The so-called special adoption system has been given priority in discussions on revising the Civil Code to safeguard children's interests, in keeping with Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa's request in June for the Legislative Council to review the system.
The justice minister usually makes requests to the advisory body in February and September regarding what to discuss, but Kamikawa did so earlier than usual because child abuse is becoming an increasingly serious social issue.
Special adoption is a system under which children who cannot live with their biological parents for such reasons as poverty or abuse are legally considered the children of their adoptive parents. The Legislative Council is considering raising the maximum age of children eligible for the system from the current level of less than 6 years old.
The panel is also examining a measure that would limit biological parents' right to retract their agreement to a child's adoption.
These discussions have been prompted by the insufficient number of special adoption cases. About 45,000 children living at orphanages and other facilities nationwide needed protection as of 2017, but only about 500 special adoption cases are settled each year.
According to a survey compiled by the government in February last year, the legal framework was cited in 298 unsuccessful cases as the reason for not completing the necessary procedures. Of this number, special adoption was abandoned in 46 cases because the children involved had turned 6.
The government intends to raise the maximum age to 12 -- when children graduate from elementary school -- or 15 -- when their wishes are recognized under the Civil Code -- with an aim to submit a bill to the Diet in 2020 at the earliest.
Another issue involves people who are unregistered because the registration of their birth was not submitted by their parents. This problem is also blamed on the current Civil Code, which contains provisions stating that a child born within 300 days after a divorce should be presumed to be the child of the woman's former husband.
If a woman living separately from her husband gives birth to a child who is fathered by another man, therefore, the baby is registered as the legitimate child of her former husband.
If parents want to avoid this and so do not submit the registration of their child's birth, the child becomes unregistered. Such children find it difficult to eventually rent housing under their own name or open bank accounts because they cannot arrange for a residency certificate to be issued.
The Civil Code currently allows only husbands or former husbands to file a suit to deny legal fatherhood for a child, so the law is expected to be revised to give this right to mothers and children as well. The justice minister will likely ask the Legislative Council next year for this issue to be discussed.
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