Takae Moriyama: For the Realization of a True "Children-First Society"

All systems in Japan treat minors as immature, and support is centered around parents. On the other hand, for the children we support, there are many cases where parents cannot afford to think about their children due to abuse, poverty, single parenthood, or being young carers. Even if children feel life is difficult due to being a sexual minority, having developmental disabilities, or having foreign nationality, it is often difficult for parents to fully understand. The reason why "Abuse Survivors" in particular longed for a "Children's Agency" was because the concept was to separate children from their families and protect children's human rights as a whole society, regardless of the family situation. However, in the end, it became the "Children and Families Agency," which sounds pleasant to adults and is close to the "good old days" (though calling them "good" is ironic as it includes outdated elements). While the philosophy of "Children-First" advocated by the Children and Families Agency is easy to say, in today's Japanese society, where it was difficult even to name it the "Children's Agency" instead of the "Children and Families Agency," I believe there are still major hurdles to its realization.

For children, especially those in elementary school and above, the center of life is the home and, even more so, school life. The plan is to coordinate child-related issues without vertical silos, but in the end, the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) was not included in the Children and Families Agency. Instead, the child welfare division of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) was primarily transferred to the Children and Families Agency. It has merely slid from a silo between MHLW and MEXT to a silo between the Children and Families Agency and MEXT, and no fundamental solution has been reached. They say they will strengthen cooperation, but if that were possible, it should have been possible during the MHLW era as well.

Since 2009, we have been providing learning support for children who have suffered abuse. Many children are deprived of a normal environment from early childhood under abuse and enter school life without the accumulation of experiences such as being read picture books, going to the zoo, or learning words and numbers in daily life. On the other hand, in wealthy families, children start learning English or attending early childhood classes from a young age, beginning school at a stage where they have already mastered 1st or 2nd-grade elementary levels.

Is it the Children and Families Agency that will bridge that gap? Or is it MEXT? When we started our activities, we were told, "Public education budgets are strictly for school education, and we cannot strengthen educational support targeting only specific children, so it is more of a welfare budget." As a result, children end up receiving learning support after school while attending school, meaning they have to study twice for the convenience of adults.

Is it desirable to provide support only in a way that takes away after-school playtime and rest time? It may not feel out of place because we have become a distorted society where Juku and extracurricular lessons are taken for granted, but just like the right to learn, playing and resting during childhood are important. Originally, instead of imposing a burden on children, we should be discussing how to guarantee the right to learn, the right to play, and the right to rest for all children, regardless of whether it concerns education or welfare.

As long as the Children and Families Agency and MEXT remain divided, issues such as the educational gap, bullying, school refusal, and the high rate of child suicide in April and September (the start of new terms) will be left behind. These are problems where the boundary of responsibility between education and welfare is blurred, leading to finger-pointing or leaving redundant systems in place that impose a burden on the users.

  While the vertical silos remain unresolved, it is hard to say how much the budget will increase. The budget for the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Children and Families Bureau in FY2020 was approximately 500 billion yen (https://www.mhlw.go.jp/wp/yosan/yosan/20syokan/dl/gaiyo-08.pdf), and the budget proposal related to the Cabinet Office's New System for Child and Child-rearing Support was approximately 3.2 trillion yen (https://www8.cao.go.jp/shoushi/budget/pdf/budget/r02_yosangaiyou.pdf). The child-related budget outside the jurisdiction of MEXT before the start of the Children and Families Agency was nearly 4 trillion yen.  

In contrast, the budget for the Children and Families Agency starting in FY2023 is 4.8 trillion yen. Since some of MEXT's operations will be transferred to the Children and Families Agency, a detailed analysis is necessary, but I get the impression that the budget has not changed significantly. Meanwhile, the total budget for pensions, medical care, and nursing care, which account for the majority of Japan's social security costs, is nearly 30 trillion yen, a gap of about six times compared to the Children and Families Agency's budget. I am not saying that the elderly welfare budget should be cut, but I think these figures show how much child-related matters are borne by individual families rather than society. Furthermore, while there is a trend toward accepting children's rights and diversity, dual-income households have become the norm, and I do not believe that families have the stamina to remain in a state where they are solely responsible for these burdens.

In the past, the "Children and Families Bureau" was established in the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and the "Headquarters for Promotion of Development and Support for Children and Young People" was established in the Cabinet Office. However, it is a familiar sight for things to land with yet another vertical silo as social interest fades, without significant change amidst the negative effects of silos. Regarding the current Children and Families Agency, which started without even its name matching the original concept, I feel that society as a whole must watch over it and take action to ensure it does not end up the same way.