A bill currently being compiled by female lawmakers would allow district courts across Japan to issue orders banning perpetrators of domestic violence from approaching their spouses, and sentence violators to up to a year in prison.
The cross-party group of female House of Councilors members working on the bill to curb domestic violence aims to compile its report by the end of January and submit the bill to the ordinary Diet session due to convene late next month.
Although the measure does not single out domestic violence against women, it will state in its preamble that women are more vulnerable than men to such types of violence, "reflecting a social structure that creates sexual discrimination."
The main steps to be included in the bill are the court orders protecting victims, the maximum one-year prison term, 1 million yen fines imposed on violators and financial support for shelters housing victims of domestic violence.
To deal with violence between couples living together, courts would be able to issue forcible eviction orders for perpetrators.
The bill would support private shelters run by nongovernment organizations -- which currently do not have any legal status in Japan -- and also expand the functions of counseling centers for women controlled by the Health and Welfare Ministry to make them also serve as public shelters.
Doctors usually bound by patient-confidentiality rules would be encouraged to report cases of domestic violence after careful consideration.
In June, a U.N. conference on women adopted an "outcome document" calling on countries to enact legislation to curb domestic violence.
An advisory panel on gender equality submitted a report in July to Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, calling domestic violence a criminal act and calling for the early enactment of a law to address the problem.