One of Japan's best-kept secrets is the extent to which many of its children are subjected to violence or other abuse inside their own homes. The results, announced this week, of a survey conducted earlier this year by the Tokyo-based Center for Child Abuse Prevention among 500 young mothers of children up to 6 years old indicate that abuse is more widespread than many had imagined, and it appears to be increasing. In the first-ever survey conducted among mothers who have not visited child- counseling centers, one in 10 were discovered to have abused their children by beating them or withholding necessary care.

The media give frequent coverage to Japan's rapidly falling birthrate, and to both known and presumed reasons for its decline, but far less attention is paid to the violence being perpetrated against the fewer children that are being born, except in cases where the tragic outcome is death. The results of the recent survey, to which all of the women questioned responded, were conveyed to the Health and Welfare Ministry with a call from the center for more social assistance for mothers with young children. The ministry certainly is aware of the growing problem, since officials there announced at the start of this month that 15 children died from abuse in fiscal 1997 despite the help provided by counseling centers.

Part of the reason the issue has been neglected is that the whole concept of children's rights is relatively new in Japan. Official tallying of child-abuse cases only began in 1990, and it was only in 1997 that the health ministry officially reminded local governments of the need to provide protection for seriously abused children. It was in that year that the number of reported cases reached 5,352 -- nearly five times the 1,101 cases reported in 1990. Changing social attitudes that encourage relatives or family friends to report abuse may account for some of the increase. But so may the isolation that many young mothers feel in today's smaller nuclear families.