Recommendation to Japan for Gender Equality

A panel of the United Nations on the right of women recommended the government of Japan to revise Imperial House Law to comply with a treaty for gender equality. The panel also questioned Japan’s situation that women effectively have to change their surname to husband’s, as well as legal requirement of spousal consent to abortion. The government of Japan firmly opposed to the conclusion of the committee, arguing legal sovereignty on succession to the throne. 

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), one of the human rights treaty bodies of the United Nations, released “concluding observations on the ninth periodic report on Japan” on October 30th. This is the sixth recommendation to Japan, following the previous one in 2016.

 

The committee considers that Japan’s Imperial House Law is incompatible with the requirement of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979. “Allowing only male offspring in the male line belonging to the Imperial Lineage to succeed to the throne, is incompatible with articles 1 and 2 and contrary to the object and purpose of the Convention,” says the recommendation, taking note of Japan’s position that the provisions of the Japan’s Imperial House Law are not within the purview of the committee’s competence.

 

The committee recommends Japan to amend the Imperial House Law “to guarantee equality of women and men in the succession to the throne.” This is a discussion on a different viewpoint on imperial succession from current argument in Japan. Parties have been accumulating discussion in terms of how to make imperial succession stable, given a situation that the number of male imperial families are declining.

 

The conservative lawmakers in the Liberal Democratic Party are firmly opposing to have female emperor or male emperor from maternal lines. They believe that opening the imperial throne to female would destroy tradition of Japan’s imperial system. Making clear contrast, most opposition parties are willing to include maternal lines into the throne. However, current Shigeru Ishiba administration cannot afford to discuss it, since the LDP lost its majority in the House of Representatives after its general election in late October.

 

The government of Japan requested the committee to delete the recommendation from the concluding observations. “The system of imperial succession is about basis of a state and Japan explained that taking this issue would not be appropriate,” said Chief Cabint Secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi.

 

The committee also found that Japan had taken no step to revise a provision of the Civil Code requiring married couples to use the same name, which often compels women to adopt their husband’s surname. The committee called on Japan to amend legislation in order to enable women to retain their maiden surname. The conservative LDP has been blocking the request from the opposition parties to discuss this issue.

 

While the committee expressed its concern on limited access to abortion with legal requirement of consent of spouse in abortion, there is no basis of discussion for the issue in Japan, where there is no common idea that abortion is about protecting women’s right to decide on their own body. It is undeniable that narrow-minded conservatives have been controlled Japanese politics too long.

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