By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

TOKYO, Japan– The United Nations has reported that the world’s second largest economy, Japan, is ranked 54th in terms of gender equality.

UN’s Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women is urging Japan to take stronger remedial measures to eliminate gender inequality, because the country’s efforts thus far have been “insufficient.”

The Committee reported that Japan has failed to address problems affecting women identified in a 2003 report and also listed provisions in Japan’s Civil Code concerning unequal treatment towards women in the labor market.  The report also criticized the low representation of Japanese women in high-level elected offices.

UN urges Japan to do more to eliminate gender bias (Source: AP)

The UN is recommending that Japan raise the legal age for marriage for women from 16 to 18 in line with men, abolish the six-month waiting period before remarriage required for women but not for men, and allow a choice of surnames for married couples.  Furthermore, the Committee advised that Japan repeal laws that discriminate against children born out of wedlock and to impose harsher punishment for rape.

The report also reminded Japan that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, to which Japan is a party, is binding.  The Committee’s report said Japan should recognize the Convention as “the most pertinent, broad and legally binding international instrument in the sphere of the elimination against women.”

Fortunately, Japan’s Cabinet has acknowledged that change is needed.  In the general election coming up next week, issues that were traditionally categorized as “women’s affairs” have become mainstream election issues. 

Ikuko Tanioka, the president of Chukyo Women’s University, said, “Parliament can no longer be run according to the armchair logic of old men.”  A professor at Japan Women’s University, Machiko Osawa, also added, “So much needs to change…[w]e need equal pay for equal work, pension reform, daycare reform and infinitely better support for working mothers…the underlying problem for Japan is still one of attitude.”

For more information, please see:

BBC – Japanese women ‘still not equal’ – 21 August 2009

The Japan Times – Do more to ban gender bias, U.N. panel urges – 21 August 2009

Times Online – ‘We don’t count the women’ – gender inequality in Japanese companies – 8 August 2009