Domestic Violence Policy in Japan and the United States

Abstract

This chapter assesses the adoption of legislation related to domestic violence against women. What factors affected the passage of the path-breaking Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in the United States in 1994, and the more recent passage in 2001 of the Law for the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims (popularly known as the “DV law”) in Japan with a significant but more modest agenda for change? In the case of the U.S. act, years of advocacy by feminist groups bore fruit in 1994, when the increased number of women in Congress acting collectively through the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues and receptive male politicians were able to merge domestic violence with a larger crime bill, the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (PL-103-332). National legislation, the “DV law;” was passed in Japan on April 6, 2001, led by a cross-party group comprised primarily of eleven female Diet members, in part a result of increased women’s representation. The DV law was significant because of its all-party female sponsorship in Sangiin, the House of Councilors. In both countries, the use of “insider/outsider” tactics and development of advocacy coalitions proved useful as women inside and outside government supported legislative change (Spalter Roth and Scheiber, 1995).