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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
May 22, 2023

Filling in the cracks: Japan’s shifting perspective on disability employment

The Valuable 500's Crosby Cromwell discusses best practice regarding disability in business in Japan, and she is optimistic about the direction we are heading in.
Japan Times
JAPAN / FOCUS
May 15, 2023

Uzbekistan-born lawmaker looks to turn love of Japan into social change

Orzugul, who was recently elected to a seat in the Setagaya Ward Assembly, is looking to use it to address concerns of marginalized groups — issues she is all too familiar with.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2023

Japan's Indigenous peoples fight stigma to reclaim identities

Many people feel Japan's government has not done enough to support the Ainu and Ryukyu groups.
Japan Times
EDITORIALS
Jan 27, 2023

Japan’s future depends on empowering women. The record isn’t encouraging

Japan's shrinking population is in part due to women who are marginalized in the workforce and unhappy with their life choices.
SOCCER / Women's World Cup
Jul 12, 2023

Fukushima-born Jun Endo ready to run free for Japan at World Cup

The Angel City forward recalls watching the 2011 final in the middle of the night with her parents and three siblings, describing it as 'a turning point' in her life.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Jul 11, 2023

Japan tries to turn page on eugenics policies, but related ideas persist

A 1,400-page report by parliament on forced sterilizations of people with disabilities sets out Japan's grim history with eugenics, but experts say the matter is far from closed.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Toshihiro Kitamura said measures against U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women "will show the government's position more clearly," in relation to the Imperial House Law.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2025

Japan hits back at U.N. panel over imperial law review recommendation

The law allows only male descendants from the paternal line of the imperial family to become emperor.
A victim of forced sterilization (second from right) reacts Tuesday as the Upper House unanimously passed a bill into law to compensate victims of the practice.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 9, 2024

Informing forced sterilization victims of new law remains challenge

Some victims said that they did not want to remember the sterilizations, and others said that they had not told their families about their past.
Discriminatory remarks against the Ainu people by Lower House lawmaker Mio Sugita (center) have prompted calls for introducing penalties under the Ainu policy promotion law.
JAPAN
May 14, 2024

Calls grow for penalizing discriminatory remarks against Ainu

Calls strengthened after a series of discriminatory remarks by Mio Sugita, a House of Representatives lawmaker of the Liberal Democratic Party.
A building in the city of Osaka housing the Osaka District Court
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 8, 2024

Court orders deletion of disparaging portrayal of Osaka area

The comments were targeted at a "dowa" district — an area designated under an assimilation project to help integrate marginalized communities.
The plaintiffs' lawyers hold paper with phrases such as "unjust verdict," after the appeal court ruling in the second-generation hibakusha lawsuit, in Hiroshima Prefecture on Friday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 13, 2024

Second-generation hibakusha's appeal for state compensation rejected

The 27 children of survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima have demanded the government pay for damages under the atomic bomb survivors support law.
Ai Narabayashi, a member of the editorial department of Iwanami Shoten, the publisher of dictionary "Kojien," speaks during an interview in Tokyo in February.  Narabayashi said the dictionary has the duty to record the Japanese language without hiding anything and accurately explain the meaning behind words and phrases.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 7, 2025

Why an iconic Japanese dictionary chooses to retain misogynistic words

Publisher Iwanami Shoten considers it a duty for its "Kojien" dictionary to record and accurately explain the meaning and background of words and phrases.
A line of children's clothes featuring slogans about lazy, uninvolved fathers have sparked an online backlash.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 1, 2024

Japan store pulls 'lazy dad' kid clothes after backlash

Some commentators called them an affront to hard-working fathers, while others said they highlighted the country's childcare gender gap that weighs heavily on women.
A bill to grant compensation to victims of forced sterilization clears the Lower House on Monday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 8, 2024

Parliament clears bill to compensate all victims of forced sterilization

With the latest legislation, all victims — whether or not they are plaintiffs in related lawsuits — will be compensated, paving the way for resolution.
Plaintiffs filing damages lawsuits over forced sterilization under the now-defunct eugenic protection law head to the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 2, 2023

Grand Bench of top court to rule on forced sterilization damages

Five district courts have found the old law to be unconstitutional, but all rejected damages claims citing the statute of limitations.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 18, 2024

Supreme Court may review judgement against benefits for same-sex partner

The review would mark the first time the Supreme Court makes a decision regarding the issue of public benefits for a same-sex partner.
A street in Kyoto in March 2023. An Israeli tourist was asked to sign a document stating that he had not committed war crimes when he checked in at a Kyoto guesthouse in April, prompting a response from Israel's ambassador.
JAPAN / Society
May 1, 2025

Israel protests after Kyoto inn seeks war crime declaration from tourist

The guesthouse said the purpose of the document was to ensure a safe stay for other guests and not due to discrimination.
A woman with HTLV-1 from Okinawa Prefecture talks about her experience of being turned away at a clinic outside the prefecture.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Sep 25, 2023

Website aims to shed light on little-known blood cancer virus

Awareness of HTLV-1, a virus that causes adult T-cell leukemia and other diseases, is low in Japan. A website called Hot Lives aims to change that.
Since moving to Tokyo from New York City in 2014, Hiraku Morilla has been promoting Keith Haring’s legacy in his professional life and advocating for the LGBTQ+ community.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Jun 6, 2025

Hiraku Morilla: ‘Pride means respect for those who walked so we could run’

The New York-raised director of the Nakamura Keith Haring Collection reflects on his queer, multiracial identity and LGBTQ+ rights in Japan.
Actress Yumi Ishikawa speaks during an interview on Monday in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 8, 2024

'KuToo' campaign leader wants to bring attention to sexual abuse

Ishikawa believes that behind the issue of sexual abuse is the unspoken assumption within Japanese society that there is no such thing as discrimination.
Team France celebrates after winning gold in the judo mixed team event at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo in July 2021.
OLYMPICS
Jul 25, 2024

Is it too early to celebrate gender equality at the Olympics?

In both Japan and abroad, women are far from achieving equality in the ranks of coaching and at the administrative level.
Shurei Sasai in Nagpur, India, on Oct. 13
JAPAN
Nov 17, 2024

Monk from Japan works to lead people in India to Buddhism

Shurei Sasai has been devoting his life to freeing people from discrimination based on the Indian caste system for more than half a century.
Social activists and artists remove graffiti from the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles on June 10, after days of protests against federal immigration sweeps.
JAPAN
Jun 19, 2025

Japanese American museum criticizes Trump order

U.S. authorities issued orders to put up notices for exhibitions, movies and others that are deemed to disparage U.S. history.
Maurice Shelton (left) and his lawyer Motoki Taniguchi spoke about alleged racial bias on behalf of the police at a recent press conference.
COMMUNITY / Voices / Black Eye
Feb 29, 2024

Making Japanese history by being Black history

Three individuals have stepped up to try and make a difference in the country we live in. They should be applauded.
Rainbow flags were flown through the capital's busy Shibuya and Harajuku areas for Tokyo Rainbow Pride events this weekend as organizers hailed 30 years of one of Asia's largest LGBTQ celebrations.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 21, 2024

Tokyo Rainbow Pride lights up capital as organizers celebrate 30 years

Under the theme “Until it changes, don’t give up,” this year’s Tokyo Rainbow Pride was held after an eventful 12 months for Japan’s LGBTQ movement.
Emergency personnel and investigators examine the site of a deadly blaze that tore through a lithium battery factory owned by South Korean battery maker Aricell in Hwaseong on Tuesday, a day after the fire left 23 dead.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jun 26, 2024

Deadly fire exposes harsh conditions migrant workers face in South Korea

Foreign nationals do dirty, hazardous work, and advocates say the blaze that killed 23 at a battery plant shows that they need better protection.
Yuta Takahashi (back center) with Sunao Tsuboi, former co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo (front, center), in December 2017
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2024

Japanese youth carries on message of prominent atomic bomb survivor

In giving Nihon Hidankyo the Nobel Peace Prize, the committee noted that "new generations in Japan are carrying forward the experience and the message of the witnesses."
Yuki Kondo-Shah beside the U.S. Embassy where she works in London on Dec. 22. As U.S.-China tensions rise, national security employees with ties to Asia say U.S. counterintelligence officers wrongly regard them as potential spies and unfairly ban them from jobs.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 2, 2024

Asian American officials cite unfair treatment in China tensions

Federal employees say they are being blocked from jobs for security reasons because of their ties to Asia, even distant ones.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida receives a petition from victims of forced sterilization on Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Society
Jul 17, 2024

Kishida apologizes to victims of forced sterilization

The apology from the prime minister follows a Supreme Court ruling earlier this month declaring that the now-defunct eugenics law was unconstitutional.
Japan's Zion Suzuki (top) and Yukinari Sugawara (bottom) in action with Iraq's Youssef Amyn in Al Rayyan, Qatar, on Friday.
SOCCER
Jan 23, 2024

Japan goalkeeper racially abused online after Asian Cup errors

The news comes after two instances of racist abuse directed at players in Italy and England during matches.

Longform

The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.