March 26, 2021

The Foreign Ministry neglected to convey a recommendation report of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to the Cabinet Office Gender Equality Bureau for two years after the ministry received it in December 2018.

This was revealed on March 23 at a meeting of the House of Councilors Special Committee on ODA. In response to a question made by an Okinawa-elected independent lawmaker, Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitu admitted to the fact.

The recommendation report which the Foreign Ministry received at the end of 2018 was compiled in response to the Japanese government’s 8th report which was submitted in March of that year to the committee. In the report, the UN committee recommended that a selective separate surname system should be introduced through a revision of relevant laws; that the mandatory waiting period for remarriage imposed only on divorced women should be removed; and that the legal minimum age of marriage should be changed to 18 for both men and women.

The gender equality bureau in December 2020, without knowing the latest CEDAW recommendation report, developed the 5th basic plan to promote gender equality.