In Japan, it is said that " sex industry defeats welfare "-To avoid the tragedy of death from abuse
Recently, another sad incident was repeated and made the newspaper headlines.
“Three-year-old girl died – Mother was arrested on suspicion of child neglect, Ota-ward, Tokyo”
There are various opinions as to what could have been done to prevent this case from happening. “Enhancing childcare support,” “creating a system for parents to have casual consultation on childcare” “flexible operation of temporary use of childcare service” are all important, but without the parent’s sense of ownership or proactiveness there is no way for them to have access to such support.
I think Japan needs a law which prohibits parents from leaving children alone as you will find in the US or in Europe.
“Do not leave children of a certain age unattended in your house or in your car. They must be accompanied by an adult.”
Creating such a law will certainly eliminate death from abuse. Not only death by abuse, but many lives that are lost because of fire accidents, water accidents in the bath, heat strokes that occur as children are deserted in cars in parking lots of pachinko parlors and shopping malls etc could have been saved. We need a law to protect the lives of children.
A few years ago, Kid’s Door, a not-for-profit that I run, had an opportunity to interact with overseas youth support groups. As I explained about the current situation of poverty among Japanese children and said "In Japan, mothers of single-parent families do double work or even triple work and have to go to work at night, leaving their children at home."
A lady leading a group from Australia raised her hand and asked “Wait a minute. Did you say that single mothers go to work, leaving their children at home? Have I understood you correctly?” She must have thought that there was a translation mistake so I replied, “Yes, exactly. They go to work leaving their children at home”.
She asked
“Don’t you have any law that prevents parents from leaving young children at home? In New Zealand, parents will be punished if they left children up to the age of 13 on their own. Without such law, children could be dying”.
“Yes, in fact there are many deaths of children because they were left on their own but we have no law to prevent this from happening”.
“That’s unbelievable!”
With a look of surprise, anger and disappointment, she shook her head and uttered clearly
“Why doesn’t such a common law in many developed countries exist in Japan!?”
I suspect that it is because making such a law would incur a lot of social costs which the country is reluctant to bear.
In Japan, being a single parent with a young child, which makes it difficult to work, is not good enough to receive benefits. Because you can only receive benefits if you are absolutely unable to work due to health issues (physical or mental) or disability, if they visit their local ward office to ask for support, they will be asked
“so, is there any reason why you cannot work?”
Of the families who participate in classes offered by Kids’ Door, 60-70% are from single mother families but few receive benefits. People who receive benefits are those who are on wheelchairs because their health was damaged due to hard work, are in severe mental conditions which make it difficult to work let alone do their chores or have to look after a family member with severe disabilities. I have never met anyone who is receiving benefits on the ground that they have young children or they have many children. I was so shocked thinking “How miserable do you need to be in order to qualify for benefits?”
Many single parents are clenching their teeth and giving up their food in order to feed the children. I believe that many work in the hostess club business as a job which enables them to earn quickly. They are not going into that business because they are sloppy. On the contrary they are very ordinary people who chose to sacrifice themselves thinking that they cannot rely on their parents or they only needed to persevere for their children.
In Japan, it is said that “sex industry defeats welfare”.
Many people are aware of this embarrassing situation but they close their eyes to it.
If only the law in Japan prohibits children up to the age of say 6 to 7 to be left alone, mothers will then only work daytime when the nurseries are open, stay at home with their children at night and then apply for benefits if they still are unable to make ends meet. The welfare system will be a different one which will then supplement a few hundred dollars to those in need and will prevent deaths arising from abuse, abolish child poverty and can even help bring up youths who can contribute to community and society in the future. Isn’t such an expenditure cheap if you think of all these great benefits it could bring?
It is not my intention to criticize the elderly, but I think that it is time to stop thinking that the elderly can get welfare because they cannot work whereas a single mother is still healthy and young and therefore is not eligible to. Welfare for the elderly is necessary to support their lives but there is probably no return. The most common reason for terminating welfare is "the death of the person".
However, benefits for child-rearing households or a financial support progam, is about giving support for a given period of time while the child is still young or a single parent is having a stressful time. Once they overcome that period, the child can grow up to be on the side of supporting society or the parent is able to work fully. Welfare can give a very different level of return if you look at it from a longer time horizon. Japan today is preoccupied with the immediate future and is throwing away this return unduly.
"Well, you chose to have a child" "It is you who decided to split up." People throw such criticism at single parents, isolate them with no support from society citing self-responsibility and then society cries over a tragic death like the recent case. It’s time to put an end to such an unproductive discussion.
Under the current COVID19 crisis, we are hearing about unbelievable situations such as many single parent families not being able to have their three meals every day. NPOs collecting donations and sending rice and local groups delivering food is often seen as a virtue. No, it is an embarrassment which shows that Japan’s social system in unable to protect children’s lives.
Changing politics or making laws are all down to every one of us and our thoughts on what kind of society we want to create.
Just like in other developed countries, we need to create laws and bear the cost so that children are not left on their own in homes or in cars with their lives at risk and single mothers are not being stigmatized and don’t need to work in the evenings. What do you think?
For reference, here are some overseas cases (in Japanese language).
It is worth noting that New Zealand which has this law is enjoying economic growth whereas Japan’s growth rate is at the lowest spectrum of developed countries. A country cannot grow without investing in children.