Japan enacts law to set up new agency to tackle children's issues

The minister in charge of the agency will be given the authority to urge other government offices to take corrective measures if their policies are deemed ineffective.

'the authority to urge'

Sounds like a usual measure for LDP ineffectiveness.

At some point we will have so many agencies and support groups all geared up to handle the declining birth rates and support for families with children, but based on my experiences having a child in Japan is an unbelievable BURDON and not having one is a relief. I can't list all the reasons but here are some: 1- complying with all the rule and regulations IMPOSED by the local city office and schools 2- You can't spend enough time with your kids due to events and schedules imposed by schools. 3- Your kids are no longer yours once they enter elementary schools, they become part of a system that will take over their lives and influence it for the rest of their lives.

It's almost like joining boot camp forever.

So in other words, there was NO ONE looking out for such child and family related issues before?

ummm hmmm, what year is this again?

And let me guess, of the “300+” of these officials that will make up such an agency, how many of them will be 40+ year old men who have never taken care of their child for one full day?

At least 275?

So lm interested what happened to the last 10 years of yearly set up agencies? They are just children after all no rush? Not like they can vote or pay taxes. Nothing will change it’s just election pie in the sky talk.

Somehow I doubt that doubling the budget will help solving deeply ingrained social problems and decades of neglect from the goverment that are the reasons for most of children's issues.

If anything this would only let the agency to point fingers more easily, but this is no guarantee something effective will be done about it.

I wonder if "children's issues" involves parental visits or if thats more of a "father's issue"

Really doesn’t matter to the government, you might have noticed how quickly the government moves if it’s a company and how disinterested and how long it moves with issues involving people not part of a donation driven decision process.

Start by educating young couples who might have children, then start doing thorough background checks of school teachers and perma-banning child molesters from ever working with children again.

It must be the twin pillars of the reformist programmes as the other one is the Digital Agency.

Cut red-tapes and remove excessive organisational redundancy and complexity.

For instance, we ordinary citizens don't tell or care about which ministerial office should oversee the nursery school, kindergarten, or cram school (for preschool kids) while their services look quite identical and overlapped.

Answer:

Nursery schools by Health and Labor Ministry

Kindergartens by Education Ministry

Cram schools by Economic Ministry (METI)

... And the trio have been conflicting with each other over earmarks for kid-related programmes. Kids and parents have been left uncared and under-funded.

Having access to the internet can make children "experts" in children's issues.

Children die and abused by the hands of those that are supposed to care and give them protection. I doubt if 300 staff on their desk will help at all.

Another waste of money from our taxes,rather than assemble these relatively small teams which are like a drop of water in the ocean why not invest more in welfare and less in weapons?

Welfare is the core of a healthy society.

Maybe we'll finally get background checks for people working with children at any level. It's unbelievable that this is not a requirement here.

Maybe May, 2023. So not tomorrow. Just send a few faxes and the problem of child abuse will be solved this week.

Didn't they setup an agency to deal with Child Abuse a few years ago? Another agency dealing with Child Poverty issues a while back? How many agencies are needed? Most likely they start these agencies to give the false impression they're doing something but then do absolutely nothing so they start another agency.

Err it’s an adequate response, focusing on what is plainly a negative society problem should not embarrass existing government departments, best to create a new department to cover the failure of existing departments, it’s adequate.

OK, so this basically confirms that whatever was there and whatever was done until now didn't pan out, right?

Possible root-causes for that:

.budgetary constraints

.lack of staff

.lack of training

.lackluster legal framework

.other

Solution:

.increase budget

.increase hiring

.additional / adequate training

.fix legal framework

.other (as required)

What do we get?

The Diet on Wednesday enacted legislation to set up a new government agency to oversee children-related policies as the country tries to tackle increasingly complex issues such as child abuse.

(sigh) Yet another new agency....

 It will unify policies across multiple government ministries and entities to better deal with imminent issues concerning children, such as declining birth rates, child poverty and sex crimes.

...which will unify ministries and policies which didn't exactly perform or seem to have been adequate enough well until now...

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pledged to "double" the budget necessary for measures to deal with the problems, without elaborating.

...but will get more money to continue to do whatever they did up to now (and which didn't pan out...)...

Issues related to education and school, including bullying, will continue to be handled by the education ministry.

...

In addition, a new advisory panel to the prime minister will be set up to discuss such issues as parenting, support for expectant and nursing mothers and protecting children's rights.

...while some areas remain strictly off-topic / no-touch...

The new agency will have more than 300 officials, including those recruited from private associations with expertise in child-rearing.

...and said new agency having more (?) / less (?) / the same amount (?) of staff, nobody actually knows with some input from whatever "private associations with expertise" are supposed to be (NGOs(?), NPOs (?), private corporations getting juicy contracts(?) )...

The minister in charge of the agency will be given the authority to urge other government offices to take corrective measures if their policies are deemed ineffective.

...and the minister in charge of said new agency having as a mission / jurisdiction to "urge" "other government offices" (what "other" government offices (?) ) to do, basically, what err, looks like his or his agency's job, it seems...

Seems like the usual:

.cushy-job-amakudari-position aimed at an old LDP dinosaur aimed at vote-grabbing in prevision of an election while providing zero bang for a LOT of your tax-payers' buck...

Add this to the Digital Agency and cohorts of other なんちゃって government agencies which are piling up...

-"double" the budget necessary for measures to deal with the problems

Honestly I don't trust that the necessary budget will be used for the children. It will be probably be ripped off by companies/agencies that have close relationship with government like hyenas.

@Mark,

Don't always agree with you,but,in this case,you are totally right.

The new organization, expected to be named the "children and families agency," is due to launch in April 2023. It will unify policies across multiple government ministries and entities to better deal with imminent issues concerning children, such as declining birth rates, child poverty and sex crimes.

unify policies across multiple govt ministries? it sounds like its just a merger of govt departments so i'm not expecting too much change...

Institutiinal child abusive problems such as restricting their breathing in PE class and gyms at schools where kids have dropped dead and died from heatstroke or in the parents case, outside of school in shopping centres, parks and playgrounds? Or the child abuse by affecting their development by eliminating their ability to read important visual and emotional facial cues? ALTs have no chance to impart their lip movements to any benefit from language aquisition.