By Ken Y-N ( April 25, 2006 at 19:41)
· Filed under Polls, Society
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[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.
Well, I hope you have found this survey interesting in some way. If you want to learn more about the Japanese government’s views on a gender-equal society, please visit the official English home page of the Gender Equlaity Bureau.
From tomorrow it will be back to more mainstream opinion polls!
The following questions were for women only, regarding sexual assault. Note that the Japanese view on what constitutes a sexual assault is probably far narrower than that of the West, so a direct comparison with rape statistics from other countries would be rather difficult, I believe.
Q9: Have you ever been forced into having sexual intercourse? (Sample size=1,578)
| Two or more times (to SQ1) |
3.2% |
| One time (to SQ1) |
4.0% |
| Never |
90.1% |
| No answer |
2.7% |
Looking at the age breakdown, those in their twenties reported almost twice as many single experiences of rape, although the reason for this is not clear.
Q9SQ1: Did you know your assailant? (Sample size=114)
| Someone unknown |
9.6% |
| Someone I’d only seen before (to SQ2) |
19.3% |
| Someone I knew well (to SQ2) |
66.7% |
| No answer |
4.4% |
Q9SQ2: What was your relationship with the assailant? (Sample size=98)
| Spouse or former spouse |
27.6% |
| Parent or step-parent |
5.1% |
| Sibling |
6.1% |
| Other relative |
7.1% |
| Someone from work |
10.2% |
| Someone from school (student or teacher, etc) |
8.2% |
| Someone from the neighbourhood |
1.0% |
| Someone from an institution (dormitory, care home, etc) |
2.0% |
| Other |
29.6% |
| No answer |
3.1% |
Q9SQ3: At what age were you first assaulted? (Sample size=114)
| Before entering primary school (under six years old) |
5.3% |
| Whilst in primary school (age six to eleven) |
8.8% |
| Whilst in middle school (age twelve to thirteen) |
5.3% |
| After graduating from middle school but before reaching twenty years old |
23.7% |
| In my twenties |
36.8% |
| In my thirties |
13.2% |
| In my forties |
0.9% |
| Aged fifty or older |
3.5% |
| No answer |
2.6% |
Q9SQ4: Who did you talk to about your assault? (Sample size=114, multiple answer)
| Friends |
24.6% |
| Family or relatives |
8.8% |
| Police |
5.3% |
| School councellor, teacher, etc |
2.6% |
| Health professional |
1.8% |
| Other public body |
0.0% |
| Lawyer, counsellor, etc |
0.0% |
| Other |
0.0% |
| Nobody (to SQ5) |
64.0% |
| No answer |
0.9% |
Q9SQ5: Why did you not talk to anyone? (Sample size=114, multiple answer)
| I couldn’t say anything because of embarrassment |
39.7% |
| I didn’t want to recall the incident |
32.9% |
| If I just endured it, it would be OK |
30.1% |
| Didn’t think it was worth talking about |
21.9% |
| I thought I would look bad too |
19.2% |
| I didn’t know it was OK to speak to anyone |
16.4% |
| I thought it would be ineffective to talk about it |
12.3% |
| If it was known that I’d talked about it, I thought they’d be reprisals or I’d experience even worse violence |
12.3% |
| I thought it was my assailant’s expression of love |
9.6% |
| It would be unseemly |
6.8% |
| If other people knew, I thought I wouldn’t be able to relate to people at work, school, etc |
6.8% |
| My assailant threatened me if I talked to someone |
5.5% |
| I thought the words or actions of the person I talked to would be an unpleasant experience |
2.7% |
| I didn’t want to get anyone else involved |
1.4% |
| Other |
5.5% |
| No answer |
1.4% |
Q10: What is necessary to prevent violence between men and women? (Multiple answer)
| |
Female
N=1,578 |
Male
N=1,310 |
| Education at home regarding preventing violence by guardians towards children |
69.6% |
70.5% |
| Education at school or university for students regarding preventing violence |
59.9% |
59.2% |
| Strengthen penal regulations against assailants |
59.4% |
57.9% |
| Crack down on material such as magazines or software that promote violence |
56.4% |
50.5% |
| Education to prevent the worse offenders repeating their crime |
53.9% |
44.6% |
| Proactive enlightenment publicity and activities in the media |
44.5% |
42.0% |
| Regional workshops and other events on the theme of preventing violence |
23.9% |
27.4% |
| Other |
3.5% |
5.7% |
| Nothing in particular |
3.2% |
3.4% |
| No answer |
3.7% |
3.7% |
[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]
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Have just come across this excellent and detailed post so I thought I would add some comments and links to recent news articles on the widespread problem of domestic violence in Japan. As in all countries in the world, there is a lot of domestic violence in Japan too. For anyone interested in the severe problems faced by victims of domestic violence in Japan check out this report in April this year from Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reports from Tokyo on the women who are speaking out about the problem.
http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/japanese-women-hit-back-at-domestic-abuse-25-apr-09/17189639
Althoug the report is well done well researched it seems to imply at the end that nothing is going to chance for a long time about the problem of domestic violence in Japan.
Here, as in any other country in the world historically, there has been domestic violence in all types of societies, not in the least of course in societies and cultures that have taken a sexist (‘paternalistic’) view that women were not as equal as men and could be beaten and suffer abuse at the hands of their husbands.
Now, thanks to the work of volunteer women’s groups and activist lawyers in Japan who have worked hard against this problem of violence against women and children in their homes, the Japanese government enacted the Act on the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims in 2001. This was the first official recognition by Japanese politicians and law makers in Japanese history that domestic violence is in fact a crime. As a first step it was an important recognition of the widespread problem of spousal violence against women in Japanese homes throughout Japan. However there was considerable criticism that the low financial fines on Japanese husbands who attack their wives and the limit of only 1 month long restraining orders on men who abused their wives and children did not go far enough to provide Japanese women with a credible degree of legal protection and safety from further violent attacks. The law was revised to some extent in 2004 but still met with criticism as not going far enough to protect the victims of domestic and also for not focusing on the men who are being violent toward their wives and children:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20041204f2.html
Amendments to the Domestic Violence Prevention Act were passed and became law in July 2007 but did not receive so much attention in the media as would have been desirable:
http://tokyocounseling.blog.com/4785391/
However more and more Japanese women are taking action in Japan and, like the women featured in the video above, are no longer to suffer without protest former generations have had to do without any effective legal protection. The following links are to articles on domestic violence and National Police Agency reports that have appeared in the media this year that show that modern Japanese women in 21st century Japan are standing up against violent husbands and using the existing laws to protect themselves and their children:
http://tokyocounseling.blog.com/4723531/
http://tokyocounseling.blog.com/4857497/
These brave women need and deserve stronger and even more effective legal protection for themselves and the children they are trying to protect from their own fathers hands. There needs also to be considerable public and national political will focused on providing Japanese wives and partners with safe emergency residences and legally protected abuse shelters. I think it is also of vital importance that serious decisions to provide and implement official funding to ensure that refuge and protection to all women who are suffering domestic violence of all forms.
Andrew Grimes
Tokyo Counseling Services
http://tokyocounseling.com/english/
http://tokyocounseling.com/jp/