Japan Press Weekly

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2014 July 23 - 29 TOP3 [POLITICS]

JCP legislators demand serious efforts by gov’t to eliminate sexual discrimination

The Japanese Communist Party lawmakers’ group made representations on July 22 to the national government, demanding that the administration fully implement the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women requires the Japanese government to submit to the committee by the end of July a report on the present situation of sexual discrimination in Japan.

In that petition, JCP parliamentarian Takahashi Chizuko said that although next year is the 30th year since Japan ratified the UN convention, Japan still ranks 105th in the world in terms of gender equality (according to the 2013 Global Gender Gap Report by the World Economic Forum).

Concerning the issue of revising Japan’s old-fashioned Civil Code, on which the UN commission also asked Tokyo to report, Takahashi pointed out that the government only ended last year the discrimination in the inheritance right between legitimate children and illegitimate children. She stressed that the provision forcing a married couple to use the same surname should be amended without delay.

Takahashi also referred to the government’s target of increasing the ratio of women in positions of leadership to at least 30% in all social spheres by 2020. To achieve this, she emphasized the need for state authorities to actively promote women public servants to administrative posts. In addition, she claimed that the administration should make further efforts to develop a social environment in which workers can balance work with child-raising, by means such as improving the public day nursery care system.

A government official replied, “We will work toward the same goal.”

Past related article:
> Japan’s gender equality ranks low in the world [March 8, 2014]