dayjapa-ish

[dayjapa-ish]

<Dropout of school because of pregnancy>Support children for graduation... NPO managers say

 7/14 Fri 21:07 released Mainichi express

Source:https://mainichi.jp/articles/20170715/k00/00m/040/104000c 

  "Is it okay to let high school students drop out immediately after they got pregnant?" Those voices started to come out from people who supports single mother and supports the poor. Most of pregnant students  leave school independently but the government or local government haven't recognized the fact. 

The expert appeals making the improvement of the behavior "If pregnant student got expelled, they are very likely to fall in poverty, and it sets off a chain reaction to their baby". [Asako Kuroda]

 In Spring last year, 3 supporters who are in NPO 'Poverty initiative of all children(kodomo-initiative.net)'  working for policy suggestion, during the discussion they noticed that they have an awareness of same issues in their activity. 

"Since long time ago, it's ordinary to drop out for pregnant students,but  between the dropout and a high school graduate, their income would have a gap. Shouldn't we  support them not to drop out but to be independent without quit study in opposite?", director of 'Single Mothers Forum' Chieko Akaishi who supports single parent said. Also Yumiko Watanabe, the director of 'Kids Door' which supports study education for children, and the representative director of 'Florence' which manage childcare project Hiroki Komazaki agreed, and they  started to raise a voice in the blog. 

 Some quit high school because of pregnancy and dreamt the life with partner and newborn baby, but the real is hard. The ratio of divorce is the highest in the latter teen years, if they become a single mother most of them sink into poverty. 

 Even when  they try to take the high school graduate certificate, going the support school cost very much. Different from the era which junior high school graduate was able to get a job, it's not rare to see the case of choosing the work in the sex industry or rely on welfare, as there's no other choice. However, in the side of high school they bring up strong resistance against the pregnant student to come to school. Kaoru Samejima, the chief of 'Safe mum&child Ladies clinic liaison conference(http://anshin-hahatoko.jp/)' established by obstetrician and gynecologists all over Japan, she confronted the case that one pregnant student consulted her teacher saying "I want to continue studying in high school", and she was said "You will bring up negative effect to other students. I won't tell anybody(about pregnancy) for you so drop out independently".

 The bureau chief is enraged, "It doesn't make sense, the fact that is possible to continue school if pregnant student had an abortion and  keep it a secret, however she get expelled from the school if she gave birth".

 "I don't have a dream. If I had found a dream, it wouldn't have been the time to give birth." 

 Akiko Suzuki, the representative director of 'Inclusion Kanagawa' which is general corporation supporting the poor can't forget the word of this girl. 

 The student was raised up being said "We can't afford to send you to Uni, so live alone when you became 18." so she couldn't rely on her parents even after the dropout. "Children who was narrowed their option by poverty and couldn't have a dream easily yearn for 'family'. This is the main background of youth pregnancy" Suzuki said.

 "It's important to give the support which makes girls think graduating high school  for their baby. The government has to investigate and recognize the actual situation, and then show the example of how the clothes of pregnant students can be or the days of attendance which we have to consider carefully. If the student desires to quit school, we should give them a life consultation or support for obtaining certification.  

◇Local government, "Don't deprive of their right without investigation" 

  According to a study done by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the high school dropout in 2015 is 1.4% of all students, about 49,000. The ratio of dropout by pregnancy is not clear anyway as it's not in the items to be checked up on. In the vital statistics, the number of babies given birth by teen mother reached 11,095.  There's no rule to force student to quit high school. 

 The  Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has stance of 'we should give an indispensable education and consideration for pregnant student caring the mother's body as priority', in 2015 the prefectural high school in Iwate was detected having bylaw 'pregnancy is punished as expulsion'.

 The tendency of recognizing pregnancy as 'problem action' is deep-rooted in the scene.  According to the high school teacher for the handicapped in Mie prefecture, there's a case that their parents come to ask for dropout saying "We don't want our daughter to be looked with curiosity. The teacher recommends pregnant student to take a correspondence course, but he points out "There is social atmosphere that if student got pregnant she shouldn't go school anymore."  

 The lawyer(from Tokyo bar association) Toshimasa Yamashita who is familiar with children rights, told "Among parents and children, there's weak awareness of that they can resist the offer of dropout from school. The society should understand that study rights is secured for all children equally."

[dayjapa-ish]

The proposed amendment of toughening sex crime was passed in the House of Representatives, big amendment after 110 years

[Tokyo 8th June Reuters]

Translated from 

http://jp.reuters.com/article/criminal-law-idJPKBN18Z0FI

by Belita

 In 8th June, the proposed amendment of toughening sex crime was passed in the House of Representatives. The minimum limit of legal punishment got lowered, for instance it became possible to prosecute without accusation from the injured. Since the establishment in Meiji era, it's a big amendment after 110 years.

 The government party hopes it gets approved in the House of Councilors by 18th, which is the end of session of the Diet. However in the Upper house the ruling parties and the oppositions are in a state of confrontation over the amendment of toughening conspiracy and it might make the start of discussion of the former amendment far behind. 

 Pillar of the proposed amendment are 1) renaming rape as ' forcing sex crime', and the injured contains men not only women.2) increasing the minimum of imprisonment from 3 years to 5 years. 3) removing one of the regulation of crime requiring complaint from the victim for prosecution, no longer need to accuse. etc.

 Moreover, as ever it requires an assault or threat in order to acknowledge as it's crime, in the proposed amendment if 'protectors' like parents forced a sex or obscenity using their position, it's recognized as sex crime without assaults.

 According to the survey by the Cabinet office(2014), among the  women who ever got raped from the opposite sex, 67.5 % of those said 'I never consulted anybody'. Whereas, women who went to police was just 4.3 %. 

 The local organization who demands the amendment does points saying 'why victims can't complain is because the standard which certifies as an assault or sex crime is too high'.

 7th June when the proposed amendment was passed in the House of Representatives, after the discussion, the members of local organization 'the association which considers an assault and penal code by the parties concerned' about 20 members, met the minister of justice Katsutoshi Kaneda. They handed over the 30 thousand signatures collected in the Internet and demanding paper which ask for formation of the amendment.

 Lawyer Keiko Ota who is familiar with this issue says 'this is necessary, but it got so late'. She answered in the interview 'this is just one part of which we should revise so henceforth we must discuss further revision'.Concretely she pointed that the abolition of condition of recognizing as an assault, which no longer require the accusation from victim is for only 'protectors', as it doesn't contain teacher or sports coach, the occupation often found out as sex criminal.

Ms. Ota also mentioned about the discussion procedure as it had to be discussed before the amendment of toughening conspiracy, as the former amendment was submitted earlier. She criticized what the members of the Upper House want is the formation of toughening conspiracy so they took precedence over the former amendment. 

(宮崎亜巳、Linda Sieg)

[dayjapa-ish]

Japanese sex education which has been recognized as taboo.   Is it okay to keep going in this way?

source: Yahoo news Japan

24 May 2017 released

 l wonder how you learned "sex education" at school. There might be people who say "I didn't learn at all". In the Japanese society which is somehow taboo to talk about "sex" in public, it was often pointed out as it's "lack of sex education" comparing with other countries. 

In this article we want to take notice of sex education following last article(released on 23rd May) which discussed abortion issue from medical field. First of all, we introduce the case of former teacher who has experience of repeating the class in high school with an 'abortion' theme.  The class which seems 'abnormal' in current Japanese society, has etched deeply in mind of graduates. (Yahoo! news editorial department of special section)

([The first volume] 180 thousand a year   The scene of abortion--How we deal with "Un-wished pregnancy")

Showing the scene of abortion in the class

In this report we made 1 video. The main character is former teacher of International Christian University High School (Koganei, Tokyo), Heikichi(/Hirayoshi) Arima (68yo). In the high school class every year he chose the topic "abortion" and made his students think about "the value of life".

Mr. Arima said at the end of the video looking back the time of being teacher.

"I'd almost never thought doing the class of sex education. But I said "The sex issue is humanity theme".  As a result without expecting, I might had done effective class. Even now when I met graduates they remember about the class even it was decades ago, it should have affected their acts in several scenes. Teaching a stamen and pistil doesn't make any sense."

Are you wondering how his classes were like? In the video you find comments by his students and thoughts of graduates. Take your time to watch.(The video is in the original link)

Researchers "Are they okay, students?"

We visited the researcher deploring "Japanese sex education is horrible". Mayumi Taniguchi, an associate professor of Osaka International University. She has studied the population problem, women rights and bioethics and she also shows up on TV as commentator. She said that she'd seen how poor the sex knowledges of students is over 10 years, through her lectures in University.

"How youngsters at this era study sex? The answers is adult video. 

It's full of fantasy from male side. Those don't have scene of putting condom on  according to my friend who's studied adult video. That's why there's children who don't know how to wear condom. I worry about them." 

Taniguchi said that the place where children get sex knowledge is almost Internet, as the number of those youngsters increased there's students believing wrong information from the Internet."Few days ago one student said to me. --Even if a sperm went inside, they would die if we washed with coke after the fact.-- Then I answered that they wouldn't die definitely. 100%. And he still said "But I saw in the Internet."

Wrong sex knowledge is rampant today---. There are many experts pointing out that. Taniguchi is the one of them, she says "Isn't it the result of after we avoided proper sex education in school?" She thinks the background is the way of thinking "Don't wake up sleeping children". In other words, if we spread sex knowledge, youngsters would get crazy to have sex and might become trouble.Taniguchi objected to this idea squarely.

"It's important to wake child up in time." by Taniguchi 

 Some people say "Because we teach discrimination, they do discriminate." But it's not. It's important to wake children up in time. Because we say only "That district has been discriminated." without teaching them background that's why the discrimination becomes rampant. In the same way, "If we provided sex education in their early age they get crazy", that would never be true today as children are surrounded by lots of adult videos or sexual information.

Japanese enthusiastic sex education in 1990

 Actually, there was a time Japanese school was enthusiastic for sex education. It's about 10 years from 1992 called "the first year of sex education". AIDS panic in 1980s triggered the idea "necessary of education for prevention of AIDS contagion" and then the points of study was revised. 

Through "science" and new subject "health and physical", "sex" was started to be taught properly from elementary school.

It was said that was after 2000 when the trend got changed. The start was withdrawing disturbance of "Love & body book for adolescents", the book made for junior high students by the foundation Mother and child health association. 

The book introduced how to wear condom and pills, and they got criticized as "promotion for sexual action of junior high students" in the Diet in 2002. 

Eventually, the book was all withdrawn. At this time, the criticism "extreme sex education is rampant in school" or "is it okay to teach how to have sex in the class" became strong by media, the Diet and local Diet.

"Japanese sex education has stopped for 10 years" 

 Professor emerita Noriko Hashimoto in women nutrition university said "By sex education bashing in 2000, Japanese sex education has stopped since then". 

She has studied sex education of all the countries of the world mainly Europe for 30 years. We're wondering what's the biggest difference between Japanese and European sex education for her, the pioneer of the study.

Ms Hashimoto explained "European countries are trying to teach human sex directly through 1 unit or 1 textbook. But in Japan, it's separated to the subjects of science or health and others. In the science textbook you find just only half a page or 1 page. The structure of body, the relation between opposite sex and current sex problem. Schools in Japan don't teach those together.

"For example France”. According to Hashimoto, there is a unit ‘women and men’ in the creature field of ‘science’ in high school in France. “The book says everything women and men need to learn". 

The structure of body, pregnancy, and giving birth. In addition to those fundamental things they learn several methods of contraception concretely in junior high school. 

Also high schools (in France) introduces latest scientific knowledge about cause of sterility and sterility treat."

In France they teach life ethics and assistant reproductive medical treatment. Moreover, they also teach several type of human existence including LGBT, human rights, sex chromosome, sex-decisive gene and so on."

 Europe "teaching human totally"In the case of Finland, not science like France but they set unit "human" in the field "human biology". 

 The textbooks in junior high and high explained "sex and reproduction of human" physiologically. For example, the topics range from the percentage of occurrence of chromosome aberration comparing with mother's age, falling pregnancy rate, and sterility treatment etc. 

In Germany there's unit "first dating" in biology textbook for the age between 13 to 16, and at the end the methods of contraception with condoms and pills are written in detail."European sex education is to provide information to children and let them debate. Including human rights they teach human totally. This is their big feature."  

Meanwhile in Asian countries such as China, Korea and Taiwan they started sex education following "International sexuality education guidance" published by UNESCO in 2009. Toward the current, Hashimoto insists, "Is it alright that Japanese sex education still has stopped?"

Teachers in class room are at a loss and have been tormented 

It's hard to find out which education is appropriate if we need to implement sex education in schools. In fact we heard the voice "sex education is difficult" from teachers we interviewed in "teaching seminar" which was held in Takamatsu in March.

 One male teacher who's been an assistant principal talked like below."Text books(of sex education), teaching materials and so on, they(the border of how far teachers should teach) are vague different from other subjects. 

Where should we stop? If we just gave children interests, it might cause some trouble. I guess there are many teachers thinking that way. "One femal teacher in junior high school confessed that "It's hard to say if it's better to teach how to use condom in the class for example." and continued "And in textbooks, those things haven't been written that far. I know we should talk about sex education deeper, but class time ends with teaching things in textbooks. 

One male teacher in high school "Everyone(students) are interested in sex, although they try to put those things away because of shyness. They are thinking it's embarrassing to discuss." 

How can we get rid of that shyness?

 "Sex is the closest subject for us and it's the theme we have to think seriously. Also the side of us, teachers have to be serious it's meaningless to give the lessons half jokingly. 

Sex and love-- "Of course we collide if we think about human"

We asked Mr. Arima, former teacher of International Christian University high school who we introduced in the video at the beginning. "Do you think the sex education in Japan is fragmentary compared to Europe?"

(Mr. Arima) "In case of Japan, teachers  teach partially such as stamina and pistils in the subject of health and physical education. Getting only that part stood out. 

I may be contradictory, but whether students can understand sex issue if teachers talk about sexual relationship explicitly, that's different story. Ain't they vague, sex and love? It's sensitive topic too. But eventually if we think about human the issue of sex and love come up definitely. Mr. Arima said that it's difficult to figure out when we should give the lesson or from how old.

"I wonder if it's the best way to show everything including the sexual organs with doll model and even elementary students are able to see it, like one school do. We can't sum up it equally in data, "If I had received sex education I didn't do such a thing" or "I failed because I wasn't taught sex education properly." etc. 

After all, I think there are negative sides which is generated by doing sex education too deeply and by doing too lightly. Me too, it's the theme I've been thinking and no absolute solution.”

[dayjapa-ish]

High heel Ringo “I can make effort because I was not able to give birth” ~After tried over 20 times in-vitro fertilization~

source: https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20170521-00000061-dal-ent Daily Sports 21/05 Sun. 14:01 released

 High Heel Ringo confessed that she's been trying in-vitro fertilization for a long time. Based on that experience, she sent a yell to people who's having difficult time of sterility. 

"Ringo you won't be blessed with a child..." a prophet predicted more than 20 years ago.

 I was 50 yo when I quit sterility treat. At that time, just by seeing the pill I could understand how the medicine work on the body. I even gave me an injection myself, and blood vessel of my arm got hard because of taking blood sample too much. I did in-vitro fertilization over 20 times too.

 There's people who have to give up because of money or trouble among family. In my case, my husband is far older than me so we might not be able to see our child grown up until adult. I thought it's my ego, we have to consider being the side of child. Even if I could get blessed with baby by sterility treat, it's not the end. We have to raise them up after that.  

My friend who gave birth through sterility treat was saying with tearful voice, "The child who I wanted was not like this." Of course she is glad with her child. But before she gave birth, she had lots of dreams. For example choosing clothes or playing with kids. But in real it was very tough to raise a child in her age. It seems hard because she doesn't have stamina different from the time when she was young. Besides her husband is not corporative, he says "You are the one who wanted a child." then they have argue. I heard those facts and thought it's too tough to do as I'm already 50. 

 The majority of family form is with kids, isn't it? But I could know something because I couldn't have children. As for our relationship between husband and me, we had more conversation after started the treat and became closer. I can concentrate on working too. 

 Some people may think it's a case of sour grapes, but I can make effort for other things because I couldn't realize my dream of giving birth. So I want people who wasn't blessed with kids even through sterility treat and people has been trying be proud of themselves without feeling inferior.

~High Heel Ringo~  Born in 1961, 9th January. Japanese comedian from Hirakata, Osaka. She debuted with Momoko in 1983. She has an excellent reputation as emcee. From 2010 she studied financial theory in Osaka university and was given an honorary doctorate.

[dayjapa-ish]

"foster parent of same-sex couple" was born like this. The leader related the backstage

BuzzFeed Japan 4/30(Sun) 17:20

source: https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20170430-00010001-bfj-soci

same-sex couple in Osaka got acknowledged as "foster parents" and started to raise up a child---. The news blew through Japan, last April. Apparently it seems an unforeseen story, however in the background there was one NPO activity. We heard about it from Megumi Fuji, who's been working for making LGBT be acknowledged as a foster parent, and is the representative of general corporation 'Rainbow foster care'. [BuzzFeed Japan / Kazuki(Ikki) Watanabe]

Big misunderstading

In 2103, I established Rainbow Foster Care advocating 'Let's accept same-sex couple as foster parents'.Then, most of reaction was 'It's impossible unless the law gets change' 'If you're going to amend the law, it's better to try to make same-sex marriage possible in Japan first.' and so on. Even people who agree with letting LGBT be foster parents had same understanding. But this was big misunderstanding. In fact, legally same-sex couple can become foster parents. Of course there are rules like person who ever  abused children can't be allowed, or person who doesn't have enthusiasm of raising children also can't become. But there's no rules saying that same-sex couple can't become foster parents. So for me, I thought we can realize the acknowledgment immediately if the consciousness in the scene changed.

'Foster parents' system which actually was not known very well

But breaking the misunderstanding 'It's necessary to get the law changed',was not easy. Even I explained that it's alright legally, they persistently don't believe. Although I surveyed entire country, there was no NPO working for that sort of activity. Also no lawyer debating the problem.To begin with, foster parent system is not well-known generally in Japan. It's often mistaken as 'another adoption'. Foster parent role is taking care of children temporally until they become 18 years old. Adoption is to break off the relationship between parents and child and then make new family-relationship. They are quite different, ain't they? That's why foster parent is looser than adoption. Single father, single mother, or a grown-up child and its mother, lots of kind of foster parents have been raising children.

Alteration

However, after I started the move, various informations came to me.

Same-sex couple who tried to be foster parents said 'When we headed to town hall, we were refused as we are not married'. Among these information, I found some cases that they were rejected with discriminatory behavior. There were also some people who gave up, thinking 'It's impossible unless we change the law', by being said same thing by officers.

What I found out with these informations is 'Perhaps, self-governing bodies are also misunderstanding in same way people do'.

Recently, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare have declared 'promotion of home nursing', and trying to increase the number of foster parents. If same-sex couple couldn't become because of discrimination or wrong impression, it must be huge loss of opportunity.

Then I thought 'I should spread the fact that we need improvement of how we run the fostering system, but not law'.

Around me, there are people who are raising their own children with their same-sex partner after divorced. Or there is also case of women couple raising their kids whose life were given by sperm donation. Those people are taking care of children as same as other people.

There's no difference even they are same-sex parents. They have love towards kids, raising them sometimes having argue, ordinarily. We can't say what is different from others. 

There could be difference when one of the parent has parental authority and the other doesn't, but this is not only the issue of same-sex couple but also the issue of entire country which we have to solve immediately.

The women couple who I met in Seattle, as foster parents, they raised many children who have hurt their heart, so the couple was respected by locals. Children who's being taken care by them seemed really relaxing.

I was impressed by that sight. They were so cool, I wish people like them were in Japan more, I thought.

In America, I heard some LGBT people look after LGBT kids, and women couple raise a girl who has men-phobia. It's not like we must follow those cases, but I became aware of that 'there are various children, so as candidates of foster parent, it's better if there are also various adults'. In other words, I thought we should increase the number of options children can choose.

Puzzling equation

 So, what can I do? If it was law revision, I would talk to Congress members at first.

However, it's black box because it's the matter of the system of self-governing bodies. I won't figure out even what's going on unless I ask every single local governments. I tried to pose the problem collecting the data of 'rejection cases', but it didn't go well. 

I had no idea what to do next, for this sort of social activity. It was problematic, how to solve this puzzling equation.

Model cases

There are 69 self-governing bodies running foster parent business. We were short-handed to work for all of those.Then I thought, it's good if some local governments publicized 'same-sex couple can become foster parents too'. If self-government body were addressing, people who had given up and other local governments can notice or listening to the voice.

So I headed to Yodogawa ward. The head of ward is passionate for LGBT policy, in 2013 he announced 'LGBT support declaration'. The depart of foster system is run by the administrative division (or the ordinance-designated city), so it's impossible to revise the system with only Yodogawa ward. However I thought we might be able to find the breakthrough if we could talk to organization which is positive for LBGT support.

Seriousness of Yodogawa ward

I was feeling somewhat uneasy about how much serious 'support declaration' of Yodogawa ward was, but it got blown away immediately after I met the head Masafumi Sakaki and the officers. Sakaki chief had good knowledge of sexual minority and was very much aware of the issue. He had studied about social nursing, so we understood each other in a second.

What I demanded was,'Please publicize that LGBT can also become foster parents. It's okay even if just only one sentence in your website'.

With Osaka municipality... 2 hour-heated discussion

Nevertheless, who run the foster system directly is Osaka municipality, not Yodogawa ward. Next step was opinion exchanges with workers of Osaka children consulting center. From talking to Yodogawa ward to the realization of that opinion exchanges, it actually took 1 year.

Time given to us was 2 hours. There were some scenes that we argued, but I felt we understood at last. What was effective at the end was the data which I put opinions of various people such as foster parents, LGBT people, and officers of child nursing center, all together.

'We definitely don't exclude LGBTs who's concerned with.'

Few weeks later, in LGBT support organization news letter by Yodogawa ward 'Nijiiro news' (published in September 2015), the center put messages below;

If the person was well-qualified for foster parent, we definitely don't exclude LGBT who's concerned with, because of discrimination or prejudice.

Please trust us (Children consulting center)!

First of all, come to talk face to face!

This surpassed my demand greatly, even I just said 'one sentence in website is okay'.It was epoch-making moment which meant that self-governing body opened its door for LGBT foster parents.

Men-couple in Osaka

Who replied towards the address was this men-couple who was reported this time. If the door was open, the parties concerned feel easy to raise their hand. Osaka city announced messages, and then same-sex couple raised hand, in fact child got fostered. I could feel 'changes of system is made like this' in the body, by witnessing the moment of birth of new 'family' myself.

The Tokyo metropolitan area

But if we look at entire Japan, it can't be always like the Osaka's case. At present, in Tokyo, there is the standard which actually exclude same-sex couple from foster parent candidates.

In 2016, I asked 'Why do you the Tokyo metropolitan area exclude same-sex couple from "the authorization standard of foster parents" ? ' in opinion exchanges between LGBT concerned and Tokyo metropolitan. Disappointingly, their reply was cold hearted which was just read out the manual.

16th April, Mainichi press reported 'After we surveyed every self-governing bodies, only Tokyo has the standard which actually doesn't accept same-sex couple as foster parent'.

With this article, Tokyo metropolitan answered 'We haven't organized social system well for example even marriage is not permitted in the civil law. As we can't expect how children feel or accept, or how it affects to children, we would like to examine carefully'. 

No matter how many times I have to say, I keep on saying that foster parents and marriage are not related. Among foster parents, some are not married, some are 'foster parents by parent and its grown up child'. I want Tokyo metropolitan to face this present circumstance, not to swear 'We can't expect the effect'.

In this case, the minister of Health, Labour and Welfare remarked 'I appreciate (about this report)'. Henceforth, there's ability of how municipality run the system will change a lot. 

One of the best result was, lots of people considered about new family style, thinking of children living under the social nursing. The life which same-sex couple, and their family get respected in local, accepted without special treatment and live same as others, is getting close to be real, I felt.

First heavy door opened. But this is not the end.

Which kind of system do we need in order to improve the environment for children who can't grow with their parents and or various people? I'm gonna keep on raising voice and never give up, in order to open next door.

[dayjapa-ish]

Government support for young women is insufficient

Translated from Japanese to English, source; http://diamond.jp/articles/-/104452  page 5.

Tachibana: Those children can often be found at neglected home. Not only because of not taking shower, but also clothes smells so bad as it's not been washed for months. I let them take a rest in love hotel telling them 'You stink, better take a shower'. I pay for that because I can think that it's for them.

Nakamura: The real problem is how we can manage poor children who don't have anything, such as good appearance, education, or good personality. Nobody wanna get to know or have relationship. I really wonder how we can deal.

Tachibana: There are many cases that the children go far away from our hand. It becomes impossible to keep contact with them. As they argue with other girls or a male host. After a while, I heard they were sent to jail.

Suzuki: Those people are also difficult to get on welfare.

Tachibana: Children who can ask help for some organization including the welfare office, is capable explaining their environment or their thoughts. There is who can't say anything except 'Ah' or 'No'. In that case, they are not able to tell how they are suffering so can't get support. 

Nakamura: Where those children can find help then? It's hard to have fair conversation with them so includes me, it's impossible to give them a help.

Tachibana: Honestly speaking, the official support is still not enough at all. Especially, we should prepare the facility for young women to keep them for long term. There is a women protection facilities but they have strict rules, and hard to get along with elderly women there because of age gap. Also consultation office for children has very strict rules so hard to get into.

Suzuki: Fundamentally, it's better if there are long-term protection facility and protection facility which anybody can drop by whenever they want, just for young women. Don't you think so?

Tachibana: It's important to add more options which the poor girls can choose.

  Nakamura: However, it seems there's seriously no money as we can see the trend of government reducing social security. It's wise of them providing less supports or service for elders, if they want to solve the problem of dwindling birthrate. I want the baby-boom generation to say 'Don't care about us anymore, but work out a solution of the environment of poor youths'.

Tachibana: Includes those issues, it's hard to make immediate support, but we can spread this current situation to lots of people. So I think things which Suzuki and Nakamura has been working for are helpful for letting public get to know the present fact of poverty.

Suzuki: Not only spreading information, but also we need to pay attention for how we report.  That's why we can't ignore what NHK done this time.

[dayjapa-ish]

Children raised up neglected or being received domestic violence, for them even it’s difficult to earn money in the sex industry

Translated from Japanese to English, source; http://diamond.jp/articles/-/104452  page 4.

Nakamura: But I think there is no method not to fall into poverty. Especially in case of poverty of women, there are lots of cases that normal women get poor just by living normally. Earnest person became Librarian and fell in poverty. One person started to work as nursing case staff because she liked elderly people and fell in poverty. Poverty is waiting after their efforts.

Tachibana: And, there are people who blame these poor people saying 'It's your fault because you are the one who chose that job'. It's almost bullying. 

Nakamura: Although there's a strong relationship between poverty and sex industry, number of women who sell their body at the end are increasing too much. The reason why women put their clothes off and politic economic situation are connected directly, it means it's urgent problem that we have to solve. 

Tachibana: Yeah. Girls selling their body have got their heart damaged deeply and the scars lead them go wrong. Some of those girls think they want to disappear or die.

Nakamura: Well, if now is the era that we can live normally by making normal efforts, we could say to the girls to quite selling body but get another job, or get married. But we can't say that now, can we? The way to think it's better to sell body is getting common, and we could say it's true. 

Suzuki: But, the prostitution that you mentioned, is like a mistress having secure relationship which provides regular pay. Isn't it?

Nakamura: Yes, still selling sex or having those relationship are the fastest way to redistribute wealth. For instance phenomenon like 'compensated dating' have been happening. It's totally wrong that office workers of major media report those girls ramming their prejudiced ethics down the girl's throat who is being saved by prostitution choosing as it's right way for themselves. 

Tachibana: However, it's really hard to earn enough money by selling sex or building relationship as mistress. Especially for children who don't have capitals because of problem at home. 

Suzuki: Yap. To put it in an extreme way, children who can get pay with prostitution are able to survive with even other jobs. The kids who has no choice except prostitution are no longer able to work in the sex industry. As the features of children at underlayer surviving with selling sex, I find rough skin with boils on their ass or feet. I often hear from supplier that they don't know how to wash their body because they'd never been taught. There's some children giving off a bad smell while I interview. 

Next: Government support for young women is insufficient

[dayjapa-ish]

Children who doesn't know 'living correctly' which even supports can't save

Translated from Japanese to English, source; http://diamond.jp/articles/-/104452  page 3.

Tachibana: When I'm talking about poor girls in a lecture, someone gives me nonsense question 'But you are taking contacts with her ain't you? (the child can afford to have phone)'. For me I have seen how the poor people suffer from poverty, I feel 'why can you push these people to the wall so brutally?

Nakamura: However, even the poor girls could receive support from somewhere, afterwards some girls don't fulfill their duty.

Tachibana: They don't. We sometimes keep children who don't have place to go back without money in dormitory, after that, I can't be sure if I'm asked whether they can keep on paying rent constantly. Probably I have to say most of them not. They can't continue their job, and of course they want to go shopping. So the rent is left by taking those fun as precedence. For the side of landlord, 'They are playing around and go shopping, how can I believe that they can't pay rent...' For us like support organization, we suffer from the gap. 

Suzuki: Living correctly, that 'correct', has to be learned by getting taught. It's natural these poor children can't perform their duty, as nobody taught them. Against children who was thrown aside in the early stage like before they build common sense on themselves, people who has the attribute of blaming those children as the poverty is their fault.

Nakamura: Those people are living making effort though. Poverty hide their hope for future. Their salary is fixed low with irregular job, so they are absorbed in their own affairs that they can't think of other people. If the wages of the lower class get raised up, in proportion to that, those criticism will be decreased I think. 

Suzuki: The worst thing, is that poor report and web media have a strong relationship. If this NHK report was reported in web media, they could earn enormous number of page view. Internet media can get profit by earning page view, so if they take precedence of that benefit, they tend to reach the conclusion that it's better to put topics in the Internet which easily can get flamed up. They jar on nerves of antis by mixing elements of flame. This system that hurt the parties concerned but profitable way to earn money warps poor report.

Nakamura: Competing sales providing stimulants, is not what major media which has social responsibility should do, but private small business. Furthermore, reason why poor reports tend to gather public attention is because many of them can't think poverty is no longer someone else's business.

Suzuki: Same as health TV program, not few people are watching as a negative example to find out how not to fall in poverty. 

Next; Children raised up neglected or being received domestic violence, for them even it's difficult to earn money in the sex industry.

[dayjapa-ish]

People who criticize poor people are also in poverty.

Translated from Japanese to English, source; http://diamond.jp/articles/-/104452 page 2.

Even if they are in same class of poverty, some could get starving 

  Suzuki: But I can tell definitely that the girl is poor, for sure. 

However NHK didn't report well. They should've added explanation of her actual situation and negative risk of poverty for her future which we can expect later on.  They should have paid more attention why she is suffering. If they say it's not documentary to edit or interpret her intention instead of her, they must not report poor people as documentary program. 

Tachibana: As for this flame in the Internet, I felt how cold the public was. Even I felt tendency that they never allow poor people to have any hobby such as going lunch or loving animation. 

Nakamura: The people who criticize poor people are also in poverty as ever. They can attack in SNS as much as they want, the weak always get hurt brutally. 

The fundamental cause is there is a lots of employees working with low salary. If we live alone without regular job, it means already we are in same class of poverty. Enormous people are having disapprovals. We know some faultfinders would appear saying 'Don't say you are in poverty (because I'm poorer)'. It was not good idea that NHK targeted minority person. 

Tachibana: I think 'poor' is exactly like that girl anyway. 

Suzuki: Yeah I find children who are always hungry, having smart phone. 

Tachibana: The child I interviewed before, his parents has neglected him and the electricity in his home is cut off. His parents don't come back to home without leaving any money so he is always starving. 

So I said he would be able to eat school lunch if school started, then he said 'School doesn't provide me lunch because my parents don't pay the fee'.

I met him in cafe of hotel near the station, I said 'You can eat anything, I'm gonna pay', he finally ordered after asked me 'Is it really ok?' around 3 times. His lifeline was only smart phone, but that's why I could have connection with him.

Suzuki: It's current common situation of poor youth that they have only Internet but no food. After all, I think poor of youth doesn't relate to economic situation of their parents. Probably her parents are in poverty. But no matter the income of parents, children doesn't know how to earn money so can't survive if their parents don't come home without leaving money. 

Even if they run away from home, from that day they are in absolute poverty which has risk of die of starvation. So no matter how much salary parents get, children can be put in danger if parents didn't come home few days without any cash or food.

Next: Poor children doesn't know 'usual life'

[dayjapa-ish]

What was wrong with NHK documentary ’The poor high school girls'

Translated from Japanese to English, source; http://diamond.jp/articles/-/104452 page 1.

Daisuke Suzuki

Born in 1973, Chiba Japan. Reportage writer. Having a theme ‘Ethics of criminals’ ‘Poverty problem in crime scene’, he works for reporting surviving scene of underground community and juvenile delinquent. Books; ‘Poverty and Sex’ (East Books) putting all the past talk with Atsuhiko Nakamura, ‘Brain got broken’ (Shinchou Books) and so on.

18 August 2016, NHK news 7 showed 'the poor high school girls' as special section of poor children in the TV program. However, in the Internet it got flamed as trumped up story.

 The topic of poor people gathers big attention, but it tends to get flamed up. So how should social media report the poor youth? About the real situation of poor girls, non-fiction writer Atsuhiko Nakamura, who has been collecting data, reportage writer Daisuke Suzuki, and Jun Tachibana who run NPO 'bond project' which gives supports for 10s and 20s women, discussed how should the report of poor people be on social media. 

Jun Tachibana

Project leader of NPO BOND. In 2006, with cameraman partner Ken, published free magazine VOICE which convey voices of girls. In 2009, established NPO BOND project in order to support girls aged between 10s and 20s, reporting how they feel difficult to survive. So far Tachibana and Ken interviewed over 3,000 people(mainly girls), and have been keeping on reporting. Other literary works; ‘Drifting girls ~craving for place to stay in town at night~’(Taro Jiro editors), ‘The girls at undermost layer, Criminals of society of political apathy’(Shogakkan)

Major media which reports 'raw' fact

Suzuki: I'm so disappointed of this NHK news. The beginning of this flame was that there were a lot of animation goods and expensive illustration color pens in the room of that high school girl.  

This flame was kind of reports of poverty make people think if it's really poor, which has been repeated many times, but before that I'm furious that NHK the public media showed the minority girl without any consideration. I even can't believe that.

Tachibana: Several times I have received offer from NHK before, there were TV programs trying to get appearance of interviewees on the air. 

They were pretty persistent. Maybe they want to show raw fact to audience by putting everything on the wave.

Suzuki: I keenly became aware of that it's wrong to leave the decision to children whether they wanna show themselves on the media. Among poor children, of course some wants to be on TV. Even adult, there is some women shows their skin on the media with salary of only a hundred dollars. 

It's impossible to tell those kids to realize how risky to leave the record of them. In the Internet society, reaction including criticism can reach the interviewees directly. Even if media get their permission, showing their face on the media without any censor is what should never happen.

Nakamura: Minorities don't exactly know the risk of appearing on TV, this time the girl got hurt by being the main of the flame. All major media, they make articles and programs getting introduction of poor youth from support organization, though these poor youth has informations, connection of the organization and communication skill. So we could count them as one of the youth in high grade in the poor community. 

Tachibana: Even from newspaperman, I receive contact that they want me to give them introduction of poor girl or runaway boy. I wonder if they do find it themselves...

Suzuki: Even though it's introduced from support organization, they need to take a time to build relationship with these youth at first, then the media should figure out which side of interviewees should put on the air so that won't make them be target of attack or discrimination. They have to prepare for the worst, like they take care of the interviewee's life afterwards. 

However, reporters of major media tend to push the interviewees, showing attitudes like 'You have duty to tell your situation toward society'. Those cases have been causing a lots of troubles everywhere these days, as this kind of poor report is going around.

Nakamura: Office workers in major media, most of them were raised up in wealthy home. They can't have fair conversation with poor youth when there is more than 2 levels of gap between wealth and poverty. This NHK case also, they laid stigma on the high school girl. This report which has no consideration accelerated parting those gap.

Next: People who criticize poor people are also in poverty.