The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is planning to introduce a system to enable relevant institutions to share information on children at risk of being abused.
The system, which is slated for launch in fiscal 2019, would involve installing specialized terminals at municipal government offices and child consultation centers that could be used to input and view the results of child medical examinations, change of address data and other information.
The system is aimed at enabling municipal governments and child consultation centers in the same region to reliably share information so risk indicators are not missed and abuse can be addressed quickly.
The ministry plans to request about 165 billion yen in the budget for the next fiscal year to fund the system and other measures to prevent child abuse, such as strengthening the functions of orphanages.
The central government would shoulder half the cost of installing the system for sharing information on child abuse, with the rest being paid for by municipal governments and entities that run child consultation centers, such as prefectural governments. The ministry is calling on municipalities nationwide to take part in the envisioned system.
Municipal governments hold various forms of information on residents' children, including records of medical examinations, residency certificate transfers and records of home visits.
However, child consultation centers are administered by prefectural governments, ordinance-designated cities and other entities.
The information held by municipal governments is important in situations such as when a child suspected of being abused is placed under temporary protective custody. However, this data is currently managed by disparate departments inside municipal governments and is often difficult to consolidate.
In 2014, the city government of Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, returned an 8-month-old boy to his family after he was placed under temporary protective custody. The boy later died from his father's violent behavior.
The city had held only one meeting about the boy with a child consultation center. A report by a prefectural government investigative committee highlighted that "details of the family's circumstances that the city was aware of could not be shared."
The system the ministry intends to introduce next fiscal year would allow various departments at a municipal government to input information on each child at risk of being abused into specialized terminals. If any information on the child is provided from police, daycare centers, medical institutions and other entities, records can be kept up-to-date.
Terminals would also be set up at child consultation centers that cover the administrative areas of a municipality and it would be possible to search for information by inputting a child's name or other terms.
A municipal government would not be able to view data on children living in other municipalities, but when a child moves from one municipality to another, the system would enable the transfer of accurate information on the child.
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