世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

The Cabinet Office of Japan (Gender Equality Bureau) recently published a survey it carried out on violence between males and females. This opinion poll was conducted by post, with 2,888 respondents, 1,578 or 54.6% female, out of 4,500 people initially randomly selected for participation.

This is a very large survey, so I will publish it in three parts.

Q5: Did your children witness the violence?

	Female N=426	Male N=182
Didn’t have children at that time	7.0%	9.3%
Children witnessed it (to SQ)	20.2%	18.1%
Children didn’t witness it but knew from noises, voices or appearance (to SQ)	11.7%	14.3%
Children didn’t know about it	38.3%	36.8%
Other	0.7%	1.1%
Don’t know	6.8%	4.9%
No answer	15.3%	15.4%

Q5SQ: Did the violence have an effect on your children?

	Female N=426	Male N=182
I think it affected them	66.9%	67.8%
I think it didn’t affect them	12.5%	15.3%
Don’t know	20.6%	16.9%
No answer	0.0%	0.0%

Next, they asked those who had dated someone other than the person they eventually married when in their teens or twenties a similar question as in Q1.

Q6: Have you ever experienced the following from someone other than your future spouse when in your teens or twenties?

Females, N=872

	Yes	No	No answer
Physical violence	8.7%	90.3%	1.0%
Mental harassment or terror	7.2%	91.3%	1.5%
Sexual coercion	6.2%	92.2%	1.6%
Any of the above	13.5%	85.7%	0.8%

Males, N=678

	Yes	No	No answer
Physical violence	2.9%	95.7%	1.3%
Mental harassment or terror	3.1%	95.1%	1.8%
Sexual coercion	1.2%	96.6%	2.2%
Any of the above	5.2%	93.4%	1.5%

Looking at the detailed age breakdown, there is a definite trend that younger people were more likely to report any form of violence, although as to whether this indicates that people are more willing to talk about it, or that younger people are less tolerant of their partner’s behaviour, or if this represents a growing problem, it is not clear.

Q7: What happened after you suffered injury from the person you were dating?

	Female N=118	Male N=35
Broke up	50.8%	45.7%
Wanted to break up, but didn’t (to SQ)	31.4%	17.1%
Didn’t want to break up	16.1%	34.3%
No answer	1.7%	2.9%

Q7SQ: Why didn’t you break up?

	Female N=37	Male N=6
Partner would not agree to a separation	13	1
Thought my partner needed me	5	2
Didn’t think it would happen again	6	1
Was scared of partner’s response	4	0
Financial insecurity	2	1
People close to me were opposed to a separation	1	0
Worried about appearances in society	0	0
Other	5	1
No answer	1	0

Q8: Who did you talk to about your assault? (Multiple answer)

	Female N=118	Male N=36
Friends	53.4%	17.1%
Family or relatives	13.6%	0.0%
Health professional	3.4%	0.0%
Police	2.5%	0.0%
Lawyer, counsellor, etc	1.7%	0.0%
School councellor, teacher, etc	0.0%	2.9%
Domestic violence support centre	0.0%	0.0%
Regional legal affairs bureau, human rights group	0.0%	0.0%
Family support centre, woman’s centre, etc	0.0%	0.0%
Other public body	0.0%	0.0%
Other	0.8%	0.0%
Nobody (to SQ)	39.0%	74.3%
No answer	1.7%	8.6%

Q8SQ: Why did you not talk to anyone? (Multiple answer)

	Female N=46	Male N=26
Didn’t think it was worth talking about	17	16
I thought I would look bad too	13	12
If I just endured it, it would be OK	6	8
I thought it was my partner’s expression of love	9	4
I thought it would be ineffective to talk about it	5	7
I didn’t want to recall the incident	6	3
I didn’t know it was OK to speak to anyone	6	2
I didn’t want to get anyone else involved	3	5
I couldn’t say anything because of embarrassment	4	2
It would be unseemly	2	1
If it was known that I’d talked about it, I thought they’d be reprisals or I’d experience even worse violence	2	0
I thought the words or actions of the person I talked to would be an unpleasant experience	2	0
If other people knew, I thought I wouldn’t be able to relate to people at work, school, etc	2	0
My partner threatened me if I talked to someone	0	0
Other	3	1
No answer	1	1

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]