Furusato no Saisei o Motomete (Sociology from Rural Society—in search of the regeneration of agriculture and furusato), Gakubunsha, pp. 58-89 (in Japanese) 116

Table1 Number and Ratio of Women in Farming Household and Agriculture (in thousand persons) Year 1960 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Population in the 34,411 26,595 23,197 21,366 19,839 17,296 12,037 10,467 8,325 Farming Household Number of Women 23,675 13,739 11,955 10,966 10,177 8,875 6,158 5,338 4,232

Women's Ratio 68.8 51.7 51.5 51.3 51.3 51.3 51.2 51.0 50.8

Number of Farmers 14,542 10,352 7,907 6,973 6,363 5,653 4,140 3,891 3,338

Women Farmers 8,546 6,337 4,932 4,300 3,885 3,403 2,372 2,171 1,780

Women's Ratio 58.8 61.2 62.4 61.7 61.1 60.2 57.3 55.8 53.3 Number of 11,750 7,109 4,889 4,128 3,696 3,127 2,560 2,400 2,365 Core Farmers Women Core Farmers 6,235 3,857 2,591 2,092 1,826 1,505 1,188 1,140 1,094

Women's Ratio 53.1 54.3 53.0 50.7 49.4 48.1 46.4 47.5 46.2

Source: Otomo (2008), p. 59

2. Globalization, agriculture and rural women The total amount of agricultural production recorded a historical high at 1.6 trillion yen in 1985. After that year, it started to drop year by year along with the growth of globalizing economy. Food import accelerated while export of Japanese industrial products and overseas investment jumped up. In parallel with this, agricultural policy focused on women farmers; since then, several programs and measures have been initiated to implement this policy. In 1987, the government drew up “the New Action Plan of Japan,” followed by MAFF’s formulation of “Mid and Long Term Vision for Women in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries” in 1992. This vision highlighted women as an individual and their important economic roles in agriculture. To secure women’s active contribution it took a new look at the evaluation of their labor and expected participation in farm management. After the enactment of the Basic Law for a Gender-equal Society in June 1999, the MAFF established the Basic Law on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas2 in July 1999. Article 263 stipulates for the first time in Japanese history that women should equally participate in agricultural management. In December 1999, the MAFF issued a general guideline for gender-sensitive budgeting for most of the Ministry’s projects and programs, although its effectiveness has not necessary been verified. In 2001, a gender equality promotion office was established within the MAFF in accordance with the Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality.

3. Supporting rural women’s challenges and their results

2 http://www.maff.go.jp/soshiki/kambou/kikaku/NewBLaw/BasicLaw.html 3 Article 26 “In consideration of the importance of securing opportunities for both men and women to participate in all kinds of social activities as equal members of society, the State shall promote the creation of an environment in which women's roles in farming operations are fairly assessed and women can be provided with opportunities to become involved in farm management and other relevant activities on a voluntary basis.” 117

During the period of Structural Reforms started by the then Prime Minister Koizumi in 2001 and strongly promoted thereafter, the governmental policy focused on women’s challenges in all the fields; it continues to focus on them although it is shifted towards work-life balance. Among the rural women’s challenges, the following challenges have been emphasized to promote the status of women: 1) to become a certified farmer, 2) to acquire their own farmland, 3) to participate in decision making by becoming a committee member of JA (Japan Agricultural Cooperative Association)4 and an agricultural commission member, 4) to become an entrepreneur, 5) to sign a family management agreement5, and 6) to join the farmers’ pension scheme. We can see considerable results for several challenged goals: According to the White Paper on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas (2009) by the MAFF, women accounted for 3.3 percent of certified farmers (2006) (challenge 1 above), 2.1 percent of JA executive committee members (2006) (challenge 3), 4.2 percent of agricultural commission members (2006) (challenge 3), while 9,533 entrepreneurial activities by women as an individual or a group (2007)6 (challenge 4), and 37,721 farm households had a family management agreement concluded (2007) (challenge 5), a five-fold increase compared with the number in 1990. We have to notice that conclusion of a family management agreement is a kind of condition to realize several challenges mentioned above; for example, to be a certificate farmer, to join the farmers’ pension scheme, to purchase farmland (if a women does not own farmland yet), and to obtain public loans for their entrepreneurial business. Since most women do not possess any farmland, the administrators cannot acknowledge them as farmers. Thus, family management agreements function as a kind of official certificate for professional farmers. No data was shown concerning to the number of the farmers’ pension participants and women farmers land ownership. There has been and still is strong disgust among conservative politicians with the conclusion of a family management agreement. They consider the agreement as an evil or blasphemy for the sacredness of the family because it looks more like a business contract. However, what lies behind their accusation is their fear that the agreement will threaten the patriarchal family order. Despite this, the number of family management agreements has increased. One survey by the government shows that in more than 80 percent of the farming family with the agreement, women participate in farm management decision making jointly with other family members. In contrast, we know little about how many women have joined the farmers’ pension scheme. It is mainly because the payment of farmers’ pension premiums, in addition to the premiums for national pension scheme, is too heavy for women. They possess little cash for the reason discussed above. There is no regulation concerning how to determine a wage scale for any member under the agreement; the government guides the related family members to discuss for themselves, but it is estimated that their average wage is under the average wage of female part-time workers in the community. This will threaten their life security in old age. At present aged rural women’s pension is

4 http://www.zennoh.or.jp/zennoh-report/english/2008_p04-p05.pdf 5 Family management agreement is a set of rules among farm family members concerning how they jointly and equally manage and participate in family farming. It is concluded as a document in front of the formal sector authorities, like a chairperson of an agricultural commission and others. The rules include ways to make management decisions, working hours, holidays, vacation, payment for the labor, and so on, as well as the timing of the succession of farming ownership. The statuses and roles of young sons, wives of the landowners and other family members will be articulated, and they will be motivated by the rules. However, it has no constraint; it is only a socially announced agreement. For more details on gender issues and family management agreements, see Nakamichi, Hitomi (2003) “Gender Issues and Family Management Agreements in Less-favored Areas,” in Yoshizawa, Shiro (ed.) Japanese Less Favored Areas and Regional Revitalization, Tsukuba Shobo, pp. 103-137 6 See for instance Asahi Shimbun, July 4, 2009 “Noka no josei kigyo zokuzoku” (a dramatic rise in entrepreneurial businesses among rural women) 118

too low to afford their medical and care services. Apart from that, there is a shortage of those services in remote mountain villages and islands. The lack of necessary transportation exacerbates the problem. In terms of economic empowerment of rural women, entrepreneurship and direct sales depots enable them to earn a cash income under their own name. The sales amount is quite different from woman to woman, but an increasing consciousness for food security and ‘local production, local consumption’ does contribute to the direct sales of agricultural products. At direct sales depots, more and more rural women are challenging food processing, which would produce additional value. Another merit is that they can sell fresh but out-standard products, which will reduce food waste. It is not seldom to see old women farmers aged over 80 bring their products every day. In order to reorganize community agriculture, the government has introduced a new system of community farming organizations. The organization members collectively purchase agricultural machines, split the payment and share the machines. Usually the machine operators are selected from among organization members by themselves. As of 2008, sixty percent of the members of these organizations are women, of which 79 percent are active members. Most of the organizational leaders are men, but 20.1 percent of women members participate in decision making for organizational matters7. The majority of the machine operators are men, but little by little, women are taking this responsibility through local government support. In one group, all the operators are women. Women farmers pioneered one big profession of food education for children. This is related to health education and education that promotes respect for life. In some local governments this work is remunerated but it is rather an exception. Earning respect from children, women farmers feel satisfied in playing a new educational role in today’s society. Nevertheless, it is necessary to systematize and expand the profession so that new education for life through food and agriculture will transform the current value system, which is overly market-oriented, into a system which respects life in our understanding of fragility and diversity, which may be associated with a slow lifestyle. This will be the foundation of peace and environmental protection.

4. Tasks ahead 1) To tackle generational issues As mentioned above, women of the 1936-1945 birth cohort have struggled in the postwar Japanese society and lived as pioneers in rural areas. They engaged in agriculture for their entire life and experienced the worldwide women’s movement. Although their experiences have been mostly indirect, they are also the first generation in Japan committed to gender equality. As Otomo (2008) points out, however, the next generation (their daughters) that follows them is not living as they did. In fact, most of young rural women who are married to farmers do not engage in farming. Willingly or not, the older generation has to accept young women’s distancing from farming because they really welcome and need young women as their daughters-in-law. At present more than 70 percent of young wives are from non-agricultural families. They are either working outside the farm or stay home as full-time housewives. Thanks to their daughters-in-law, aging mothers-in-law can concentrate on farm work without having to do many household chores. The work-life balance of rural women has been changed between generations. The question is if the next generation can succeed in farming or not. If not, the sustainability of agriculture and farming households will be endangered. Another concern is that in following such a life course, the stereotyped gender role might be perpetuated in rural areas. 2) To strengthen and expand family management agreement Family management policy has played a considerable role in articulating women’s economic roles and giving values to them. However, the number of agreements conducted is equivalent to only 9

7 Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery (MAFF) (2009) White Paper on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas 2009 119

percent of the fulltime farming households and 2.9 percent of the total commercial farming households. In addition, it has no legal power over the members. Also, it is a male-headed agreement. To make it more equal, a partnership type of agreement should be taken into consideration. Since farm management bodies have become more diversified and there is a labor deficit in agriculture, in the near future we should expect a new age of recruiting successors from outside the family, or from those with non-agricultural and further non-Japanese backgrounds, who could fully engage in agriculture. This would entail examination of possibilities of introducing laws that would make family management agreements legally binding like partnership-type agreements, which would help farmers establish their position as autonomous/independent farmers. As of 2008, 54 percent of the farmers are over 65 years old. Ten years later, more than 50 percent of the farmers will be over 75. Since food production is beyond the family matters but essential to people’s survival, we should be concerned from the standpoint of food sustainability. 3) To reverse the polarization of women farmers As discussed above, generational differences as well as gaps among farmers stemming from locational differences (cities, flatland, low uplands, and mountain villages) have yielded considerable discrepancies among rural women. What is worse, the globalizing economy has polarized rural women into those from economically successful agricultural families and those from unsuccessful families, which form a majority. It should be pointed out that studies by women scholars including me suggest that successful farm households alone cannot possibly fulfill all the expected roles and missions of Japanese agriculture, which encompasses food supply, food safety, dietary/agricultural education, natural environment, land conservation, and landscape preservation among others). Consequently, equality, where rural women are guaranteed to equally benefit from governmental policies regardless of their differences, coupled with mutual understanding and respect among rural women of different ages and in different locations seem to be a key to coming up with an adequate policy which speaks to the interests of women in their diversity. This will enable those women to cooperate with each other beyond their differences. From the viewpoint of society as a whole, what is most needed is to secure highly motivated farmers despite their diversified conditions. Since women farmers play an indispensable role in production, management, food processing, the management of direct sales depots, food education, etc., enhancement of their status will surely contribute to sustainable agriculture. Implementing much stronger policy to promote gender equality, as well as policy to narrow gaps in living standards and life opportunities among women should increase the number of more motivated agricultural women, especially young women. Lastly, for those young rural women who are interested in farming, “agricultural vocational schools” may be newly organized where they can get proper training for farming for free of charge, and if possible, with a certain amount of education benefits. Local farmers say that school training should be more effective for both employed and self-employed farmers than the kind of training given amongst family members of farming households. As a matter of fact, some local governments have started to offer training programs to novice farmers from non-agricultural families. It is also necessary to expand such a training system so that it could accommodate even unmarried young women from non-agricultural families in cities who choose farming as their career.

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4-2 Women in Fisheries1

Hitomi Nakamichi (Ehime University) Natsuko Miki (National Fisheries University)

In the process of Japan’s economic growth during the 1960s and 1970s, women’s role in fisheries was diminished because many fishermen began to engage in mechanized fishery. With the aging and decrease in the fisheries population in the past decades, however, women in fisheries came to be viewed as indispensable to the sustainability of fisheries in Japan because of their reproductive role. In conjunction with the promotion of women’s policies by the Japanese government, including the establishment of the Law for a Gender-equal Society in 1999, changes began to emerge, albeit gradually, in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries with respect to gender equality. Within the new basic laws for agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, women’s roles are clearly stated. However, the infiltration of women’s policies is still limited to only a few areas, and at present the roles of women in fisheries are almost invisible. This stems from several factors: In the past, interest was centered on “catching”; women workers were seldom at the site of “catching”; and the regular members of the Gyokyo2, which are the associations most representative of people in fisheries, are mostly men. Most of the activities of women from fishing communities to receive attention―exchanges with urban and agricultural areas; efforts to expand fish consumption, in school lunches for example; and environmental conservation activities such as tree planting in cooperation with Gyokyo young people’s clubs―are not directly related to fisheries3. Therefore, the reason for the invisibility of women in the fishing industry lies in the fact that the activities of women engaged in fisheries and related work are largely ignored. In a 2002 meeting to consider the results of the Fishery Census and other data, it was pointed out that statistics such as those related to fisheries are inadequate and that survey methods for determining the structure of women’s work and the actual situation of women’s participation in management have not been established. Both improvement of data categorized by gender and an understanding of the labor conditions and state of participation in management by women, who are invisible in many settings, are needed. In the Fisheries Basic Act4 established in 2001, drawing upon the Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas Basic Act of 19995, Article 28 on “Promotion of Women's Participation in Fisheries” states: “The State shall, in view of an importance of men and women secure opportunities to participate in all activities as equal members of the society, assess women's role in fisheries fairly and promote improvement of environment for women to secure opportunities to participate in fisheries and relevant activities voluntarily.”

1 This Chapter is based on excerpts from Nakamichi, Hitomi (ed.) (2009) Women in Japanese Fishing Communities, Agriculture and Forestry Statistics Publishing Inc. (cf. Nakamichi, Hitomi (2008) Josei karamiru Nihon no Gyogyo to Gyoson, Norintokei Shuppan (in Japanese)) 2 The Japanese word Gyokyo refers to Japanese Fisheries Cooperatives and may be singular or plural according to the context. 3 For example, almost all the activities in every prefecture mentioned in “Issues and main advisory items related to life in fishing households” (referring to the fiscal 1999 version), which was carried out in conformity with the Fisheries Basic Act before its revision and focuses on women in fisheries and fishing communities, are exchanging with urban and farming areas, activities for expanding consumption of fish, or conservation activities such as tree planting and promotion of soap use. 4 http://www.kl.i.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/told/h13a08901en.1.1.txt 5 Article 26: In view of an importance of both men and women to secure opportunities in participating all kinds of activities as equal members of the society, the State shall promote the creation of an environment in which women's role in farm management is fairly assessed and women can be provided with opportunities to get participated in farm management and other relevant activities on voluntary basis. http://www.kl.i.is.nagoya-u.ac.jp/told/h11a10601en.1.0.txt 121

Policies related to the women of fishing communities are criticized as lagging in comparison with policies related to women in agriculture and farming communities, but with the promulgation of the Fisheries Basic Act, the first step has at last been taken. In addition, in the area of research, few studies of women in fishing communities have been made. This may be related to the limited scale of fisheries and fishing communities as an area of investigation, but that is not the only reason. It is largely related to the fact that, as was mentioned above, women in fisheries and fishing communities are “invisible.” For this reason, until now the areas of research have been unevenly weighted toward economic topics and the culture of fishing communities. From now on, in order to render women in fisheries and fishing communities visible, the following issues will need to be addressed in research on women in fisheries. First, there is the need to elucidate women’s work in family management fishing households such as aquaculture and large-scale vessel fishing operations and the progressive phenomenon of women replacing men as hired workers in aquaculture, as well as the connection between the introduction of non-Japanese trainees and interns, which is increasing sharply in the marine product processing industry, and the labor force of women of fishing communities. Second is the question of what effect the involvement in entrepreneurship of women in regional fisheries and the community, outside the family management fishing household, will have on the regional economy, the reorganization of regional fishery product distribution, the diverse functions of fisheries and fishing communities, welfare, environmental conservation, and the consumption of fishery products. And third is the further elucidation of the status and roles of women in the society of fishing communities.

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5. The Role of Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality

Miwako Shimazu (JAWW)

Introduction In our report Japan NGO Report 2004 compiled by JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch), we addressed the following four in Section N. “The role of men and boys in achieving gender equality”: 1. active involvement of men and boys in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the Outcome Document adopted at the special session of the General Assembly in June 2000 entitled “Women 2000 gender equality, development and peace for the twenty first century”; 2. implementation of the items pointed out in the final concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its 29th session between June and July 2003 regarding Japan’s periodic report; 3. adoption of measures to reinforce the move to encourage men to redefine manhood and also to reexamine various programs for gender equality; and 4. the necessity of education and awareness raising on the concept of gender equality. To begin with, the realization of a gender-equal society, i.e., women’s empowerment and the achievement of gender equality, is essential in order to build a sustainable society not just in a nation or region but in the global world, and hence is not exclusive to women. Therefore, it need not be said that the roles that men and boys should play are of prime importance. While an attempt to introduce policies toward this goal has been made by both the national and local governments, more proactive efforts should be required in the years ahead, in addition to furthering efforts by we NGOs and the general citizens. According to the opinion polls concerning gender-equal society conducted by the Cabinet Office in 2007 (Table 1), when asked what is the requisite of an ideal man, 18.6 percent of male respondents replied those who “place priority on their work,” a nearly 50 percent decrease from the figure in 2000. Conversely, the number of men who consider ideal men are those who balance both work and family/community life sharply increased to 34.2 percent from 24.6 percent in 2000, whereas 23.5 percent (4.7 percent in 2000) said priority on either family life or on community/individual life. Among the factors that many of the respondents said are needed to enable men to cooperate with women to get actively involved in housework, child care, family care, and community activities are “communication between husband and wife and among family members,” “lowering men’s resistance to housework, child care, family care, and community activities,” “setting a higher value on housework, child care, family care, and community activities by men,” and “shortening work hours and improving leave systems so that workers could have time outside work. Table 1 Involvement in Work and Family Life, and Community/Individual Life (ideal and actual) in 2007 ideal image of ideal image of men actual condition actual condition women from from men's of women of men women's viewpoint viewpoint place priority on work 5.1 17.3 18.6 40.2 place priority on family life 34.5 43.9 19.5 18.5 place priority on community/individual life 3.8 3.9 4.0 5.5 balance work and family life 26.4 18.0 29.2 19.6 balance work and community/individual life 2.5 1.9 5.0 3.9 balance family life and community/individual 10.7 8.3 8.6 5.8 balancelife all three 15.2 5.2 14.1 4.8 don't know 1.8 1.5 0.9 1.6 Source: Cabinet Office (2007) Public Opinion Poll on a Gender-equal Society

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I. Lack of Mention Concerning the Role of Men and Boys in the National Plan (“The Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality”) by the Japanese government “The Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality” approved at a Cabinet meeting on December 27, 2005 presents the future vision of an ideal gender-equal society. 1) Through “women’s participation in the process of formulating and adopting policies and guidelines,” novel perspectives could be introduced, which should facilitate planning and implementation of policies in consideration of the situations of people with various backgrounds. 2) “Elimination of gender discrimination in the workplace and advancement of work-life balance measures not only make it easy for women to work but also secure working environments that would prove comfortable for men. Diversified working environments will activate the workers, thereby heightening corporate activities as well. 3) By “promoting gender equality at home,” parent-child relationship will be better and both men and women could experience the joy of getting involved with children. 4) By “highly evaluating community activities so as to promote gender equality,” both men and women will be able to choose on their own a variety of lifestyles on a set of different values, including community activities, volunteer work, family life, learning activities, apart from work-oriented life. 5) By “promoting gender equality taking into account the global trends while providing aid and voicing opinions,” Japan would be able to contribute to the promotion of gender equality in the global society and expand the space in the world where Japanese people can take active part. Section 1 of the Second Basic Plan also lists 10 priority items to be pursued, one of which is to advance public relations (PR) activities and awareness-raising that place emphasis on the significance to men of the creation of a gender-equal society and their responsibilities, coupled with participation of men in the community and household. Given this, in Section 2 “Basic Direction of Policies and Specific Policies,” as one of the specific measures concerning the nationwide development of PR activities and awareness-raising activities in the framework of reexamination of social systems and practices and reform of awareness from gender-equal perspectives, the Plan iterates that the government is to advance PR activities and awareness raising and enhance the development and introduction of educational programs targeting men. The Cabinet Office and the relevant ministries are in charge of this specific action item. Section 2 also cites “building the social infrastructure that facilitates the independence of the elderly and the disabled in an effort to setting conditions that promise the elderly and others secure living. Thus the Plan calls for promoting policies that allow all men and women, including the elderly and the disabled, participate in social activities. Whereas individual items in the Basic Plan focus on women’s participation, work-life balance, and women’s renewed challenges, the Plan makes little mention of men’s participation. For example, men are expected to play a critical role in the furtherance of educational activities for cleaner community environments specified as measures necessary to promote gender-equal society in the media; however, the Plan makes no mention of men’s participation. Since towards the end of 2007, progress has been taking place in terms of work-life balance in view of both male and female workers. In December 2007, the Work Life Balance Charter was adopted by the consent of relevant Cabinet Ministers, the business community, labor unions, and local governments along with its action plans to promote work life balance1. In 2008, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare prepared a 56-page highly readable pamphlet to inform fathers of

1 Office for Work Life Balance, Cabinet Office (2009) “Shigoto to Seikatsu no Chowa (Waku Raifu Baransu) nikansuru Nihon no Genjo” (The Current Condition of Work Life Balance in Japan) Jurist, No. 1383, pp. 4-9 124

programs to help them balance work and child care and provide and support them.2 Also in 2008, the Office for Work Life Balance in the Cabinet Office compiled essays of 84 fathers about their experience of child care and uploaded them on the website 3 , followed by its release of a comprehensive report of work life balance in Japan in 20094.

II. The Situations Concerning the Achievement of Gender Equality in the Japanese Society 1. Gender-equal participation at home and in the community and the role of men and boys 1-1 Men’s participation in family management and harmonization of family responsibilities and work by men 1-1-1 Men’s minimum participation in household work Although recently there has been a positive outlook on the participation of Japanese men in household labor, as witnessed by the popularity of cooking classes designed for male retirees and an increase in the number of male salaried workers who are responsible for carrying household garbage to the designated place, we still lag behind compared with other nations in the world. Among dual-income households, on the average, husbands spend only 30 minutes a day for housework, child care, and family care, whereas among those households with working husbands and unemployed wives, husbands spend 32 minutes a day (Table 2). Table 2 Daily Time Use by Husbands and Wives in 2006 (in hours:minutes) housework work/ leisurely sleep/meal /child care commuting activities /family care wife 10:01 4:57 4:15 4:47 dual-income households husband 10:10 8:08 0:30 5:13

households with a working wife 10:20 0:04 6:52 6:43 husband and an unemployed husband 10:16 7:49 0:39 5:16 wife Source: Cabinet Office (ed.) (2009) Danjo Kyodo Sankaku Hakusho (White Book on Gender Equality) (fiscal 2009), National Printing Bureau, p. 75

It is true that the number of men who believe in the stereotyped gender division of labor which claims that “husbands should work outside while wives stay at home to protect the family” has decreased, but in an opinion poll on lifestyles of men and women by the Cabinet Office in 2009, 44.6 percent of the male respondents (as opposed to 34.6 percent of the female respondents) said they “agree with the traditional role” or “rather agree with the traditional role.5” 1-1-2. Final decision-makers at home In 2002, the Gender Equality Bureau carried out an international survey on gender-equal society in Korea, the Philippines, the U.S., Sweden, Germany, and the U.K. The Cabinet Office made a comparative analysis on the answers given by the respondents in these six nations (a total of 800 to 828 respondents, both male and female) for each country, with ages ranging from the 20’s to the 50’s) with the survey results in Japan and released a report. The report shows that with respect to house

2 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/2008/12/dl/tp1201-5a.pdf 3 http://www8.cao.go.jp/wlb/change_jpn/taikenki/h20/index.html 4 http://www8.cao.go.jp/wlb/government/top/hyouka/report-09/index.html 5 Source: Cabinet Office (ed.) (2009) Danjo Kyodo Sankaku Hakusho (White Book on Gender Equality) (fiscal 2009), National Printing Bureau, p. 38 125

budget management, usually wives or female partners make the final decision in Japan (69.4 percent), Korea (74.8 percent), and the Philippines (69.2 percent), whereas in the U.S. and the three Western nations, a majority replied that husbands and wives, or couples are the final decision makers. Contrastingly, as for “purchase of land and houses,” the ratio of the respondents in the U.S., the three Western nations, and the Philippines who said that “husbands and wives, or couples” make the final decision reaches between just below 70 percent and 80 percent, and in Korea 60 percent belongs to this group. In Japan, that figure totaled 36.7 percent, while most of the Japanese (47.0 percent) replied “husbands, or male partners” and those who replied “wives, or female partners” accounted for only 6.6 percent. On the other hand, the respondents who chose “husbands, or male partners” as their answer do not constitute a majority in other nations: Korea (20.1 percent), the Philippines (18.6 percent), the U.S. (16.8 percent), Sweden (10.1 percent), Germany (11.4 percent), and the U.K. (10.7 percent). These statistics are suggestive of the delay in a move to progress toward gender equality within Japanese families. 1-1-3. Men’ child care leave and family care leave The percentage of male workers who took child care leave in fiscal 2007 was 1.56 percent (women 89.7 percent), triple the figure in 2005 (0.56 percent)6 which remains extremely low despite the increase. In light of the data taken in 2005, the Cabinet Office set numerical targets at 80 percent (women) and 10 percent (men) to be achieved by 2017 as specified in the Action Plan for Work Life Balance. Moreover, the ratio of men among those who took leave for care of their sick preschool children is higher than the ratios of men taking child care leave and paternity leave. It is also said that it is mainly employees at large companies that enjoy the benefit of such leave, and middle and small-scale companies do not offer leave to all the employees. In fact, out of all establishments in Japan, 66.4 percent have provisions on child care leave as opposed to 88.8 percent among those with 30 or more employees. Similarly, 46.2 percent of establishments have provisions on leave for caring for sick children while the percentage increases to 94.2 percent among establishments with 500 or more employees. The ratio of the companies offering paternity leave and family care leave also rises in proportion to the size of companies. In the past four or five years, we have witnessed changes for the better. It is not unusual to see young fathers at the train stations pushing strollers, giving children a piggyback or a hug, feeding them, or even changing their diapers. What is more, they seem to be enjoying parenting. According to the result of a 2008 survey on families released by Hakuhodo in 2009, 83.5 percent of husbands and 95.8 percent of wives said that husbands also should share the responsibility of child care, up from 66.3 percent and 88.6 percent a decade ago7. However, by international standards, Japan stays behind, as shown by the 2008 international survey in which 43.5 percent said husbands should prioritize child care over work, which was the lowest among 4 countries (China (58.0 percent), U.S. (64.8 percent), and Sweden (79.5 percent)). Companies have begun to see support for dual responsibilities as one of their management strategies, since the labor market is now the seller’s market. At present, 38.9 percent of establishments have measures for short working hours, of which 57.5 percent offer the program until the child 3 years of age. The Act on the Welfare of Workers Who Take Care of Children and Other Family Members Including Child Care and Family Care Leave was revised in June 20098 on working styles during the period of child care, working styles that allow men to be involved in child care, reconciliation between work and family, and maintenance of effectiveness. For example, it obligates companies to introduce a

6 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/za/0818/d02/d02-08.pdf 7 http://www.hakuhodo.co.jp/pdf/2009/20090407.pdf 8 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2009/04/dl/h0421-1a.pdf 126

shorter work hour system for workers taking care of children aged 3 and under to work and upon the request of workers exempt them from overtime. Men whose wives are full-time housewives are now also eligible for child care leave. At the same time, more companies are beginning to make child care leave paid, in order to increase the number of child care leave takers among male workers, so as to meet the requirement of plan-making companies based on the Law to Promote Measures to Support the Development of the Next Generation. However, since the paid time is between 5 and 10 days, which is short, there is a growing concern that women’s child care leave may turn out to be long-term but unpaid whereas men’s be paid but short-term. Hence, apart from companies’ voluntary efforts, introduction of legally mandatory child care leave for men such as papa quotas and an increase in the amount of allowances (80 percent in Sweden) during child care leave are necessary. How did citizens react to these government measures? A new type of NGO networks like Ikujiren established in 1980 by the initiatives of men who seek time for child care for both men and women are emerging to secure time for child care. In the 1990s a number of the so-called oyaji no kai, roughly meaning associations of dads, were organized across Japan to form a linkage with schools, PTAs, and communities, though they had the tendency to be tinged with an image of “authoritative dads.” According to a survey carried out in Koganei City, Tokyo in 2003 as part of Ikujiren’s project on housework, the two most common factors that had the greatest impact on how husbands and wives share their family responsibilities were “the age difference between husband and wife” and the “wives’ income.” This suggests that whether women have a full-time job with a guarantee of an adequate amount of income or not is a key to making it possible for husbands and wives to equally share their housework and child care responsibilities. In other words, such policies as to press companies to guarantee an environment enabling women to continue working full time and resume full-time work are imperative. We have also NPOs like Fathering Japan9 which conducts various projects to support fathers including organizing fatherhood certification exams, holding seminars and lectures for fathers, and conducting surveys, among others. Furthermore, there is a website launched in 1998 by a male company president to support pregnancy, child delivery, and child care for mothers and fathers. It serves as a community site where mothers and fathers can discuss their problems, exchange their views, obtain the latest information on medical care so that they can enjoy child care. Likewise, in 2006, a magazine for fathers called FQ (Fathers Quarterly) Japan10 began its publication coupled with a website for its readers. Around 2000, another type of networks began to appear among male public servants, where those who have the experience of taking child care leave provide the know-how of parenting to fathers-to-be, such as “how to obtain the understanding of co-workers prior to child care leave,” “how to keep good relations with child caring mothers in the neighborhood,” “how to overcome stress during child care leave,” “how to prepare for the return to the workplace from leave,” and so on. 1-1-4. Prospective child care support measures As long as the primary purpose of child care support policies currently presented by the Japanese government is to reverse the birthrate decline, divergence from the viewpoint of gender equality is inevitable. Legislation and notification of laws related to the countermeasures to the falling birthrate, including the Child Care Leave and Family Care Leave Law, have been provided to address the aging of the population and the decline in the birthrate accompanied by a drop in total fertility rates. Yet, even if the total fertility rate begins to pick up in the future, the Japanese government as well as companies should continue to encourage more men to take child care leave and to participate in household labor. This is because such a working style that allows workers to maintain work life balance including child care proves to be a significant source of vitality for

9 http://www.fathering.jp/index.html 10 http://www.fqmagazine.jp/ 127

society which is essential not only for women but also men.

1-2. Boys’ participation in family management A report on the first basic survey on children’s actual life carried out by Benesse Corporation in 2005 indicates that among primary, middle, and high school children, more girls than boys do household chores as activities they often do outside school. This implies that sexual division of labor as to who is responsible for housework is already taking place in childhood.

1-3. Men’s participation in care work at home Turning to family care, in families with an elderly requiring nursing care, employed female caregivers on average spend about 4 hours and 42 minutes for household labor, which is a quintuple of the hours spent by men. The average hours those women spend for nursing care is 42 minutes which is a triple of the hours spent by men. Currently, in most cases male care givers care for “their own parents” and female care givers for “their parents-in-law,” and as men are apt to leave main care responsibilities to their mothers, wives, and sisters, the burdens of care tend to fall predominantly on women, the unemployed, and “irregular” employees. However, we should also draw our attention to those men, many of whom are in their 40s and 50s in an administrative position in their companies, struggling with care for their elderly parents often without any outside help and support, as documented by a recent newspaper article11. According to a 2006 survey by the Japan Institute of Labour Policy and Training, 1.5 percent of male and female workers who took family care leave reflecting the magnitude of apprehensions about a wage cut and burdens on their co-workers. Prof. Tsudome of Rikkyo University reveals each year 20,000 to 30,000 male caretakers are forced to leave or change their job, no longer able to reconcile work and family care. Fujio Arakawa, Representative of Man Nursing and Support Person’s Networks12, who himself attended his wife’s deathbed after 8 years of caring for her and now looking after his son who is suffering from the same disease as his wife’s, confesses the plight of male caretakers, such as exhaustion from care work, a sense of isolation, and financial problems, which may trigger abuse or suicide13. He proposes making a place in each community where caretakers can go to relax, for example, through exchanging information and taking a bath.

1-4. Gender equality in community activities According to an opinion poll on people’s social awareness by the Cabinet Office in 200814, contrary to the conventional wisdom, more men than women wish to contribute to society through community activities like those of town associations. The proportion rises as the age goes up, reaching the peak of 74.4 for men and 74.9 for women at ages between 60 and 69, which coincides with the year of mandatory retirement. As for the contents of main activities, the typical themes common to both men and women were “conservation of nature and protection of the environment” and “community activities.” There is gender difference in other themes. That is, more women than men are involved in social welfare activities such as care for the elderly and handicapped, but men are more interested in activities related to their work and fire prevention/disaster relief activities. A mass of the so-called baby-boomers which form the core of the population has reached the mandatory retirement age. While some of them strongly wish to gain reemployment because of a time lag between the legal retirement age of 60 and the pension eligibility age, some local

11 Evening edition, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, on August 19, 2009 12 http://dansei-kaigo.jp/ 13 Asahi Shimbun, August 16, 2009 14 http://www8.cao.go.jp/survey/h20/h20-shakai/2-1.html 128

governments offer programs targeting the rest of the retirees so that they can find out motivation in life and prevent withdrawal. At the same time, voluntary clubs on cooking and mountaineering are being established. A major newspaper once reported that male retirees who “have single-minded dedication to work” and are “proud and unvocal” are expected to be a “full member of society” in the true sense. While some men’s groups that teach women’s groups how to accept male retirees, it is also important for male retirees themselves to get actively involved in community activities.

1-5 Single-father households The Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions in 2009 shows that the percentage of single-mother households at 701,000 far exceeds that of single-father households at 94,000. 15 Various data including data on yearly wages seem to suggest that single-father households are better off than single-mother households. However, unlike single-mother households, single fathers can gain virtually no public support, whereas single-mothers are eligible for childcare allowances and medical care service at an extremely low cost. Since male company workers have overtime and as such they have to resort to eating out and utilize night-hour child care services, which incurs extra expenses. The average wage of single fathers is low than other male workers, because some of them were compelled to change their job due to their single fatherhood. In 2007, a single father named Ayatomo Miyahara, facing difficulties of compromising work and child care and prejudices against single fathers, founded a network to support single-parent households, especially single-father households, called Fushiboshi net16 as a forum where single fathers can exchange information and join hands together to overcome the worries and problems specific to them17. Now Representative of Fushiboshi net, Miyahara warns of possible links between economic poverty and psychological poverty among single-parent households. In the worst cases, children are abused or killed by their single parent or his/her partner. However, Miyahara believes that the cooperation of single-father households across Japan enable them to someday change the practices which put them at a disadvantage and improve their life, which is the very mission of the network. In 2009, Representative of Fathering Japan, mentioned earlier, created a fund named French Toast Fund to financially support single fathers.18

2. Gender equality in the workplace “The Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality” presents some of the ways which give rise to the elimination of gender discrimination, such as accelerating measures for guaranteeing equal opportunities and equal treatment for men and women in the area of employment and improving working environments to meet the need of various working styles. Gender equality at the workplace cannot be attained by women’s efforts alone, but necessitates active involvement of male workers as well as managers, management, and labor unions. It is also critical to add novel perspectives in moving gender equality forward by removing the barrier between male- or female-dominated occupations and allowing women and men to enter each other’s spheres.

2-1. Closing the gender wage gap The legal framework for pay equity between men and women has been in place as a result of the establishment of the “principle of equal wages between men and women” by Article 4 of the Labour

15 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/saikin/hw/k-tyosa/k-tyosa08/1-1.html 16 http://fusibosi.net 17 Miyahara, Ayatomo (2009) “Konkyu Koritsu suru Fushi Katei” (Single-father households facing financial difficulties and isolation), in Yuzawa, Naomi et al. (eds.), Kodomo no Hinkon Hakuho (A White Book on Child Poverty), Akashi Shoten, pp. 228-229 18 http://www.ftfund.jp/about.html 129

Standards Law enacted in 1947, followed by the ratification of ILO No. 100 “Convention concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value”; at the same time, the rise in women’s educational level should lead to an increase in human resources. Nevertheless, wage disparities between men and women remain to be wide compared with other industrialized nations as the Japanese government duly admits. Causal analysis is necessary for closing wage gaps, and the gender differences in educational level, job experience and other job qualifications, working hours, and marital status are often pointed out as the main cause. However, according to the analysis by the UN, no more than one third of wage disparities can be explained by “reasonable grounds,” and the rest of the cases should be explained by other reasons19. In other words, social evaluation on the different roles and responsibilities that men and women each play and fulfill in society serves as an important wage determiner. Simply put, a deep-rooted sense of sexual division of labor is reflected in wage gaps. As such, unless this fundamental cause is done away with, an increase of women’s entry into the labor market works to widen the wage gap. What is worse, in Japan where a great majority of household heads are male (principal earner of household income), the notion of a standard living wage is conducive to the gender wage gap by virtue of the sense of sexual division of labor. With regard to indirect discrimination, in the absence of reasonable grounds, the revised Law for Equal Employment Opportunity Law enforced in April 2007 prohibits the following three actions as constituting indirect discrimination, a move which we welcome as it marks progress: a) To make workers’ height, weight, and physical capability as requisites at the time of recruitment and hiring; b) To make it a requisite to comply with the order of transference which accompanies moving at the time of recruitment and hiring for fast-track career development jobs (sogoshoku); and c) To make transference a requisite for promotion. However, apparently neutral treatment in terms of gender oftentimes works adversely against women, since practices, rules, and systems that prevail in the workplace operate on the basis of prejudice unique to Japan. Examples include systems and practices favoring household heads and favorable treatment of full-time workers. As instances of indirect discrimination are not so easily identified as obvious direct discrimination, it is necessary to double efforts against indirect discrimination for the effective implementation of the Convention. In order to eliminate discrimination inherent in the structure of the labor market and achieve gender equality in the true sense, we should be able to envisage workers who harmonize work and private life, including family life, instead of workers who engage only in work. This would call for changes of lifestyles on the part of men. Concurrently, we should review the social values attached to occupations that are dominated by women. This entails change in the conventional wisdom that underestimates reproductive activities as is common to unpaid labor, especially changes in men’s mentality. For the effective implementation of the Convention, Japan should ratify ILO No. 111 (Discrimination (Employment and Occupation)), one of the fundamental human rights conventions, which is ratified by 166 nations in the world as of April 2008. The Convention is one of the 10 universal principles of the UN Global Compact, which serves as an initiative to facilitate corporate social responsibilities (CSR).

2-2. Roles of employers and labor unions Whether employers have the definite intention to advance gender-equal participation in the workplace is of marked importance in advancing gender equality in the workplace, hence policies to encourage individual employers and associations of employers to take further action are vital. Since women were not mainstream workers in modern industrialized societies, the problems that

19 United Nations:“The role of employment and work in poverty eradication: the empowerment and advancement of women”（E/1999/53） 130

women confront, for example, were left off the agenda during collective bargaining. The issues of gender equality in employment are effectively resolved through legal regulations rather than negotiation. However, labor unions are also expected to play an active role for several reasons, one of which is to establish objective criteria for job evaluation towards the resolution of the gender wage gap mentioned previously. This is because in the present circumstances, where regulations are eased one after another, if we allow market forces to determine working conditions including wages, there is a possibility that the transparency of the labor market may be lowered or gender discrimination might be reintroduced into labor contracts between individuals. Although recently part-time workers are being increasingly organized, there is a tendency that, overall, this trend concerning both men and women workers is declining. To secure working conditions which ensure decent work, the roles of labor unions are gaining importance. Nevertheless, the male-centered orientation of the organizational culture of labor unions is still dominant. As such, labor unions are urged to change the old ways and take positive action so that women can join labor unions and become union leaders. There are several statistics that represent the present conditions of labor unions. First, according to the “Basic Survey on Labour Unions” by MHLW, the estimated union membership ratio in 2008 is 18.1 percent for all workers and 5.0 percent for part-time workers. The estimated union membership ratio for male workers and female workers was 22.2 percent and 12.1 percent, respectively in 200820.

2-3. Measures to prevent sexual harassment Attention should be paid to sexual harassment as a form of violence common in the workplace. Considering that most of the workplaces in Japan are still characterized by gender inequality despite the formulation of detailed guidelines on the recommended measures in employment management by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, far more dedicated moves are called for. Since the victims are predominantly female as stipulated in “The Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality,” for the prevention of sexual harassment it is of foremost importance that men in particular gain understanding about the issue and simultaneously employers and managers raise their awareness. In short, active involvement by men is inessential, be it employers or employees.

3. The role of men and boys in the areas of health 3-1. Reproductive health Reproductive health and rights are of significance to men and boys are they are to women and girls and are essential to the realization of a gender-equal society.

3-1-1. Dissemination of information and education on reproductive health Boys in particular should be provided with appropriate knowledge that matches their developmental stage as well as education on the importance of respecting the human rights of themselves and those surrounding them. This is also true of workers as topics in reproductive health should be fully incorporated in safety and hygiene programs at workplaces. The aim of these programs should be for working men and women to learn the importance of avoiding sexually transmitted infections (SDIs) and HIV/AIDS and not becoming the source of infection, while, on the other hand, employers, superiors, and labor unions should gain understanding concerning endometriosis and other diseases peculiar to women.

20 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2009/03/dl/h0326-1g.pdf 131

3-1-2. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) According to the statistics by MHLW (Table 3), the number of occurrences of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) pinpoints a tendency to increase. Since 2000, there have been more reports by men for gonorrhea, condyloma acuminatum, and syphilis, whereas more reports of genital chlamydial infection and genital herpes were in connection with women rather than men.

Table 3 Changes in the number of reported cases of STIs by sex Cases reported by the designated institutions Complete counts genital chlamydial condyloma No. of genital herpes gonorrhea syphilis Year designated infection acuminatum medical institutions Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female

2000 897 37,028 15,856 21,172 8,946 3,907 5,039 4,553 2,511 2,042 16,926 14,196 2,730 759 512 247 2001 911 40,836 17,497 23,339 9,314 3,957 5,357 5,178 2,814 2,364 20,662 17,205 3,457 585 400 185 2002 917 43,766 18,284 25,482 9,666 4,074 5,592 5,701 3,044 2,657 21,921 17,591 4,330 575 395 180 2003 920 41,945 17,725 24,220 9,832 4,075 5,757 6,253 3,299 2,954 20,697 16,170 4,527 509 388 121 2004 916 38,155 16,533 21,622 9,777 3,874 5,903 6,570 3,628 2,942 17,426 14,299 3,127 533 408 125 2005 931 35,057 15,220 19,837 10,258 4,129 6,129 6,793 3,795 2,998 15,002 12,374 2,628 543 411 132 2006 946 32,112 13,909 18,203 10,447 4,311 6,136 6,420 3,547 2,873 12,468 10,236 2,232 637 441 196 Original source: “Surveys on Trends and Occurrence of Infections” Source: http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/2005/04/tp0411-1.html

3-1-3. Dissemination of information to youth and sex education at school Education is necessary for young women and men alike so that they can recognize what could happen to their own bodies and that men and boys require education so that they can recognize that they may become a source of infection and eventually afflict partners in sexual intercourse. Kihara (2006)21 asserts that there is a possible link between a drop in the shipping of condoms in Japan and an increase of infection of HIV and chlamydia and toxemia. This phenomenon implies what kind of information meeting the needs of youth should be provided to youth to prevent infection. Kihara goes on to say: “We have already entered the era when people should regard HIV and STIs as “their own problems.” It is from this perspective that we should review what knowledge should be disseminated. Greater consideration should also be given to the location of counseling offices and the route from the entrance of the building to the counseling room, so that a client cannot be easily seen entering the room by others. It also should be kept in mind that education on the diversity of sex including sexual preference and orientation be prepared based on the principle of human rights. Chapter 8 “Support for Women’s Lifelong Health” in Part 2 “Basic Direction of Policies and Specific Policies” in “The Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality” addresses “promotion of appropriate sex education” and “promotion of education on HIV/AIDS and STIs at school.” The Course of Study for junior high schools made public by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in December 1989 sets the following goal for physical and health education: “Treating mind and body as an indivisible unit, to develop the qualifications and talent to actively enjoy physical exercise through the understanding of exercise, health, and safety and rational practice of physical exercise, to foster the practical ability to maintain and promote health and improve physical strength, and to nurture the attitude to lead an affluent and positive life.” With this goal in mind, the Course of Study subsequently presents what should be included in the curriculum for health education. At present MEXT is responsible for the issues in education; however, in light of the

21 Kihara, Masako (2006) Judai no Seikodo to Nihon Shakai—Soshite WYSH no Shiten (Teenagers’ Sexual Behavior and the Japanese Society—Perspectives of WYSH), Minerva Shobo 132

importance of the latest medical and pharmacological information grasped by MHLW and the increasing diversity of the actual conditions of youth, we look forward to close collaboration between these two Ministries.

3-2. Health in general and suicide/karoshi 3-2-1. Causes of death by sex and age As mentioned in Part I, C. Women and Health, The top two causes of death for both men and women in 2008 are the same, namely, malignant neoplasm and cardiac diseases. Cerebrovascular diseases rank fourth for men and third for women, whereas pneumonia ranks fourth for women and third for men22. One of the items that showed differences between men and women was suicide. Male suicide clearly stands out as a cause of death when compared with women. It is nothing more than a reflection of the harsh reality of the present Japanese society that makes men feel the agony of life.

3-2-2. Suicide committed by men and boys 3-2-2-1 Differences in suicide cases between men and women The suicide rate for the total of men and women (calculated as the number of suicide committed/population X 10,000) drastically rose to 26.9 in 1998 whereas it was maintained at 22.0 from 1979 to 1997 and from thereon shifts between 24.4 and 27.0 (25.3 in 2008).23 Male suicide rates far surpass female suicide rates throughout the years. From the period from 1978 to 1997, male suicide rates were between 21.6 and 29.1; however, since 1999 the figures grew to the range of 35.6 to 40.1 (36.7 in 2008). The total number of suicide committed in 2008 was 32,249, of which 22,831 were men, accounting for 70.8 percent of the total. In terms of age, people ages 50-59 ranked top (6,363 persons) and accounted for 19.7 percent of the total, followed by those ages 60-69, those ages between 40-49, and those ages between 30-39. By occupation, the unemployed totaled 19,251 (11,623 men and 6,628 women) and accounted for 59.7 percent of the total, followed by employees (8,997 persons (7,638 men and 1,359 women); 27.9 percent), and the self-employed (3,209 persons (2,870 men and 336 women); 9.9 percent). While 8,759 of suicide cases were without suicide notes or their equivalents, the rest of 23,490 cases with suicide notes were categorized by the contents of the notes as to the causes and motives of suicide in which up to three per case are counted. On the top of the list is health problems, comprising 47.5 percent of the total, followed by economic and livelihood problems (7,404, 23.2 percent), family problems (31.9; 12.3 percent), and work-related problems (2412; 8.0 percent); the latter two show striking gender differences (See Table 4).

22 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/za/0903/a51/a51-01.pdf 23 http://www.npa.go.jp/safetylife/seianki81/210514_H20jisatsunogaiyou.pdf 133

Table 4 Deaths from Suicide by Cause and Motivation (2008)

Total 31,921 Total Men 22,279 Women 9,642 Total 3,912 Family problems Men 2,503 Women 1,409 Total 15,153 Health Problems Men 8,870 Women 6,283 Total 7,404 Economic/ Men 6,686 livelihood problems Women 718 Total 2,412 With a suicide Work-related Men 2,120 note problems Women 292 Total 1,115 Marital problems Men 707 Women 408 Total 387 School problems Men 294 Women 93 Total 1,538 Others Men 1,099 Women 439 Based on Appendix Table 2-3 in “The summary data on suicide in 2008“ (2009) by Community Safety Planning Division, Community Safety Bureau, the National Police Agency

3-2-2-2 Youth suicide Statistics by the Cabinet Office on the population of adolescents (ages 0 to 29) in 2008 indicate that girls comprise 32.0 of the total of suicide cases as opposed to none for preschoolers for both male and female. Of nine primary school children, five are girls, which contrasts with middle school students and higher school students, male students always exceed female. In particular, due attention should be paid to the fact that 76 percent of working minors are boys, which should be examined together with the high suicide rate among adult males (See Table 5)

Table 5 Suicides among Minors by Educational Level in 2008

Educational Students level Aggregate Pre- Employed Unemployed Primary Middle High College/ Unknown total schoolers Total Others minors minors school school school University Aggregate total 4049 0 943 9 74 224 520 116 1594 1460 52 Girls 1295 0 284 5 21 92 129 37 653 347 11 proportion 32.0 0.0 30.1 55.6 28.4 41.1 24.8 31.9 41.0 23.8 21.2 of girls (%) Survey by the National Police Source: Cabinet Office (ed.) (2009) Seishonen Hakusho (White Book on Youth) (fiscal 2009), National Printing Bureau, p. 56

134

3-2-3 Karoshi A great many Japanese men are known to work for long hours on a daily basis to the extent that they may harm their health. The phenomenon of karoshi, or death from overworking, gained publicity as the word was included as an entry for English dictionaries. To ameliorate the situation, an office for the approval of occupational diseases, under the Labour Insurance Contribution Levy Division, Labour Standards Bureau, MHLW opens a direct hotline for night hours. Even before the present standards for approval were set, MHLW’s office had been compiling and publishing the annual report on “labor insurance covered for cerebrovascular diseases and ischemic heart diseases (IHD) (cases of “karoshi”)” and “labor insurance covered for mental disorders.” The partially revised Industrial Safety and Health Law enacted on April 1, 2006 incorporated improvement of the programs for overwork and mental health and stipulated that “Employers are to give doctors’ face-to-face guidance to workers who have worked overtime in excess of statutory working hours.” More recently, the revised Labor Standards Act promulgated on December 12, 2008 serves to regulate overtime and long working hours, thereby likely to lead to the prevention of karoshi and suicide from overwork.24 In a move among citizens to eliminate the cases of karoshi and suicide due to overwork, a nationwide network called “Karoshi 11025” is existent. In April 1988 a hotline for karoshi was set up in Osaka to give counseling by phone, immediately followed by the start of nationwide counseling service by “Karoshi 110” in June 1988. These two contributed to the diffusion of the terms “karoshi” and “karo-jisatsu,” literally meaning suicide by reason of overwork.

3-2 Smoking A 2008 survey on the smoking rates across Japan by Japan Tobacco (JT) found that the smoking rates of people above age 20 and over were 39.5 percent for men and 12.9 percent for women.26 Although the rates for men show a tendency to decrease with time, the number is still high in comparison with other industrialized nations. According to a fact-finding study of middle and high school students’ smoking, the percentage of students who have smoked at least once (not including habitual smokers) in the past 30 days rises with grades, such that the percentage among high school seniors is 13.0 for male students and 5.4 for female as of 2004. The ratio of habitual smokers reaches 8.7 percent for male high school seniors and 4.3 percent for female high school seniors.27 Thus, male students have higher smoking rates than female. There is a growing concern over the possible connection between the exceptionally high number of male smokers and infants’ accidental ingestion and indirect smoking at home. Moreover, tobacco smoke in the environment is proved to cause cancer in the human body and studies demonstrate that one of the effects of passive smoking is that children run a high risk of contracting respiratory diseases. For these reasons, smokers are urged to refrain from smoking.

3-4. Metabolic syndrome The National Nutrition Survey in 2006 indicates the ratios of those who are strongly suspected of metabolic syndrome (visceral fat syndrome) plus those with a risk are 27.9 percent among men in their 30s and 39.8 percent among men in their 40s as opposed to 2.9 percent among women in their 30s and 5.5 percent among women in their 40s. The ratios go up with age such that half of men and

24 Obata, Fumiko (2009) “Rodo Kijunho no Ichibukaisei” (Partial revision of the Labor Standards Act), Jurist (No. 1374), pp. 24-31 25 110 is an emergency number in Japan. 26 http://www.health-net.or.jp/tobacco/product/pd090000.html 27 http://www.health-net.or.jp/tobacco/product/pd110000.html 135

one fifth of women are either strongly suspected of metabolic syndrome or have a high risk.28 In either case, men have a greater share than women. The conspicuous phenomena among middle-aged men are considered to stem from overly irregular lifestyles of working men, including lack of exercise, overeating, and late-night return to home and dinner. For prevention, conscientious efforts should be made to improve eating habits and make regular exercise a habit.

4. Violence against women Violence against women is an inclusive term for sexual harassment, violence by spouses or partners, sex crimes, secret camera shots, prostitution, stalking, and human trafficking. “The elimination of all form of violence against women” is largely addressed in “The Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality.” As described in the Plan, among actions to be taken are raising the awareness of the society at large about the crime and creating the environment to prevent the occurrence of violence against women, building the infrastructure to propel programs for perpetrators, and comprehensively accelerate wide-range measures according to the form of violence. Traditionally, cases of violence against women, with the exception of those regarded as a criminal offense under the Penal Law and infliction of injury, have been excluded from being recorded as statistics and have been existent as the so-called “hidden numbers.” Even to this day, such situations are not necessarily resolved. It has been made possible for women to report the damage they suffered with a sense of relief, however slight it may be, armed with the Minor Offenses Act (Law No. 39 of 1948), the Criminal Procedure Act (Law No. 131 of 1948), the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act (Law No. 319 of 1951), the Anti-Prostitution Law (Law No. 118 of 1956), the Law for Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and for Protecting Children (Law No. 52 of 1999), the Ant-Stalking Control Law (Law No. 81 of 2000), the Child Abuse Prevention Law (Law No. 82 of 2000), the Law for the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims (Law No. 82 of 2001), the Basic Law for Victims, etc. (Law No. 161 of 2004), promulgated on December 8, 2005 and enacted on April 1, 2006. It should be welcomed that beginning with the fiscal 2005 issue, the White Book on Crime annually published by the Ministry of Law has been carrying a section on crime victims, with a subsection on the present condition of sex crimes and the measures to prevent them (as of 2009). What is lacking is that the sex-aggregated data for perpetrators is yet to be consolidated. With respect to the roles of men and boys to terminate the vicious cycle of violence, including sexual violence, we need to take into account the following points, so that we could empower victims with the best care possible: 1) Education to raise the awareness as to what acts would constitute violent acts; 2) School education, social education, and training at workplaces to raise the awareness about the fact that victims are gravely suffering both physically and mentally and require a long time to recover themselves; 3) Education of police officers, public prosecutors, and staff at relief and rehabilitation facilities, immigration officers, staff at women’s counseling offices, and those in the medical profession; 4) Support for the enforcement of non-violence training and communication training targeting men as part of social education; 5) Enforcement of non-violence training and communication training for male convicts; 6) Setting up of men’s counseling offices and training of male and female counselors. The first point should be reinforced in relation to men’s understanding about the damages resulting from human trafficking. Some people maintain that as far as human trafficking is concerned, the victim should take the responsibility if it was out of economic motivation or if the victim was aware of the situation. However, we need to inform the general public that, if accompanied by compulsion or threat that would deprive victims of the freedom to migrate, the act

28 http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2008/04/dl/h0430-2c.pdf 136

amounts to a crime that should be denounced. Also, policies in all related fields should be directed towards decreasing the demands for human trafficking. Concomitantly, promotion of further measures is needed for the relief of victims and the punishment of perpetrators.

5. Education for men and boys To enable men and boys to play necessary roles towards the attainment of gender equality requires improving measures concerning the following items in the areas of education and ensuring their implementation. First, education from the perspectives of gender equality should be integrated into the present education program, which should start with compulsory education. Second, non-violence training and communication training appropriate for each developmental stage should be carried out. Boys especially need to be taught how to express their own feelings incorporating gender sensitivity. Third, we need to conduct analysis of the causes of wide variation in academic achievement between boys and girls from gender perspectives; and follow-up analysis of the relevant phenomena. According to the results of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)29, in math, there are more boys than girls among high achievers; in reading, there are more boys than girls among low achievers, and more girls than boys among high achievers. Fourth, education on the diversity and on the participation in house management and community activities appropriate for each developmental stage is also vital.

6. Overcoming the difficult situations that men are facing 6 -1Facilitating prevention of men’s suicide The suicide rate in Japan (per 100,000 persons) (as of 2008, 25.0) is one of the highest among countries in the world, which ranks 11th for men (34.8) and third for women (13.2) next to Sri Lanka, China, and the Republic of Korea according to the data by WHO.30 This high figure implies that measures to reduce the number of suicides as a whole is necessary, and most importantly, to prevent men’s suicides. The youth counseling cases dealt with by the police in 2008 sorted by the status and gender of the clients, there were more women clients (41436) than men (33838) with the exception of unidentified youth and people other than youth and guardians31. In order to reform the society where men are made hesitant to seek counseling into one where men as well as women feel free to go for counseling whenever in trouble or having worries, simply opening “men’s counseling clinics” and developing human resources will not suffice; instead, all of us should explore how to build a society and create culture that set men free from the heavy load which they have shouldered since their childhood as a strategy for their survival, thereby enabling them to live the life of their own—an issue that concerns the Japanese society as a whole.

6-2 Appropriate programs and services for single fathers “The Second Basic Plan for Gender Equality” lays out specific measures to grasp the present conditions of single-father families and their needs and provide whatever support necessary to raise a child and make a living. The government is called upon to pursue these measures in parallel with the

29 OECD (2007) PISA 2006 results – Vol. II Data, OECD. See Table S6e and Table S6b. http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/30/18/39703566.pdf 30 http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/index.html 31 Cabinet Office (ed.) (2009) Seishonen Hakusho (White Book on Youth) (fiscal 2009), National Printing Bureau, p. 124 Youth includes minors, which can be categorized as preschoolers, primary school children, middle school students, high school students, college/university students, other students, employed minors, unemployed minors, and unknowns. 137

measures for single-mother families, with more considerations for their well-being. The difficulties men are confronting in a sense demonstrate that in many cases Japanese men have become less flexible in daily life circumstances because many of them have grown up in a culture governed by the concept of the strict gender roles which has affected them deeply. For this very reason, there is a pressing need for us, the constituent members of the Japanese society, to endeavor to construct a sound gender-equal society through the mutual cooperation of men and women, keeping in mind the difficulties unique to men.

6-3. Appropriate programs for male caretakers of the elderly As Physician Minoru Kamata points out the recent phenomenon of what he calls “caretaking bankruptcy,” we should expand caretaking services that cater to the need of males in their working age, now that male caretakers represent 30 percent of all caretakers. To cite an example from Dr. Kamata’s talk, a 38-year male university researcher took leave from work to devote himself to the care of his wife suffering from cerebral apoplexy, but without income eventually became worse off.32 In desperate, he returned to work, but the expenses for his wife’s care services while he was away from work ran high. The man could hardly apply public services because of strict limitation on user eligibility.

III. The Role of Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality—Future Issues One of the resolutions adopted at the 48th session of the Commission on the Status of Women held from March 1 to 12, 2004 at the UN Headquarters in New York was resolution III ”Agreed conclusion of the Commission on the Status of Women on the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality.”33 The Japanese government voted in favor of the resolution. Furthermore, it is endorsed by the UN Economic and Social Council. During the 48th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the Commission held a panel discussion on the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality on March 2, 2004. The participants agreed that men and boys had an important role in empowering women and achieving gender equality. They discussed what hinders gender equality and what is needed to achieve this goal. Examples of good practices were provided for the reference of other countries. As we have elaborated in this report, since the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, in Japan, the national and local governments and various non-governmental organizations have striven in various ways toward the implementation of the resolution above. Despite these efforts, views such as “Men are superior, and women are inferior,” “Men work outside home, and women stay at home” still remain deeply embedded in our everyday life. In some cases, family life, communities, and workplaces, and even legal systems and organizational principles are premised on these views. Moreover, they hamper the respect for Japanese women’s human rights and torment Japanese men as reflected by their high suicide rate. To reduce suicides by Japanese men, we need to drastically reform the present society by reconstructing the life work balance of all individuals, instead of stopgap measures such as upgrading counseling services to relieve worries. Particular importance should be placed on encouraging men and boys to take active part at home and in communities beyond the boundaries of the traditional gender roles imposed on them. Evidently, this cannot be achieved over a short time. However, we believe it can be attained some day if we members of the Japanese society work industriously on a

32 “Kaigo” trilogue by Sumiko Haneda, Keiko Higuchi, and Minoru Kamata (2009) Fujin no Tomo, vol. 103, no. 9, pp. 15-27 33 Commission on the Status of Women; Report on the forty-eighth session (E/2004/27 E/CN.6/2004/14) pp. 8-12 138

daily basis. This report has presented some of the tasks that we should work on in our daily life. We the members of JAWW would like to continue to have in-depth discussions on the relevant issues and perform these tasks in a way that men and women as well as boys and girls can work in partnership with each other.

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About JAWW (Japan Women’s Watch)

The Objectives of JAWW 1. Make an effective national network in preparation for Beijing+10, +15, and +20. 2. Compile a Japan NGO Report for 2005, 2010, and 2015. 3. Work for the implementation of the BPFA, the Women 2000 Outcome Document, the Millennium Development Goals, and other emerging issues at UN Conferences. 4. Lobby for World Conferences on Women. 5. Lobby for an NGO Forum parallel to CSW49, 54, and 59. 6. Keep Japanese NGOs informed on preparations for the events concerning Beijing+10, +15, and +20. 7. Send representatives to CSW (UN Commission on the Status of Women) sessions and relevant UN conferences. 8. Work closely with APWW (The Asia Pacific Women’s Watch) and send representatives to its meetings. 9. Hold meetings open to the public to report on the above sessions, conferences and meetings. 10. Encourage young women to join our activities.

Officers (as of October 2009) Convenor: Hiroko Hara Vice Convenors: Kay Fusano, Hiroko Hashimoto, Yukiko Oda Advisor: Mitchiko Nakamura Secretary-General: Hiroko Iida Vice Secretary-General: Masako Tanaka

Contributors: Part I A. Chieko Akaishi (Single Mothers Forum (NGO); Anti Poverty Network; Josei to Hinkon Network) B. Reiko Maruoka (Convener, Education & Mass Media Committee, International Women’s Year Liaison Group) C. Hiroko Hara (Japan’s Network for Women and Health; Convenor, JAWW) D. Tomoko Endo (Secretary General, All Japan Women’s Shelter Network) E. Asia Japan Women's Resource Center (AJWRC) and Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM) F. Mari Osawa (Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo) and Yasuko U. Muramatsu (Tokyo Woman’s Christian University) G. Kay Fusano (Vice-Convenor, JAWW) H. Hiroko Hashimoto (Vice-Convenor, JAWW) I. Mikiko Otani (Attorney at Law) J. Yasuko K. Muramatsu, Yoko Kunihiro, Rika Tanioka, Satoko Matsuura, Reiko Aoki, Miiko Kodama, Akiko Sugawa, Miho Takeshita, Kaori Hayashi (Gender and Communication Network); Keiko Ikeda (Our Planet TV), and Toshiko Miyazaki (Forum for Citizen’s Television and Media) K. Akiko Domoto (Ex-Governor of Chiba, Japan; Japan's Network for Women and Health (WHJ); Biodiversity Network Japan), Eri Nakajima (Environmental Policy Bureau, Ministry of the Environment), and Yuko Honda (Chiba Biodiversity Center) L. Mariko Asano and Masako Tanaka (JAWW)

141 Part II 1. Takako Sodei and Keiko Higuchi (Women’s Association for the Better Aging Society (WABAS)) 2. Ruri Ito (Hitotsubashi University) and Chiho Ogaya (Yokohama National University) 3. Minako “Minata” Hara (All-Japan Kyosei-Net for LGBIT) 4-1 Masami Shinozaki (Japanese Red Cross Kyushu International College of Nursing) 4-2 Hitomi Nakamichi (Ehime University) and Natsuko Miki (National Fisheries University) 5. Miwako Shimazu (JAWW)

Schedule for the Preparation of Japan NGO Report 2009 August 31, 2009 the deadline for the submission of the first English draft by each contributor August 1-October 4, 2009 editing by Miwako Shimazu October 6, 2009 printing of this Report (in English) October 15, 2009 publication of this Report

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ＪＡＷＷ（Japan Women’s Watch） c/o Iida 10-2 Sakae-cho Itabashi-ku Tokyo 173‐0015, JAPAN FAX: 81-3-3963-3825 e-mail: [email protected]

2009.10.15