The Problem with Japanese Child Guidance Centers
September 26, 2021 | By You Me We NPO
Child Guidance Centers (CGC) are meant to provide mental health services to address the impact of trauma on children and families, but what’s really happening in Japan? [1]
“While other developed countries place most vulnerable children in family-based care, in Japan, a shocking 90 percent end up in institutions”.[2] Of those children placed in the foster care system, Human Rights Watch said, “Almost one quarter of all foster child placements fail, resulting in the child being sent back to the group institution. Japan also does not provide foster parents with adequate training, programmatic support, or monitoring”.[3]
With in these institutions, physical space is limited, the facilities are in poor conditions, and both children and caregivers are physically and sexually abused. In addition, there are insufficient mechanisms for children to report problems. The government has ignored the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and neglected the recommendations. Prime Minister Abe confessed that no ‘independent investigation of the child guidance system’ had been carried out, since the UNCRC’s ‘Concluding Observation is not legally binding.[4]
The video below is from the Human Rights Watch Youtube Channel. This video goes in depth and shares the voices of those who were placed in CGC.
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[1] "Mental Health Services, Programs, And Therapy | Child Guidance Center". Child Guidance Center, 2021, https://www.childguidancecenteroc.org/pages/mental-health-services-programs-therapy.
[2] Human Rights Watch. “Japan: Children in Institutions Denied Family Life.” Human Rights Watch, 28 Oct. 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/05/01/japan-children-institutions-denied-family-life.
[3] Child Welfare Information Gateway, March 2021, https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/foster.pdf
[4] The Concerned Japanese Citizens for the Rights of the Child to Eradicate Child
Guidance Centre Sufferings (JCREC), June 2017, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CRC/Shared%20Documents/JPN/INT_CRC_NGO_JPN_30000_E.pdf
Japan: Children In Institutions Denied Family Life. 2014,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCH5Rl30Z48. Accessed 25 Sept 2021.