The notion of family in Japan conjures up images of stability that are increasingly out of step with emerging realities. Certainly, compared to most other advanced industrialized nations, Japan's families are not in crisis. For Japanese, however — and this collection of essays — the point of reference is not how much more dire the situation is overseas, but how much better it seemed to have been in Japan until recent years, when the media began reporting extensively about various family-related problems that were previously mostly ignored. Stable families and jobs have been the pillars of the post-World War II system, but both are now less secure, carrying significant ramifications for social policy.
A superb essay by Roger Goodman examines the dramatic and rapid shift in public attitudes toward child abuse and domestic violence, and the role of the state in family matters. Child abuse and domestic violence in Japan, once hidden scourges, are emerging from the shadows. Until the 1990s these problems were met with either collective denial or the view that they were private matters best handled within the family. Advocacy groups with media support have put them on the national radar, and Japanese society now acknowledges them as intolerable and requiring state intervention.
Goodman examines how various actors contributed throughout the 1990s to raising awareness of child abuse. These culminated in national legislation in 2000 that introduced a legal definition of abuse so that it could not be defended under the guise of discipline. It also established mandatory reporting by educational, welfare and medical personnel, and police intervention in certain cases.