Alternate lives: South Korean orphans' quests for answers
On a summer's day in 1985, a 7-year-old boy sat alone at a crowded bus station in Seoul, sobbing as he waited desperately for his mother to return. Jo Youn-hwan was wearing a baseball uniform that his mother had bought him a few days before ...
Japan's adoption rules changed to allow older kids' ties to biological parents to be severed
The program is aimed at providing a stable environment for children who cannot be raised by their biological parents because of economic difficulties or abuse.
The kids aren't all right: Japan struggles to protect its most vulnerable children at group homes
Miwa Moriya was 6 when social workers told her she was going to a Christmas party but instead moved her into a group home for about 60 children in a small city in western Japan. The "party" turned into more than eight years of living ...
Unsuccessful with IVF, Japanese actress Jun Sena's quest for a child succeeds via adoption
Like the Japanese proverb "fall seven times and stand up eight," Jun Sena made seven failed attempts to conceive through in vitro fertilization before she turned the odds of having a child in her favor. No, she was not able to get pregnant. But she ...
Japanese lawmakers enact law on court jurisdiction for international divorces
The Diet enacts a revised law stipulating Japanese court jurisdiction over international divorce, in a move expected to speed up lengthy proceedings.
Japan's shelters provide little comfort to abused children
Japan’s shelters for neglected children are known for their suffocating discipline, but no one has come up with a good way to reform them in the past 70 years.
Online agency seeks to streamline adoption in Japan
From a baby expected to be born in October in Osaka Prefecture to one in Tokyo with a due date in July, information of upcoming childbirths is listed on a website run by an Osaka-based nonprofit adoption agency urging prospective parents-to-be to register online. Named ...
Osaka the first city in Japan to certify same-sex couple as foster parents
Osaka becomes the first city in the nation to officially let a gay couple take on the role of foster parents.
Chiba agency pair arrested for arranging baby's adoption for profit
The first such arrests in Japan come as the central and local governments are introducing stricter rules to prevent entities from exploiting the adoption system.
Confronted with hard questions about why they felt the need to adopt, the O'Briens chose to raise Sam, a child with Down syndrome.
Lack of parental consent preventing hundreds of orphans from being adopted, survey finds
Nearly 300 orphans in Japan could not be put up for adoption over the past two years because their parents’ consent could not be obtained, the welfare ministry says.
Resorting to adoption to avoid inheritance tax
Revisions to the inheritance tax went into effect in 2015, and related statistics for that year were recently made public by the National Tax Agency. The main change had to do with the basic deduction. Before 2015 the deduction equaled ¥50 million plus ¥10 million ...
