Could easier adoptions stem child abuse in Japan?
The national news has recently reported a number of stories about young children dying at the hands of their parents or guardians, either from neglect or direct physical violence. It's hard to say if these tragedies constitute a trend since detailed child abuse statistics ...
A nonprofit organization in Osaka recently launched what it touts as an easy-matching adoption website, triggering criticism from experts that adoptions should be made more carefully. The group posts the age, job, place of domicile, annual income and assets of prospective parents on the website ...
Child welfare law revised but tens of thousands remain institutionalized in Japan
A baby lies in a metal-bar cot drinking from a bottle perched on his pillow in a Tokyo orphanage. There's no one to hold and feed him or offer words of comfort. The director of the institution, nurses scurrying busily around him, says he would ...
Archbishop of Canterbury learns his father was secretary to Churchill
Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has discovered his biological father was the former private secretary to Britain's war-time leader Winston Churchill, he said in a statement Friday. "In the last month I have discovered that my biological father is not Gavin Welby, but in ...
Seeking Japanese courses for mature students; reconnecting with a lost mother
A British reader is keen to come to Japan and learn the language, and a woman in the U.S. hopes to get in contact with her Japanese birth mother.
Fewer than 60% of child centers mediated 'special' adoptions in fiscal 2013, report shows
Fewer than 60 percent of child consultation centers in Japan mediated "special" adoptions of children aged below 6 in fiscal 2013 due to staff shortages, a health ministry report showed Thursday. A major purpose of the centers is to allow abused children or children who ...
Progress is slow when it comes to societal views on adoption
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction went into effect here on April 1, 2014, but there is another Hague treaty that Japan has yet to sign. The purpose of the Hague Adoption Convention is to prevent the trafficking of children, ...
Group offers free English to kids in care in Japan and aid to children in Philippines
JOYFUL — the Japan Outreach Youth Foundation for Underprivileged Learners — is a volunteer group that helps children here in Japan and in the founder's homeland of the Philippines.
Letters: the history, challenges and rewards of adoption in Japan
Readers respond to a recent article on foreign residents adopting children in Japan.
