Child Abuse: History and Current State in Japanese Context

Abstract

Focusing on child abuse, Chap. 2 addresses the following five issues:

• Definitions of child abuse

• Application of a life course perspective in describing child abuse

• The history and current state of child abuse in Japan and other countries

• Literature review of causes and consequences of child abuse

• Future tasks

First, various forms of child abuse are presented, including physical abuse, psychological or verbal abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect. The complexity of definitions of child abuse in terms of the interrelationships among the forms of abuse as well as multiple or combined occurrence of different forms of violence is also described.

Second, we will apply a life course perspective to examine generational factors surrounding child abuse. These factors include childhood environment of the abusive parents, children’s experiences of being abused, and experiences of social relationships as an adult of childhood abuse victim as well as the relationship between the perpetrator and the abused.

Third, because the public awareness about child abuse in Japan is relatively “new,” we will briefly describe histories of how child abuse came to be in public eye in the USA, England, and Canada. What is common in these countries is the effort to encourage “family support” instead of an institutional intervention to protect abused children. We will then describe Japanese history about child abuse. The data collected by the child consultation centers will be presented to show that child abuse is becoming a major social problem in Japanese society. We will also describe uniquely Japanese practices such as “kogoroshi” (infanticide) as a form of ultimate violence against children.

Fourth, previous studies on child abuse in Japan will be examined by focusing on causes and consequences of abuse. With their higher levels of child care stress and maternal anxiety, we found that biological mothers are at a greater risk of abusing their own children compared to fathers and other caretakers. Other reasons for child abuse such as having had premature babies, raising children with disabilities, single parenting, marital conflicts, and isolation of families from their relatives and communities are also described. Additionally, the consequences of child abuse include, among others, children’s hampered physical, cognitive, and emotional development, lower self-esteem, lack of trust toward others, and delinquent and criminal behavior in adolescence and early adulthood.

Fifth, problems that public centers such as the Child Consultation Center and Child Welfare Center are facing will be detailed. These problems include the shortage of staff members who provide consultation to children and their families and of the facilities and housing to provide a safe environment for the abused children. For more effective child abuse prevention and intervention, future tasks for the government, education, and research will be suggested.

Throughout this chapter, we will pay a special attention on how Japanese sociocultural characteristics such as the societal norms, culture, and personality described in Chap. 1 may be inducing and/or suppressing child abuse. The vertical social structure that empowers senior members of the family may, for example, be creating the unspoken rule that children must obey their parents, and if not, parents may feel justified to use violent forms of disciplining. The patriarchal-hierarchal family structure also gives fathers an authority to discipline their children, which may be expressed as a form of corporal punishment. Japanese group orientation as described by Kumagai in Chap. 1 also gives a rise to the strict family gatekeeping between inside (uchi) and outside (soto). This may be manifested in the family member’s lack of or lower level of willingness to report child abuse cases to the authorities.