Japan Press Weekly

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2013 March 27 - April 2 [WELFARE]

JCP Dietman talks with groups against child poverty

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Miyamoto Takeshi on March 28 talked with organizations dealing with child poverty at the Dietmembers’ office building.

A staff of Ashinaga, named after the American novel Daddy-Long-Legs, said, “We can no longer leave the issue of child poverty as it is when the child poverty rate has reached 15.7% in Japan,” and requested the JCP lawmaker to cooperate in the effort to establish an effective law to reduce the poverty rate to a specific target.

A member of a nationwide network of individuals working to help end child poverty requested that a grant-type scholarship program be created so that children in need of social support can go to college or university with no need to worry about having to make repayment after graduation.

Miyamoto in reply told them that the JCP will work even harder to push the government to use more public funds for education like other OECD nations do, and said, “I will do my best together with you to realize a grant-type scholarship program and work to implement effective measures to end child poverty.”

The relative poverty rate for children in Japan is 15.7%, as of 2009. More than three million children live in families below the poverty line. The rate exceeds 50% for single-parent households.