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Japan backlash over ‘mums should care for toddlers’ remark
TOKYO, May 29, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s
government came under fire Tuesday after a senior MP suggested only women
should raise children under three and another urged newly-weds to have at
least three kids.
Abe’s government has made “womenomics” — or boosting women’s participation
in the workplace — a priority, as the country’s workforce drops amid a
rapidly ageing population.
But Koichi Hagiuda, a senior member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party
(LDP), touched off a firestorm on Sunday when he said men rearing children
might be “unwelcome” for them. “Children need an environment where they can
stay with their mothers … if you ask infants under three which parent they
like more, the answer should be mama, even though there are no firm
statistics to support it,” said Hagiuda, 54, the LDP’s executive acting
secretary-general.
Those remarks came after another MP, Kanji Kato, doubled down on comments
suggesting young couples should produce at least three children, saying he
had received popular backing.
But the leader of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party
lashed out on Tuesday, saying the comments were “intolerable.”
“There are many people who cannot give birth to children despite wanting to
and there are many single-father families,” Yukio Edano said. “Don’t they
notice these facts?”
Sumire Hamada, from rights group Asia-Japan Women’s Resource Center, told
AFP that Hagiuda’s comments were “out of the question.”
“What happened to the government’s pledge to build a society where men can
participate in child-rearing?
“These comments overturn what the government has said, and I’m sure many
fathers have been angered” by Hagiuda’s “rude remarks,” she said.
Another campaigner said the remarks could encourage men to persist in the
long working-hours culture endemic in Japan.
Tetsuya Ando, founder of the organisation Fathering Japan, told AFP: “When
he said children under three like mothers more than fathers, that’s
unacceptable.”
“That kind of remark puts pressure on working mothers to stay at home while
removing fathers’ rights to rear children,” said Ando, 55, himself a dad-of-
three.
BSS/AFP/IJ/1405 hrs