Survey Reveals Japan’s Enormous Dependence on Child Care Institutions

Lost child (迷子)
A new survey conducted by the Japanese government brings to light just how many kids are left to wallow in Japan's foster care system.

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In a country with a severely declining birth rate, you’d think the government would divert more resources towards supporting the current young generations. Sadly, for children who are unable to live with their biological parents, that support has been severely lacking.

A survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare revealed more than 2,000 children in the Tohoku region are unable to live with their biological parents due to poverty or abuse. More than 70% of those children were sent to child care institutions (児童養護施設; jidō yōgo shisetsu). Of the 6 prefectures surveyed, Miyagi Prefecture ranked first in the number of children placed with foster families, but it also ranked first for the number of children sent to infant care institutions.

https://www.kahoku.co.jp/tohokunews/202011/20201104_73024.html
(JP) Link: More Than 2,000 Children Unable to Live with Biological Parents; Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to Promote Foster Care System

A Disturbing Trend

This survey reveals a disturbing trend, one that’s persisted in Japan for years. As of 2017, an alarming 85% of children needing alternative child care were placed in institutions rather than with foster families. Many were sent there on behalf of the biological parents’ wishes. The UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children states children under 3 years of age should be placed in family-care settings, but more often than not the government and child guidance centers place them in infant care institutions.

In an effort to spread awareness of the foster care system, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare is upping its 2021 fiscal budget to 210 million yen, 2.5 times higher than last year. They made similar promises to move away from institutional care in 2017 when they announced their “New Vision for Alternative Care”, But progress has been dismally slow.

Japan’s Over-Reliance on Institutional Care

Japan has long been criticized by both national and overseas experts for its poor support of a family-based alternative child care model. There’s also a financial incentive for municipalities and institutions to keep this system going: child care institutions are paid per-child, incentivizing workers to keep children in residential care, often at the detriment of their physical and mental well-being. Guidance centers and courts are often reluctant to push for the termination of parental rights, leaving hundreds of children in limbo; some children are even unable to receive vaccinations because the guidance centers lack parental consent.

A 2014 Human Rights Watch report noted the negative side effects of living in an institution: an absence of privacy and independence, social and physical segregation from the larger community, and few opportunities to bond with a trusted adult or guardian.

With little government support, it’s been largely up to non-profit organizations and volunteers to advocate for foster care. The limitations and bureaucracy behind adoption also discourage families from fostering or adopting: while “special adoption” does terminate the rights of the biological parents, it only applies to children under 6 years of age. Former child care worker Yamanda Tokuji told Human Rights Watch that few guidance centers push for this kind of adoption because “…they do not have the know-how and do not want to come into collision with infant care institutions.”

More Involvement From the Courts

The government amended the Child Welfare Act in 2017 to give the authorities more leeway to intervene in abuse and neglect cases. But as recent high-profile abuse cases have shown, authorities and social workers commonly defer to the parents, even when the child is clearly in danger. Family courts are still given little room to directly advise families where abuse is taking place.

Human Rights Watch Japan director Doi Takeo says Japan relies on “administrative guidance” when dealing with situations of child abuse, which often cancels out any court involvement:

“The authorities review a family’s situation and make recommendations to the parents to change their behavior without court involvement. But there is no way to enforce that advice if the parents ignore it. So the child is either left in an abusive environment or removed, neither of which is a good option for the child.”

Children have the right to a happy, healthy home. But if there is no authority figure to secure them these necessities, how will anything change? It is encouraging that the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare plans to funnel more support into the foster care system. But public awareness isn’t as strong as outright legal revisions. A serious overhaul of the entire alternative care system still needs to take place before we can stop seeing surveys detailing a disproportionate number of children in institutional care.

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