ASIJ Essay Contest- Kenta Yaegashi "Adoption in Japan: An Overlooked Human Rights Issue"2014/05/01 17:45

Adoption in Japan: An Overlooked Human Rights Issue
By Kenta Yaegashi

      When one thinks of human rights issues within Asia or Japan, thoughts of slavery, drug and human trafficking, horrendous living conditions, and government brutality usually arise. These areas of human rights issues are in no way insignificant concerns in Asia today, yet they often overshadow the more subtle issues that do not receive as much international scrutiny. The topic of this essay concerns adoption in Japan at the present and the puzzling nature of the koseki registry system as well as some of the dire consequences that this flawed system has produced in terms of human rights. While the United Nations declares that all children have "the right to love and understanding, preferably from parents and family..." (UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, Right #6), it stops short of declaring parental and/or familial love a human right. However, in a nation with nearly 40,000 children and youths institutionalized when many of them could experience this love were they adopted, I will argue that this is a tragedy and should be recognized as a human rights violation. I will show that the Japanese registry system inhibits adoption and discourages members of society from pursuing adoption due to fallacies and fears based on bloodlines. This prevents a large number of institutionalized children in orphanages from being adopted.

      In order to elucidate some of the hysteria that surrounds Japanese adoption, this essay will in conjunction look at the general legal proceedings of adoptions in the United States. While the procedure for adopting a child or an adult differs slightly between individual states, it is generally the same process. Both children and adults can be adopted, with adult adoptions mainly involving inheritance, while some statutes only allow for the adoption of a minor. Children may be adopted in situations where their parents have died, are deemed unfit, or have abandoned them. Individuals are given a social security number that the government uses to track their lives. Birth and death certificates are also issued by the federal government yet do not reveal the status of one's birth (adopted or not adopted). In contrast, in Japan there is the 戸籍 (koseki) system, or family registry system. This system treats the family as the functional unit over the individual. The koseki system often times acts as a birth, death, and marriage certificate. However, it is also used to show pejorative status of different social classes. The US Department of State highlights this as a problem in its 2010 Human Rights Report on Japan, mentioning "discrimination against children born out of wedlock, minority groups, and foreigners" (US Department of State, par. 2). In a socially conservative country such as Japan, the koseki system makes adoptions too readily transparent. This allows for the possible future discrimination of the adoptee when it comes to matters of employment and marriage due to the prevalent stigmatizing misconception that adoptees come from "bad blood." The importance of blood and bloodlines in Japan continues to influence how people view individuals' character traits and even hinders adoptions of children in institutions.

In 2013, there were more than 36,000 children in orphanages around Japan (Sophelia, par. 1). Eighty percent of these children will live out their childhoods in these institutions until they either turn 20, the age when one becomes an adult, or they drop out of school, in which case they also lose funding to remain in one of Japan's 589 children's homes (Lewis, par. 7). "It is rare for a child who enters the home to leave because they are being fostered or adopted" (Hayes and Habu 97). No matter how good the particular home may be, these children never know the love of parents and consequently never develop close relationships (Hayes and Habu 98). They grow up with a "controlled, tightly scheduled upbringing with limited opportunities for autonomy or for privacy" (Roger Goodman and the Japan Federation of Bar Association cited in Hayes and Habu 98), another human right according to the UN. These children do not learn about family life, or how to negotiate in family-type situations, and consequently are not good problem solvers, lean toward passivity, and end up finding "poorly paid" and "insecure" jobs or worse  (Hayes and Habu, 98). Whereas 95 percent of Japanese children in general attend high school, only 54 percent of institutionalized children do (Hayes and Habu 98). Additionally, these children are not able to attend juku or cram school that one in five Japanese children attend as first graders as well as nearly all high school students seeking college entrance (Economist, par. 2). Cram school is pivotal to a child's success in Japan's highly education-oriented society, where these institutionalized children will not be given the tools that they need to allow them to thrive as adults. Many Japanese public schools also rely on the teachings of juku in order to accelerate the learning process. Teachers will often skip over subjects that a majority of the class has already learned at juku, making it even more arduous for these already disadvantaged children to progress academically. Thus it can be seen that by not being adopted or entering a foster home, these children are not receiving love or the proper care and attention they need to become fully functioning and contributing members of society.

The registry system is the main point of concern preventing a child's adoption in Japan and is the focus of this essay. When a child is born, and entered into the koseki of the mother, it is very difficult and complicated afterwards to remove the child from the koseki. Having a child in the mother's koseki allows the mother to maintain full legal rights over the child, even if she goes missing, abandons, abuses, or puts the child in an orphanage without seeing the child for years at a time. While on the one hand it can be shameful to an unwed mother to have a child listed on her koseki, there are also competing incentives to not have a child taken off of one's koseki. The parent in whose koseki the child is registered can receive government child-support funds offered in recent years in order to spur childbirth in a population-stagnant nation that is not replacing itself. This sort of 'ownership' or refusal to sever legal ties to the supposedly "unwanted" child on the part of the birth mother is what prevents these children from experiencing love in an adoptive family. When this kind of irresponsible behavior, backed up by the koseki system goes on for years or even decades at a time, it should be considered a human rights violation. 

Furthermore, the koseki system, which is based heavily on bloodlines, not only causes ambivalence due to fears about "bad blood" on the part of would-be adoptive parents as well as other members in society, but also encourages orphanages and institutionalized children to wait for a change of heart of the biological parents, rather than seeking adoption or placement in a foster home. The minimum waiting period in a home before an adoption is three years, which may not seem like a long time in the life of an adult, but for a developing child, three years is a tremendously long period of time with severe consequences in terms of emotional, social and physical development. In most cases when the parent or parents do visit, they will only see the child for a short time and may not come again for months, or even years. When a parent does come see the institutionalized child, it triggers a sense of false hope in the child that he or she will be reunited with the birth family. Orphanages encourage this sort of waiting and visiting of biological parents. The resulting stress and emotional anguish, the torture that this system puts on the child, is in its very nature a human rights violation. No human being, especially a child, should be thrust onto such a psychological roller coaster, given hope and then ruthlessly having it taken away with the harsh reality his or her situation. This system, with its emphasis on family bloodlines, can sometimes reverse a near adoption even after a child has been living with potential adoptive parents as foster parents for years. The koseki system, which ties together the institutionalized children and their biological parents, is what encourages this and therefore must be amended.

In conclusion, why does the adoption process as affected by the koseki system in Japan warrant being considered a human rights issue? In May 2012, a Japanese government official was asked why the adoption rate of 12 percent was so low and how the system could be changed to increase this rate (Japan Daily Press). In other words, how could the approximately 36,000 children and youths in institutions become adopted into loving homes and nurtured like their peers to grow up to be independent, contributing adults in society instead of the 400 who do become adopted annually (Hayes 2008, 83)? Japan is a nation that is not immune to infertility and is also facing a labor shortage due to a low birthrate and should embrace adoption. The official responded that the adoption system was put into place after World War II and that because of the numerous jobs that depend on it, change would overly complicate this "functioning" system. This current system allows for children living in orphanages to know of and be in contact with their biological parents, a concept that is absolutely preposterous for the emotional and psychological harm it causes the children in the long run. The koseki system with its stress on bloodlines should be altered to protect the children's human rights and facilitate their personal development. The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) asserts that every child, "for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality... should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding" (Council of Europe, sec. III. a., par. 2).

Works Cited

"2010 Human Rights Report: Japan." U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, 08 Apr. 2011. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.

"Adoption and Children: A Human Rights Perspective." Council of Europe: Commissioner for Human Rights. Council of Europe, 28 Apr. 2011. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.

Hayes, Peter. "Special Adoption in Japan: Its Problems and Prospects." Adoption Quarterly 11.2 (2008): 81-100. Print.

†Hayes, Peter, and Toshie Habu. Adoption in Japan: Comparing Policies for Children in Need. London: Routledge, 2006. Print. 

"Japanís Forgotten Children - The Japan Daily Press." The Japan Daily Press. The Japan Daily Press, 11 June 2012. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.

Lewis, Charles. "Cultural and Legal Hurdles Block Path to Child Adoptions in Japan | The Japan Times." The Japan Times. The Japan Times, 30 Sept. 2013. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
      
Sophelia. "Sophelia's Adventures in Japan: Adoption in Japan Part 1: Why Are There so Many Kids in Orphanages?î†N.p., 5 Jan. 2013. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

"Testing Times: Japan's Cramming Schools." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 31 Dec. 2011. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.

"UDHR: Plain Language Version."†UN News Center. UN, n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014.

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