Tag - children

 
 

CHILDREN

Local media in China exposed a secretive surrogacy service that may be helping to deliver more than 300 babies a year.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 27, 2023
Chinese media expose prompts probe into illegal baby surrogacy
Despite Beijing’s repeated crackdowns and an outright ban, underground surrogacy services continue to thrive in China.
Children take part in Christmas activities in Tokyo's Minato Ward on Saturday.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 25, 2023
Japan to open nursery places to all children by fiscal 2025
At the moment, typically only children from families where both the parents are working are admitted to day care.
Desi Permatasari, 32, comforts her daughter, Sheena Almaera Maryam, 5, who was prescribed contaminated cough syrup last year in their home in Bogor, Indonesia.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Dec 24, 2023
When children take toxic cough syrup — and live
In Indonesia, one of the places most impacted by the contamination, families struggle to care for survivors while taking action against those responsible.
Physical strength among children is on a recovery track as a whole, which the Japan Sports Agency said was a reflection of more opportunities for physical exercise following a relaxation of restrictions related to COVID-19 in the country.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Dec 24, 2023
Physical strength of Japan junior high school girls at record low
Male students, however, scored better in the Japan Sports Agency's annual physical fitness survey for this year.
University of Tokyo students attend their graduation ceremony in the capital's Bunkyo Ward on March 24.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 22, 2023
Japan to expand subsidized college tuition for large families
Free college tuition will be offered to at least one child in a family with three or more children, regardless of its income.
Saeed Al-Shorbaji, the supervisor of Nasser hospital's morgue, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip in November. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike in early December.
WORLD / Society
Dec 22, 2023
As Gaza death toll hits 20,000, many fear the true count is higher
Only bodies identified or claimed by relatives are included in the official figures, and thousands more are believed to be buried beneath the rubble.
The Gunma Prefectural School for Special Education in Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture — a school for children with special needs that is rapidly aging.
JAPAN
Dec 21, 2023
Schools in Japan rethink where to teach children with disabilities
Calls are growing internationally for Japan to integrate such children with their peers in regular classes.
Members of the family law subcommittee of the Legislative Council discuss the issue of introducing a joint custody system at the Justice Ministry on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 20, 2023
Panel releases draft outline covering joint child custody system
Under the current law, only one of the divorced parents is granted custody.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he was against banning abortion, but that terminations were against state interests.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 18, 2023
'Give birth to more soldiers': hard-line Russia turns on abortions
Over the last few months a flurry of regions have rushed to restrict abortions in private clinics, yielding to demands from the Russian Orthodox church.
Low fertility threatens to undermine South Korea’s economic future by shrinking its workforce and slowing consumption.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 14, 2023
South Korea set to see fertility rate fall even further
The country already has the world’s lowest fertility rate at 0.78 as of 2022.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at a government meeting on child policies on Monday.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2023
Japan to boost spending on measures to tackle low birthrate
The government will make official a program that will have nursery schools accept children even if both parents do not work, among other measures.
Parents take their children for infusion treatment at a hospital in Shenyang, Liaoning province, on Friday.
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 12, 2023
China’s battle with child pneumonia shows risks of drug resistance
In China nearly 80% of child cases of mycoplasma pneumoniae are resistant to macrolides, compared with under 10% elsewhere.
With the envisioned free university tuition program for families with three or more children, the government hopes to step up its financial assistance to households struggling with education costs.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 7, 2023
Japan plans to make university tuition free for large families
The program will cover households with three or more children from fiscal 2025.
Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike speaks during a Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly meeting on Monday.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 6, 2023
Tokyo aims to make high school tuition free of charge for all
For families in the capital with an annual income of less than ¥9.1 million, current financial aid essentially makes high school tuition free.
A girl walks among bags and mattresses as Eastern European migrants wait to temporarily settle in a locale in Decines, France, in 2015. Some of the world's richest countries saw a sharp rise in child poverty from 2014 to 2021, according to a UNICEF report.
WORLD / Society
Dec 6, 2023
1 in 5 children in rich countries lives in poverty, UNICEF says
Report shows that the biggest setbacks since 2012 were in some of the wealthier nations, including Britain and France where rates increased.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's learning assessment test showed that Japanese high school students ranked third in their ability to use reading skills to solve real-life problems, second in science and fifth in mathematics in 2022.
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2023
Japanese students climb to third in OECD ranking of reading ability
Students in Japan scored higher than the OECD average in reading, mathematics and science.
Gender-neutral names were more popular for Japanese babies born in 2023, a survey has found.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 5, 2023
Popularity of gender-neutral Japanese names rose in 2023
The annual ranking by Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance, released Monday, showed that unisex names have risen in popularity.
Yuuki Matsumoto, formerly Yuni, at his residence in Yokohama on Aug. 24. Japanese children with unconventional names can face societal and practical challenges unique to their country and its written language. Matsumoto, 24, was bullied over his name to the extent he dropped out of school, and had it legally  changed this year.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 3, 2023
Unusual names can complicate life in Japan. Now parents are being reined in.
As such names have increased, so has attention to cases of people unhappy with them. But critics say new rules may infringe on the right to be creative.
Miwa Takahashi pets a guinea pig at a Dreamnight at the Zoo event at the Chausuyama Zoo in Nagano in August.
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2023
Dreamnight program enables disabled children to enjoy zoo visits
Kick-started by a zoo in the Netherlands in 1996, the Dreamnight at the Zoo initiative has percolated worldwide, including in Japan.
"Changes in environment surrounding schoolchildren, such as increases in the amount of time spent using smartphones at home, can be considered as a cause" of poor eyesight, an official of the education ministry said.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 28, 2023
Record number of Japanese children have poor eyesight, survey says
The proportion of elementary, junior high and high school students with less-than-normal visual acuity have reached record highs.

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces