Child abuse in Japan may be expanding faster than social workers can keep pace, but there's another side to the story as well: Many people outside the government child-welfare system are working hard to push those figures down. Meet two of those people, lawyer Fumiaki Isogae and foster mother Kazuko Sakamoto.
When he isn't settling a traffic accident or inheritance claim -- in other words, paying the bills -- lawyer Fumiaki Isogae of the Kuretake Law Office is huddling with case workers at child-guidance centers, where civil servants wrestle with abuse on a daily basis.
Isogae is one of the few select lawyers across Japan with expertise in child abuse. He helps the beleaguered facilities make smarter choices as they guide children's cases through the tangled bureaucracy. In all, there are only about 100 lawyers like him nationwide, he said.