Protecting Japan’s Children — and Insuring That They Are Heard

When Yuji Hirano was in junior high school in Fukuoka City, on the Japanese island of Kyushu, he was frequently kicked or beaten by his teachers over what he says were minor infractions of school rules.

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He also was bullied by his classmates.

Some research in the local library turned up the address of a children’s-rights organization in town, which the boy subsequently visited. He learned there that his situation was not at all unique.

As a result, Mr. Hirano, now 32, has become a dedicated activist promoting children’s rights in Japan. Organizations that conduct such work are relatively small and weak, and few have the resources to hire many full-time staff members. So Mr. Hirano earns his living as a translator. But he spends much of his time working in behalf of various organizations, particularly the Network for the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was established in 1991. The group works to persuade Japan’s government to fully implement the provisions of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by Japan in 1994.

Corporal punishment is illegal in Japan, Mr. Hirano notes, but is still widely practiced, both in schools and at home. And both verbal and physical bullying of children by their classmates continue to be major problems.

About 30 children a year are so distraught at being bullied that they commit suicide, he says. Furthermore, some 5,000 cases of child abuse are reported to authorities every year.

“All forms of violence are interrelated,” Mr. Hirano says. “If teachers use corporal punishment, kids will feel justified in using violence, too.”

One result of the high levels of stress at Japanese schools — both from bullying and from academic pressures — is that 100,000 school-age children stay home, he says. The parents of such students have banded together to form self-help organizations, which now number about 500 across the country.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, which meets three times a year in Geneva, has recommended that Japan’s government draft a comprehensive plan to deal with the problems of corporal punishment, school bullying, and violence.

But the government has been slow to take action, says Mr. Hirano. “The government was willing to sign and ratify the convention,” he says, “but the general attitude is that the convention is for developing countries, not for developed countries like Japan.”

Japanese law does not recognize children as having specific rights, such as freedom of expression or of association, Mr. Hirano points out. “The school system is administered in a very authoritarian manner: Everything is decided by the teachers and administration,” he says.

Countries like France have done a much better job of implementing the convention provision that every child has a right to express an opinion and to participate in decisions that affect him or her, Mr. Hirano says. Following student riots in the late 1960s, he notes, France introduced school councils, on which student representatives joined with teachers, parents, and administrators to discuss ways to improve school operations. France also has children’s parliaments, he says, which advise town councilors on matters that affect their lives, from playgrounds to recycling programs.

“In Japan, there also was a student movement, but the government responded by prohibiting students from participating in any political associations,” Mr. Hirano notes.

Yet paying serious attention to children’s opinions and giving them responsibility for making more decisions are excellent ways to prevent delinquency, he says. “When children feel they can play a role in society, they are much less likely to be involved in violence,” he says.

He was therefore glad to have a chance to work over the summer as an intern at Children’s Express, a news service based in Washington. The organization gives kids as young as 8 a chance to report on stories that are picked up by regular newspapers or broadcasters. Children themselves handle most aspects of the news operation, from interviewing sources to writing articles to helping distribute stories to potential outlets.

Such activities are novel to many Japanese children. “In Japan, adults try to guide and supervise children very much,” Mr. Hirano notes. “It does not lead to many voluntary initiatives” by schoolchildren of any age.

A delegation of four American kids and four adults affiliated with Children’s Express is in Japan this week to participate in several meetings and conferences focused on children’s rights. And the organization plans to open an office in Tokyo in 2001.

Eric Graham, president of Children’s Express, says Japanese society has changed dramatically since the mid-1980s, when his organization previously tried to set up shop in Japan. “In 1984, it was premature on both sides,” he says. “They weren’t as ready to listen to children, and we weren’t as ready to think globally.”

But Mr. Graham says he noticed many changes during his latest trip to Japan, in March. “The willingness — perhaps the necessity — of listening to women, to children, and to seniors is striking,” he observes. “That’s an incredibly healthy sign for Japan.”

Senior editors at Japan’s three major daily newspapers showed interest in Children’s Express and voiced some degree of interest in collaborating, Mr. Graham says. What’s more, “there’s a grassroots interest in making education more flexible, fitting it to students’ individual learning styles,” he adds. “That’s a big change in a society that’s fairly regimented.”

Mr. Hirano, for his part, was struck during his visit to America by the business orientation of many U.S. non-governmental organizations, or NGO’s. “In Japan, the NGO community and the business community have not interacted much,” he says. “Businessmen in Japan are usually too busy to be involved in voluntary NGO activities.”

Like many grassroots non-profit groups — or self-styled NPO’s — the children’s-rights network for which Mr. Hirano volunteers is still trying to raise enough money to hire its first full-time employee, he says. Its 500 members contribute only around $20,000 a year, and so far it has received no foundation grants. Mr. Hirano cobbles together funds from a variety of sources to finance his activism. His costs of traveling to Geneva, for example, are often covered by the Federation for the Protection of Children’s Human Rights, a group that has strong ties to a major teachers’ union in Japan.

“The NPO community in Japan doesn’t have much money to employ staff members,” Mr. Hirano laments.

Still, there are signs of progress. Non-profit organizations are starting to influence legislation in ways that were unthinkable only a few years ago, says Mr. Hirano.

One recent example involves legislation aimed at blunting international criticism that Japan allows the production and distribution of child pornography and that it fails to prosecute Japanese men who visit other Asian countries to engage in sex with children.

A coalition of non-profit groups has long been pushing for legislation to prohibit the commercial sexual exploitation of children: Such a law was passed in May and took effect this month. The new law permits the government to prosecute even crimes committed outside Japan, says Mr. Hirano. “In this law,” he adds, “the views of NPO’s were very much taken into account.”

And a few municipalities, he notes approvingly, have taken the unprecedented step of convening children’s parliaments that make recommendations to the local government on matters of public policy. “Children can be agents of change, particularly in the management of schools,” Mr. Hirano observes. “So children’s opinions should be heard when decisions are made.”