Japan's Throwaway Children

In a country that frowns upon foster care, 33,000 children from abusive homes are growing up in state institutions.

In the United Kingdom, United States and other developed countries, abused or neglected children are often sent to live with a foster family. But that rarely happens in Japan, one of the world's wealthiest and most progressive societies.

Close to 90 percent of Japan's troubled children are placed in state institutions - out of sight and out of mind.

Some 33,000 children currently live in such institutions in this society that frowns upon the use of foster care. But critics say the excessive reliance on 131 child nursing homes across the country represents a form of abuse in itself.


Inside these institutions there are babies as young as six months old, and institutionalised children spend on average five years in the nursing homes. This is despite United Nations guidelines stipulating that alternative care for children under the age of three should almost always be in family-based settings.

Human Rights Watch found that Japan's alternative child care system suffers from overly large institutions where physical space is limited and chances for bonding are scarce. There are poor conditions of the facilities; physical and sexual abuse, by both caregivers and other children, occurs; and there are insufficient mechanisms for children to report problems.