Without an official father, kids can be stateless
On Nov. 29, the Kobe District Court dismissed a suit against the state filed by a woman in her 60s who claimed that the law that allows only men to deny paternity of a child is unconstitutional, since it discriminates against women. She said ...
Japanese tradition denies surrogacy
Most major media covered the March 22 Tokyo news conference where Sachiko Kishimoto of the nonprofit organization Oocyte Donation Network (OD-Net) explained how a woman in her 40s had recently given birth to a daughter who had been conceived using the woman's husband's sperm ...
Abuse victim fined ¥50,000 for not registering daughter's birth for 33 years
A court fines a mother on the run from an abusive husband for not registering her daughter's birth for more than 30 years, illustrating the struggle facing people without a koseki family registration.
Voiceless minority: People lacking family registry live on the outside, buried in red tape
Osaka native Haruko Kubota has waged a lifelong struggle to be "certified" as a living resident. Kubota (not her real name), 31, a petite mother of three with long dyed hair, doesn't have a "koseki" family registration. Lacking a family registry is a tremendous disadvantage ...
