Tag - registry

 
 

REGISTRY

Japan is the only country with a law requiring married couples to adopt the same surname. In 95% of cases, it is women who take their husband's name.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 7, 2024
The land where single surnames are the only option
The business lobby recently joined calls for Japan to accept separate surnames after marriage. What, then, is standing in the way of change? Politics.
Lawyers Kazuyuki Minami (left) and Masafumi Yoshida (right) representing a transgender woman show off signs that say "unconstitutional" and "sent back" to a lower court, during a news conference Wednesday in Tokyo after a Supreme Court decision.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 25, 2023
Supreme Court hands down landmark decision on transgender rights
A law requiring sterilization surgery to change a person's legal gender has been declared “unconstitutional."
Kanata Kimoto had his womb and ovaries removed in Thailand when he was 24, so he could have his legal gender status changed. Now he questions whether such an invasive and costly procedure was necessary.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 22, 2023
Calls grow to abolish Japan's surgery requirement for gender change
Between 2004 and 2022, a total of 11,919 people had their gender changed through the law in Japan.
Gen Suzuki (center) and his defense team before entering the Hamamatsu branch of the Shizuoka Family Court in October
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2023
Requiring surgery for gender change unconstitutional: court
A Japanese court has said that a law requiring surgery to switch genders on a family registry is unconstitutional.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 13, 2022
Tokyo ward office rejects couple's marriage registry under separate surnames
With the ward's refusal to accept their marriage registration, Kiyoko Kashiwagi and Kazuhiro Soda will now file their complaint with the Tokyo Family Court.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 19, 2022
Baby Pikachu? Japan panel weighs accepting unconventional readings of kanji for names
The proposal is part of the Justice Ministry's push to digitize the family register by adding phonetic readings to kanji names.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2022
Teenager the first to use hospital's 'confidential birth' system
The hospital decided to introduce anonymous births amid a rising number of women choosing to deliver without medical assistance to keep their pregnancies a secret.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 4, 2021
Transgender man in Japan wants switch recognized without surgery
A transgender man in central Japan filed a request Monday with a court to switch gender in his family registry without having sex reassignment surgery as currently required by law.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2021
Tokyo's Adachi Ward responds to controversy by certifying LGBT families
The initiative in the ward is rare in a nation that does not legally recognize marriage between members of the LGBT community.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 27, 2021
Progress in the government's bid to digitalize public services
One woman found that re-entering Japanese society as a citizen was more difficult than trying to enter British society as a foreign national.
EDITORIALS
Sep 4, 2018
Review the Civil Code rules over paternity denial
The problem of people lacking family registry must be eliminated, and legal hurdles that need to be fixed to resolve the problem should be quickly addressed.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 9, 2017
Without an official father, kids can be stateless
On Nov. 29, the Kobe District Court dismissed a suit against the state filed by a woman in her 60s who claimed that the law that allows only men to deny paternity of a child is unconstitutional, since it discriminates against women. She said the law meant she was unable to register her daughter as the child of her second partner, because the law presumed her estranged husband was the father. The judge explained his decision by saying the law in question "represents a compromise between the need to match biological and legal fathers, and ensuring stable paternal relations by determining them promptly."
EDITORIALS
Dec 2, 2017
Fill the family registry void
The government needs to pull out all the stops in making sure every Japanese is listed in the family registry system.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 6, 2017
Japanese tradition denies surrogacy
Most major media covered the March 22 Tokyo news conference where Sachiko Kishimoto of the nonprofit organization Oocyte Donation Network (OD-Net) explained how a woman in her 40s had recently given birth to a daughter who had been conceived using the woman's husband's sperm and an egg from a third party. Though there have been instances in Japan of women giving birth by using the eggs of friends or relatives, this was the first publicized case in Japan of a baby successfully coming to term with the help of an anonymous egg donor.
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2015
Attorney group to offer free advice to ID-less 'mukoseki' citizens
Japan's attorneys are planning a wide-scale effort to advise people trapped in mukoseki status who are deprived of basic government services because they do not appear on family registries and thus lack legal identity.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 21, 2015
Abuse victim fined ¥50,000 for not registering daughter's birth for 33 years
A court fines a mother on the run from an abusive husband for not registering her daughter's birth for more than 30 years, illustrating the struggle facing people without a koseki family registration.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Feb 17, 2015
Voiceless minority: People lacking family registry live on the outside, buried in red tape
Osaka native Haruko Kubota has waged a lifelong struggle to be "certified" as a living resident.
EDITORIALS
Oct 15, 2014
Flaws in the family registry system
The government should consider making fundamental changes to the family registration system, including making it based on individuals rather than families.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 12, 2013
Top court rules transsexual husband as father of in vitro child
The Supreme Court has recognized a person with gender identity disorder who had a sex change to become a male as the legal father of a child born to his wife through in vitro fertilization using sperm provided by a third person.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2013
642 register disputed isles as 'home'
As of the end of January, 642 Japanese had registered their legal addresses as isles subject to territorial disputes with neighboring countries, despite living elsewhere.

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