1. Battling a broken system, by RICHARD CORY
One day in March, just minutes after my daughter and I returned home from celebrating her graduation from elementary school that morning, her mother, from whom I had filed for divorce in January after 17 years of marriage, lured my daughter out of the house, shoved her into a taxi and took off for the local ward welfare office (fukushi jimusho), where her mother claimed domestic violence.
A social worker met the taxi outside the office and gave the driver directions to a shelter, which was located in Shinjuku Ward within the Yamanote Line. The welfare office then encouraged the mother to unofficially change her and my daughter's first and last names, and the newly christened Michiko Watanabe was then enrolled in a school just steps from the apartment. The mother visited the school and asked the principal to help protect Michiko from her foreign father.
Life at the shelter was comfortable. The accommodations were sizable and modern, and included 20 private Japanese-style rooms. Personal laundry was washed, dried and folded daily. Youngsters were given an hour of Japanese and math study through work sheets each weekday morning, followed by cakes, cookies and the like at around 3 p.m. And all this was provided at taxpayer expense for two weeks.