Mizuho Fukushima, Japan’s Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety, Social Affairs and Gender Equality, has signed on to Say NO - UNiTE, pledging her full support for the UNIFEM initiative.

Fukushima joined the Japanese Cabinet in late 2009 following the landslide general election victory of the opposition Democratic Party. Her association with the campaign is an early mark of the new Government’s commitment to ending violence against women.

As an attorney and politician, Fukushima has a long history of advocating for women’s rights. She has collaborated with UNIFEM since the 1990s, joining Noriko Yamaguchi, Chairwoman of Japan’s UNIFEM National Committee Chapter, to address such concerns as protecting minority women from sexual exploitation.

Japan has one of the lowest rates of domestic violence in the world, according to World Health Organization research. But the official collection of data on domestic violence only began with the passage of the 2001 Law for the Prevention of Spousal Violence and the Protection of Victims. Domestic violence cases reported to the police increased by nearly 12 percent from 2008 to 2009. Social sanctions and limited awareness of legal protections are among the factors that keep women from speaking against abusers.

Women in Japan in general are still highly marginalized in decision-making at all levels, as an indicator of remaining constraints on women’s empowerment. Minister Fukushima is one of only two women in the 18-member Cabinet, for example, while Japan is below the Asia regional and global averages for the percentage of women in its lower house of Parliament.

UNIFEM is encouraging greater attention in Japan to the issue of violence against women, both domestically and globally. Through its new liaison office in Sakai City, it works with the Government, think tanks, non-governmental organizations and others on advancing women’s rights.

For more information: unifem.japan[at]unifem.org

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