Hibakusha

High court says hibakusha can apply for benefits from abroad

"FUKUOKA (Kyodo) The Fukuoka High Court on Monday backed a lower court ruling stating that atomic bomb survivors who reside overseas are eligible for health-care benefits without having to visit Japan to file an application, rejecting an appeal by the city of Nagasaki..."

Relatives leave the Fukuoka High Court on Monday holding a photo of atomic-bomb survivor Choi Gye Chol, who resided in Pusan, South Korea, until his death in 2004.

The ruling was the first by a high court on such a lawsuit. Hours later, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a regular news conference that the government would initiate steps to revise the current system in line with the ruling, while the Nagasaki Municipal Government said it would not appeal to the Supreme Court.

According to the Foreign Ministry, more than 1,000 people overseas who have been officially recognized as atomic bomb victims are believed not to be eligible for health-care because they have been unable to visit Japan. Last month, health minister Hidehisa Otsuji indicated the national government would revise the current system if Nagasaki lost at the Fukuoka High Court.

According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, about 3,660 people officially recognized as hibakusha are living overseas. Of them, about 2,420 are in South Korea, 850 in the U.S. and 140 in Brazil.

"It is important (for the government) to find a way to implement the system in a way that is convenient for overseas hibakusha," Hosoda said.

Under the current system, hibakusha must come to Japan in person to submit the necessary documents to receive the benefits. However, with 60 years having passed since the atomic bombings, many survivors are too old or ill to make the trip.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Choi Gye Chol, a South Korean who resided in Pusan until his death in July 2004 at the age of 78, and his 77-year-old widow, Paek Rak Im.

According to the ruling, Choi received government recognition as a hibakusha in 1980, which made him eligible for the health-care benefits. However, when he tried to have a proxy submit the necessary documents to the city of Nagasaki in January 2004, his application was rejected on grounds that he had to come apply personally.

He filed a lawsuit seeking nullification of the city's decision the following month.

Meanwhile, because the city also rejected the application by his next of kin to receive funeral money after his death in July due to his place of domicile, his wife filed a new lawsuit.

Last September, the Nagasaki District Court ruled that hibakusha overseas do not have to apply in person to receive the health-care benefits..."

Japan Times, Sept. 27, 2005

Many, if not all, of all Hibakusha regardless of where they live have suffered and lived with traumatic memories of the atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the second world war in August 1945. The mental suffering of all these victims of the bombings is immeasureable. That many like Mr Choi Gye Chol had to wait twenty four years and died before receiving the compensation paid to other hibakusha living within Japan is terrible. - TImi

Returnees

`Returnees'-both envied and resented

... "The word "returnee" generally conjures up images of the United States, or the West. In fact, 30 percent of Japanese returnees spent their time abroad in Asia.

China, with its surging economy, is an increasingly popular destination. The Japanese school in Shanghai this April registered more than 2,200 students, supplanting a school in Bangkok as the largest of its kind in the world.

Even international school students in non-English-speaking countries are susceptible to "the English complex"-the fear that one's English is not as good as it should be, or as people expect it to be.

But there's only so much English you can learn at school. If you don't use the language on the street, you're at a disadvantage.

Yuji, 11, is now a sixth-grader in Japan after spending four years in Malaysia. At the international school he attended, says the boy's mother, Misaki, 40, most of the teachers and students were Chinese Malaysians and Indonesians.

The family returned to Japan, only to discover that Yuji's pronunciation and overall speaking ability were decidedly inferior to those of returnees from English-speaking countries.

Not that being in an English-speaking country solves all problems. Quite the contrary, as Takeshi, 14, discovered over a five-year span in the United States. At the international school he now attends in Japan his English marks are below average, and in Japanese, he can only write hiragana. Once he aroused suspicion at a bank-he wanted to open an account but was unable to write his address in kanji.

"Everybody tells me how lucky I am because my son can speak English," his mother Yuko says. "Yes, I say, but on the other hand Japanese is really hard for him. They don't understand that. Among native speakers, my son's English isn't so great. I'm really worried about his future: Can he get into a Japanese university? Will he be able to get a job?"

This "English stress" can lead to other problems for returnees, including chronic truancy, eating disorders, depression and panic attacks, says psychologist Yoshiko Nishimatsu, 51. About 20 returnees are patients at Nishimatsu's Ai Clinic in Tokyo's Kanda district.

One woman, now in her 20s, lived in the United States between the ages of 7 and 10. As a junior high school student back in Japan, she was unable to go to class for two years after an English teacher snapped at her in the middle of a lesson, "You lived in an English-speaking country and you still can't speak!"

Homesick for Japan throughout her stay in the United States, she wasn't a very diligent English student, and when she finally returned she found herself two levels behind her returnee friends. Subsequently she was able to attend university, but the scar left by the teacher's remark, she says, still hasn't healed.

Some children find the effort to adjust to a foreign country exhausting. Then they come back to Japan and must adjust all over again. The stress, says Nishimatsu, can be overwhelming.

"The time they spend abroad learning about a foreign culture is time they're not learning about Japan,'' she says. ``You don't become bilingual automatically. Those people who have broadened their horizons have done so at the cost of a great deal of effort. That's what I would like the people around them to understand..."

International Herald Tribune/Asahi: June 18,2005

Human Trafficking

Japan Installs Caution Signal for Sex Traffic


Japan has revised its criminal law to stipulate human trafficking as a crime and punish those involved. Activists, however, remain alarmed by foreign-staffed sex parlors that have made the country a haven for traffickers.

TOKYO (WOMENSENEWS)--There are about 10,000 parlors in Japan that offer sex to patrons.

Many advertise that they have foreign women by using such names as Filipina Pub, Russian Bar or Thai Delight. The patrons pay $60 to $100 for drinks and then an additional $150 to $300 to take women out of the bar to have sex with them.

Most of these women come to Japan on falsified passports or with entertainer or short-term visas, says Hidenori Sakanaka, who until a year ago was the director of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau. They are told that they have to pay off fake debts and their passports often are taken away upon arrival in Japan. The women are beaten and controlled by threats to family members in their home countries.

"Most women are moved from place to place and are too scared to complain," Sakanaka says.

Sakanaka, who now directs the Japan Aid Association for North Korean Returnees, is credited with pushing through revisions to the law to combat trafficking while in his former post. Passed by the National Diet last month, it has helped abate international concerns about a country that has long been criticized for a too-tolerant an approach to trafficking.

On Saturday, the National Police Agency said police had uncovered 29 cases of human trafficking of foreign women from January to the end of June, up by five from the same period last year.

Despite these and other promising moves by Japan--brought about in part by the activism of Japanese women's groups--international and local advocates continue to worry about the country's problem with human trafficking, the world's third-largest underworld business after trade in drugs and arms, netting $9.5 billion annually.

In a recent report the Japan Network against Trafficking in Persons said that the government's heightened anti-trafficking efforts had so far not "made a dent."

Fact-Finding Mission Last Week

Last week, Sigma Huda, the special rapporteur on trafficking for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, came here on an unofficial fact-finding mission with activists, lawyers, lawmakers, academics and others concerned about human trafficking. The visit followed widespread reports--including by Amnesty International Japan--of South Asian women from developing nations being trafficked in this highly developed country.

"It's the dark side of globalization," says Huda, who is based in Bangladesh.

Reports indicate that about 130,000 women come to Japan on entertainer visas every year, but only about 10 percent of them actually perform in legitimate shows at hotels and other venues. Many obtain entertainment visas through agents who recruit them to Japan with promises of jobs that don't exist.

Sakanaka traces the problem to immigration officials who bend to politicians and businessmen who hire foreign women for illicit purposes. "Some men even said I was out of my mind to try to do something about human trafficking," he says. "They claimed it was part of Japanese culture to have sex with foreign women. They were addicted to the parlors. I received phone calls from politicians and anonymous threats on my life."

Japan Kept Off Worst-Trafficker List

Earlier this month, the U.S. State department removed Japan from a special watch list of countries that were to be included on an updated listed as the worst condoners of human trafficking after the Japanese government compiled an action program to combat human traffickers. The State Department had put Japan on that list a year ago.

Under the new Japanese legislation, those who "purchase" people in order to control their activities will face punishment of up to five years in prison. The maximum punishment could be increased to seven years imprisonment if the victim is a minor.

The new legislation will also grant victims, on a case-by-case basis, special residency status even if they have overstayed their original visa, so that they can be rehabilitated.

Before these revisions, police dealt with trafficking by arresting the victims as illegal aliens, jailing them and deporting them as soon as they had enough money to fly home. Traffickers received a fine or a short jail sentence.

One of the most notorious traffickers, Koichi Hagiwara, known as Sony for his habit of videotaping his victims while he humiliated and tortured them, was sentenced in March 2003 and served less than two years in prison for violating labor laws.

Japanese Women Enraged

Japanese women have also pressured the government to do something about human trafficking.

"Many women were enraged by an article in the Asahi Shimbun, a major daily newspaper in Japan, about the practice," says Sakanaka, the former director of the Immigration Bureau, referring to an investigative article published Oct. 18, 2003. "Until this article came out, Japanese women knew little about the situation. Women's groups mobilized, and called up magazines and newspapers to protest the treatment of the women victims."

The government, Sakanaka says, has neglected to investigate many of the abuse cases. These women, he says, live horrific, lonely lives, forced into having unprotected sex and perform other risky acts with dozens of customers a day. "These new laws are valuable. But they also need to strike at the center of organized crime."

Sakanaka is concerned that most foreign women will be too scared to go to the police because they think they will be killed if they try to escape.

Chieko Tatsumi, an official in the International Organized Crime Division of Japan's Foreign Ministry, disagrees. She believes the victims would seek protection from the police.

"There has already been an increase in the number of women asking for protection," Tatsumi says. "In 2002, there were only two Thais who sought help, but in 2004 there were 25."

She says that the government set a budget of $100,000 in April for helping women who come to a public shelter.

"The government will pay for rehabilitation for the victims of sexual enslavement and tickets for them to return to their home countries," Tatsumi says. Not enough, says Sono Kawakami, campaign manager for Victims of Violence of Japan Amnesty International. The government's measures fail to sufficiently protect victims and the amount of money budgeted to stop trafficking is insufficient, she says.

Her organization wants separate facilities for trafficking victims, rather than housing them with victims of domestic violence. Many victims are so traumatized that they won't talk to anyone, so they require specialists to handle them, Kawakami says. Since many do not speak Japanese she also wants language translation support for the victims and specialists in human trafficking to assist them. Although she believes the government can do more, she says the revisions to the criminal law affecting trafficking are a good start.

Keiko Otsu, director of Asian Women's Shelter in Tokyo, is also pleased with the new laws, but says there are currently only two shelters available for these women.

"The women don't have any income, assistance or support," she says. "Some may be pregnant and many have mental and other health problems, including AIDs and other sexually transmitted diseases and need expensive medial care."

http://www.womensnews.org, September 14, 2005

Excellent and very well researched article by Catherine Makino in Japan on the reality of human trafficking, forced prostitution and exploitation of over 100,000 foreign women forced to work in Japan in illegal sex industry. Please follow the links to the Womensnews web site to for the full article and related links.

General Anxiety Disorder

General anxiety disorder may be affecting 3% of population

General anxiety disorder may be affecting 3% of population
About 3 percent of Japanese are probably suffering from generalized anxiety disorder, which leads to depression and seriously affects not only those who have it, but also those around them.

Osamu Tajima, a Kyorin University professor, said GAD patients sleep poorly, suffer headaches and become highly sensitive and impatient.

"Naturally, they become irritable, tormenting themselves and troubling those around them," Tajima said.

GAD used to be called anxiety neurosis and was thought to be a condition that mainly affected highly sensitive and nervous people. Its causes are not fully known, but neither character nor stress is the cause.

"It is supposed that symptoms of anxiety, tension and sleeplessness occur after the brain's work to adjust anxiety and emotion becomes unbalanced," Tajima said.

As the number of those suffering from GAD in Japan is not well known, Tajima and other researchers recently carried out an Internet survey covering 24,000 people.

It asked whether they have felt a lack of rest and have worried about something trivial for more than half a year.

They were also asked whether they are suffering from headaches of unknown cause or other pains, whether they cannot fall asleep or sleep well, and about several other symptoms.

As a result, 3.2 percent of the respondents were diagnosed as suffering from GAD. The ratio of men and women was the same. The largest group was those aged 15 to 19, at 4.2 percent. Only 6.8 percent of all the respondents have received hospital treatment, and 83.8 percent have never been treated.

Most complaints were about sleeplessness and fatigue, feeling irritation and taking it out on their families, diminished concentration, and less efficiency at work or in studying, Tajima said.

He said the reason for the low number of medical checkups is that people don't normally think that a stiff neck, dizziness or other common pains are signs of a disease.

"Even if they see a doctor, most are not correctly diagnosed and are told they are suffering from a general malaise or autonomic imbalance," he said.

Effective treatments include improving the workplace or family environment and regular physical exercise to ease nervous tension.

Tajima said that if irritation, headache, stiff neck or sleeplessness continues for half a year or more, nearly 90 percent of sufferers will suffer from depression or another mental illness."

The Japan Times, June 16, 2005

Japan Suicide Prevention Measures

Japan trails Western Europe in averting deaths


"Japan, with one of the highest suicide rates in the industrialized world, is far behind Western Europe in mapping out prevention strategies.

While the former Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries still have higher suicide rates than Japan, in Western Europe, countries such as Finland and Britain are winning the fight.

Finland, the world leader in implementing prevention measures, has recorded a 9-percent drop in suicides over the past two decades.

It introduced the world's first nationwide suicide prevention measures in 1986, said Yutaka Motohashi, a professor at Akita University. At the time, Finland's suicide rate was higher than Japan's. But its three-phase intensive project has undoubtedly saved many lives.

First came research, from 1986-91, with specialists examining the causes of self-inflicted deaths.

In the second phase from 1992-96, networks were set up to reach out to the population. Basic action units were established in residential areas, workplaces and the military.

In the last stage, begun in 1997, evaluations and surveys found that the suicide rate had dropped about 9 percent from the 1986 level.

"In Finland, suicide prevention was never limited to combating depression-that was only a tiny part of the overall plan," said Motohashi. "(Rather,) Finland succeeded by creating a model that invigorated the entire society."

Britain's suicide rate ranked 57th in the world in 1999. Although its suicide rate is one-third of Japan's, prevention ranks high on the social conscience. And it has gained priority.

In September 2002, Britain's National Institute of Mental Health implemented its first national suicide prevention plan, aiming to reduce the suicide rate by 20 percent by 2010.

Specific goals included:

*Intervening in high-risk cases;

*Reaching out to a wider range of people, including those living below the poverty line and abuse victims;

*Reducing access to tools for suicide, such as by selling sleeping pills in packages of fewer tablets.

Takeo Nakayama, an associate professor at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, summed up the British model.

"Their overall suicide rate is coming down. The strategies are proving effective. Further, the government takes a flexible approach, refining the programs according to the changing circumstances."

In Japan, prevention measures center around the medical approach, to combat depression.

The government's suicide prevention project is in fact headed by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The ministry subsidizes research on depression, supports emergency hot lines and trains medical staff in corporate workplaces.

But such measures use a medical treatment approach, and do little to address suicides resulting from financial problems.

The number of lives lost to despair over heavy debts and job loss has shot up in recent years."

International Herald Tribune/Asahi Newspaper, June 23,2005

Lesbian Politician - Sexual Minorities

Assemblywoman puts sex on the agenda

Lesbian politician Kanako Otsuji talks about gender issues in Japan

"In April 2003, 28-year-old Kanako Otsuji became the youngest person ever elected to the Osaka prefectural assembly when she won the seat for Sakai City. It was a distinction made more special by the fact that there were only six other women in the 110-member assembly at the time. However, another distinction was not known to most of thepeople who voted for her.

Kanako Otsuji

Otsuji is a lesbian. Though she did not keep her sexual orientation a secret, the supporters who knew talked her out of revealing this information during the campaign. She was even open about her homosexuality to individual local journalists, but none reported it.."

"... After taking office, Otsuji knew that she wanted to come out. She spent two months writing a memoir, titled "Coming Out," which was accepted by Kodansha. She wanted the publication to coincide with the Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Parade 2005 on Aug. 13, where she planned to come out publicly. However, she felt some sort of obligation to her supporters in Sakai City, and on the day before the parade she held a press conference at which she revealed her sexual orientation..."

"Why did you decide to come out?

Somebody had to. Before people can acknowledge the problems faced by sexual minorities, they have to see them. Otherwise the vicious circle continues.

You said that you became a politician in order to change society. How did you present yourself to voters?

When I ran there were very few women in the Osaka prefectural assembly, and the average age of all the members was about 60. I thought the assembly should represent a wide cross section of people, but it was just old men. So in my campaign I said we needed the voice of a young woman. I also said I didn't belong to any party, so I could promote things I believed in without any strings attached.

As for policies, I had worked on peace and environmental issues, human rights, in particular, women's problems.

I wanted to represent people who didn't have an outlet for their views. I wanted to give them a voice in the assembly.

I had no record of accomplishment as a politician, so I asked voters to give me a chance as a young person who wanted to change things.

Why didn't you reveal your sexual orientation when you ran?

I never hid the fact that I'm gay. I never went out of my way to tell someone I am, but if they asked me I'd tell them. At the beginning of the parade I announced that I was a lesbian, and it was supposed to be a happy occasion. I didn't expect it to be so serious.

I had a hard time until I finally admitted to myself my true sexual orientation [at the age of 23]. Until then I thought I was weird, the only person in the world who felt this way. Then I met people who were in the same situation.

As I explained this at the parade, I just started crying. I was remembering all the pain I had gone through. I hope that in the future when people come out they'll have an easier time of it..."

The Japan Times, Sept. 11, 2005

Alcoholism

Sobering figure: 33 million drink to excess

It's one thing to have a beer after work or while you're watching TV. But for at least 33 million people in Japan, that is not nearly enough. In fact, many of them are full-blown alcoholics, a survey suggests.

And about 70 percent of those overimbibers are men, a research shows.

The calculations are based on a 2003 survey of 3,500 men and women aged 20 or older, which asked them how much alcohol they drank on average per day. There were 2,547 valid responses.

The survey was conducted by a team led by Susumu Higuchi, deputy director of the National Hospital Organization's Kurihama Alcoholism Center in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

In July this year, using the data from that survey, researcher Yoneatsu Osaki, an assistant professor of Tottori University, analyzed the results by age group in comparison with the nation's overall population.

After crunching the numbers, Osaki found that about 33.72 million people in the country regularly drink more than is good for them. From this, he extrapolated that about 70 percent were men.

In addition, about 8.34 million people take in 60 grams or more of alcohol per day on average-three times the amount considered safe, Osaki said.

That also indicates that about 820,000 people are likely alcoholic, the researcher said..."

International Herald Tribume/Asahi Shimbun, August 20,2005

Suicide Web Sites

Police to get info on users of suicide Web sites

"The communications and Internet service industries said Thursday they will provide police with information on people who try to arrange suicides over the Internet.

Guidelines on the disclosure of personal information, including names and addresses, have been compiled by four industry groups.

The guidelines, released the same day, state that an individual's personal information should be given to police when a suicide attempt is believed imminent because a message specifies it or the author shows a strong determination to carry out the deed.

Communications and Internet service providers are obliged to protect customer confidentiality, but they have agreed to disclose the personal data due to a sharp increase in the number of group suicides committed by people who used Web sites to meet..."

The Japan Times, Aug. 26, 2005

AUM Shinrikyo

AUM Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara to get mental evaluation

"The Tokyo High Court is set to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of AUM Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara who has appealed a lower court ruling that sentenced him to death for masterminding crimes including subway gassing, his defense lawyers said.

The appeal court made the decision in order to see if Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, is fit to stand trial. The evaluation is expected to take several months to complete.

However, the court dismissed a request by his defense lawyer that the trial be suspended because of his mental problems.

In requesting the court to suspend his trial, the defense lawyer submitted to the court a psychiatrist's opinion that he should be treated for a mental disorder.
"He cannot communicate with others because he suffers mental problems as a result of being detained. There is a high possibility that he will recover if he undergoes treatment at an appropriate institution," the psychiatrist said.
On the other hand, prosecutors have submitted an opinion pointing out that the guru is pretending to be ill.

Asahara and 12 other members of the cult have been sentenced to death for the subway gassing and other crimes. On March 20, 1995, five members of AUM Shinrikyo released sarin nerve gas on subway trains in downtown Tokyo, killing 12 people and sickening thousands of others.

The cult also released sarin in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in 1994 and murdered anti-AUM lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife and their infant son in 1989."

Mainichi Newspaper, August 20, 2005

Suicide Prevention Web Site

Web database aims to help bring down suicide rate


"Alarmed at Japan's high suicide rate, the government will set up an Internet Web site later this month to coordinate preventive efforts on a nationwide basis, officials said.

It will offer tips on how to cope with despair as well as the latest data on the suicide problems and other information, officials said.

The Web site will serve as a comprehensive database for local government officials and private-sector people who are involved in suicide prevention efforts, the officials said.

The National Institute of Mental Health at the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, which is commissioned by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, will start operating a homepage named Ikiru (To live) on its Web site from late August.

The site will introduce preventive guidelines compiled by frontline workers, as well as reports submitted by experts on clinical psychiatry and mental health.

To help ensure the reports are understood in lay people's language, concise versions will also be posted, officials said.

In addition to latest suicide trends, the site will explain what local governments are doing to combat the problem. For example, Akita and Kagoshima prefectures already have highly regarded suicide prevention programs in place.

With such information at hand, local governments will be able to set up their own preventive activities based on results achieved elsewhere, officials said.

Institute officials will accept questions in e-mail messages or letters, which will be relayed to experts at the institute or outside professionals to respond to, the officials said.

The health ministry began researching suicide prevention measures in earnest in fiscal 2001.

The problem has been compounded by the fact that researchers and administrative officials have had only limited access to reports on suicide prevention steps. Typically, only 600 copies are printed.

According to the health ministry, 30,227 people killed themselves in 2004. It was the second consecutive year for suicides to exceed 30,000.

For the past seven years since 1998, suicides have hovered around that mark, say police sources..."

The figures quoted are according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. It is important to note that the annual figures issued by the National Police Agency have shown, since 1998, seven consecutive years for suicide in Japan to exceed 30,000 (last year alone, according to the NPA, over 34,000 people committed suicide). - Timi

International Herald Tribune/Asahi Newspaper, August 17,2005

Sexual Crimes Victims Support

TOKYO, Japan (UPI) -- Japan`s National Police Agency will provide financial support to victims of sexual crimes to cover all required medical treatment and expenses.

Morning-after contraceptive pills, abortions and counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder are among the items that will be covered, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported Friday.

Until now, local police have allocated money drawn from local government budgets, but these benefits have been provided only to victims who have suffered severe injury and have been placed under medical treatment for at least one month and hospitalized for at least two weeks.

The costs of tests for sexually transmitted diseases, morning-after contraceptive drugs and abortions, which in many cases are expensive, have fallen on the shoulders of victims and their families.

The new policy will target not only rape victims but also victims of indecent assaults -- who will receive benefits for all needed treatment.

The number of sex crimes in Japan has risen sharply since 2000. The number stood at 11,360 last year, about twice the figure for the early 1990s. There were 2,176 rapes reported last year."

United Press International, September 2, 2005

Divorce

Divorce was a tradition, the taboo an invention

"In recent years there has been a cascade of media reports about the dysfunctional Japanese family. The alarming incidence of domestic violence, child abuse, suicide, delinquency and divorce challenges some widespread assumptions about stable families in Japan.

Harold Fuess writes about the "forgotten history" of Japanese divorce, reminding us that the recent surge is quite "traditional." His concise writing, based on rigorous research and thoughtful analysis, takes us through evolving perceptions, practices and laws over the past 400 years -- a context that tells us much about Japan's family and social history to contrast with prevailing media stereotypes.

Elevated divorce rates are nothing new to Japan; indeed, 19th-century rates have been exceeded only by those in the post-1970s United States. As recently as the late 19th century, there was little stigma attached to divorce and multiple marriages were common. A civil code and new laws on family registration introduced in 1898, however, led to a sharp decline in divorce rates. Fuess notes that "Industrialization, urbanization, and modernization, broad trends often blamed for an increase in divorce, had the opposite effect in Japan during the first four decades of the twentieth century...

... The anomalous period in Japanese divorce history spanned the period 1898-1940 when divorce rates declined. Why? According to Fuess, there was a strengthening of the institution of marriage because the Japanese "valued economic and social stability in marriage above romance and affection." In addition, a new sexual morality developed that criticized divorce as a national disgrace and a poor reflection on women's rights.

Yesterday's battles are still being fought today. The government suppressed textbooks in 1997 that accurately reported rising divorce rates because they contradicted "traditional Japanese values. By defining traditional Japanese values as anti-divorce, the ministry not only rewrote history and reinvented tradition; it also elevated the problem of divorce rates to an issue comparable to the controversies surrounding Japanese atrocities in WWII."

After World War II, Japan gained an undeserved reputation for low divorce rates. The current "explosion," more than tripling since 1963, shows Japan "reverting to the high levels noted at the dawn of the twentieth century." Fuess takes issue with those who blame rising divorce rates on radical revisions of family law during the America Occupation, arguing that divorce procedures "have shown a conspicuous continuity over the past few centuries in the marginal role played by courts in divorce."

In postwar Japan, 90 percent of divorces have simply been registered without recourse to family courts. This system of "mutual consent divorce" is popular precisely because it lets a couple settle their affairs outside court scrutiny. Whether this may reinforce patriarchal bias in divorce settlements is another matter..."

The Japan Times: May 29, 2005

Depression

Lonely road for thousands of suicidal Japanese

"Seventy percent of suicide victims in Japan don't discuss their feelings before taking their lives, a survey by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has found.

The number of suicide victims in Japan has topped 30,000 for seven years running, and the distress inflicted on the bereaved families of victims has emerged as a social problem. But in the survey, ministry researchers found that many of the victims are not sharing their feelings.

The ministry's research team questioned 641 people who tried to commit suicide but failed, and the bereaved families of 80 people who took their lives, in a survey conducted between August 2003 and December 2004.

In 675 of the cases, researchers were able to determine whether or not the people involved had discussed their will to die. They found only 39.7 percent of people who failed to commit suicide had talked about their problems, compared with just 30 percent of the people who succeeded in taking their lives.

Most of those who talked about their problems discussed the matter with family and friends. Thirty whose suicide attempts failed talked with psychiatrists, as did five people who actually committed suicide. Hardly any others discussed their problems with other doctors.

"Many suicide victims are thought to suffer from depression; it is certainly not the case that the person is bad or weak," said Takashi Hosaka, a professor in Tokai University's School of Medicine, who led the research. "It's important for doctors to acquire a sound understanding of depression. When they examine patients with such signs, they should not simply give the regular treatment, but ask them questions and give them advice."

National Police Agency statistics show that 32,325 people committed suicide in Japan in 2004, the seventh year in row since 1998 that the figure has topped 30,000. The figure does not include cases in which the bodies of victims have not been found or those in which it remains unclear whether the person actually committed suicide, and police suspect the actual number of suicides is higher..."


Mainichi Daily News, August 29, 2005

Karoshi

Japanese working o death (karoshi)


Tokyo - After one month of training in a field he knew little about, Sunao Kawada was put into a high-pressure team designing a computer. After four months, he had trouble sleeping and was diagnosed with depression.

Two months after that, the 24-year-old worker threw himself to his death from the 10th floor of a building.

"In hindsight, my son was a victim of corporate restructuring," said Kiyoko Kawada, his mother.

Japan's economy is moving toward a sound recovery following a decade of stagnation after companies succeeded in trimming their costs.

But the human costs have continued to rise - longer hours, greater stress and more people literally working themselves to death.

Pressure from companies

A record 524 people or their families applied in the fiscal year to March 2005 for compensation over mental disorders due to excessive work, according to the ministry of health, labour and welfare.

Of the applications, which include 121 for people who killed themselves, the ministry granted compensation to just 130.

After her son died, Kawada filed a lawsuit against the company, which remains pending.

The Japanese government has campaigned for years to stop death from overwork, a phenomenon that grew so common during Japan's post-World War 2 economic miracle that it has its own word, "karoshi".

Long working hours

Takashi Sumioka, a psychiatrist who specialises in work disorders, said his patients had shifted in the past few years from men in their 40s and 50s traumatised by unemployment and job relocation to men in their 30s putting in their all at their prime working age.

"Their working hours are seemingly getting longer and the mental strains they feel appear to be more severe than before," the doctor said.

Chikanobu Okamura, a lawyer who has long fought to put an end to karoshi, said people's long, unrecognised hours were far from unusual in Japan.

"It's still very difficult to make courts acknowledge the hidden or unregistered overtime that companies force employees to work," Okamura said.

"And on top of that, the laws are insufficient to save all of the people who are suffering from excess work."

News 24,com South Afria, August 25, 2005