Tokyo Metropolitan Government to draw up plans for providing financial support for 'social firms'
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has decided to provide financial support for so-called social firms where people who have difficulty working, including social recluses and the disabled, work alongside other employees. The metropolitan government plans to offer assistance to facilitate the creation and management of such ...
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.
Japan Times 1943: Respect for parents plays vital role in Japanese life
“Japanese are great respecters for their parents for ‘kōdō’ or the way of filial piety which is one of their basic national traits occupying a place only second in importance to the spirit of absolute patriotism,” declares Takeo Akiyama in describing the high esteem ...
Justice Ministry panel looks to enforce custody transfers in absence of uncooperative parents
Tokyo considers making it easier for children to be handed over to parents who have secured custody even if the former spouse defies a court order to let them go.
Children of poor, jobless single moms have become an underclass in Japan
The beating of a 4-year-old boy last Christmas Eve went on through the night. Covered with bruises and having suffered catastrophic internal bleeding, he was pronounced dead at an Osaka hospital. Soon after, his mother and her two boyfriends were arrested. While the news of ...
For a Tokyo man, being told by friends and neighbors that he looked nothing like his parents was a source of pain growing up, and his own suspicions that he might not be his parents' biological son proved to be true many years later. The ...
Mothers voice support for vice minister using official car to transport son to nursery
A vice minister has given up using a chauffeured official car to take her child to day care after drawing political flak, but some working mothers have expressed sympathy for the 39-year-old lawmaker. The Shukan Shincho weekly magazine accused Megumi Kaneko of "mixing up official ...
Nagoya assembly creates day care room for nursing mom among ranks
The Nagoya Municipal Assembly has created a private day care room for one of its members with a 1-year-old son, the first such facility among governments in the Tokai region and a rarity in other parts of Japan as well. "It has become easier for ...
Shiga city offers Spanish, Portuguese classes for children of migrant families
A public-private program has been underway in a Shiga Prefecture city to teach Spanish or Portuguese to children of migrants from Latin America working at local manufacturing plants. The program in Konan, launched in 2013, started after local officials found many children of Latin American ...
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 ...
In a nation struggling to increase its population, and amid strong demand for day care centers operated in conjunction with children's clinics, such facilities are fighting for their own financial health. Hug Room, a facility in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, is operated by a pediatric clinic ...
The government is taking only small steps to combat the pernicious problem of child poverty.
