Sex Crimes and Criminal Justice in Japan Panelists: Setsuo Miyazawa, Professor Emeritus at Kobe University, Senior Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, and Adjunct Professor at Temple University, Japan Campus Mari Hirayama, Professor of Law at Hakuoh University Hiroko Goto, Professor of Law at Chiba University Law School Link to video of presentation: https://youtu.be/ZxNdUB4t1Ws

1. JAPANESE SEX CRIME
LAW REFORM
Professor of Law
Chiba University Law School
HIROKO GOTO
hirog@faculty.chiba-u.jp
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2. TODAY’S TOPICS
1 Current Japanese Criminal Law is very old
2 History of Japanese Sex Law Reform
3 Brief History of Last Year’s Reform
4 Sex Crime Law Reform in 2017
5 Our Challenges
6 Women’s Voices should be heard
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3. Before WWII, Japan had a fully discriminated under patriarchal
Meiji Constitution.
Women had:
No right to vote
No right to inheritance
No right to make contract without husband consent
No right to enjoy higher education
IE family system=patriarchal family system
GENDER INEQUALITY
BEFORE 1945

4. Article 14
all of the people are equal under the law and there shall
be no discrimination in political, economic or social
relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family
origin. Peers and peerage shall not be recognized. No
privilege shall accompany any award of honor, decoration
or any distinction, nor shall any such award be valid
beyond the lifetime of the individual who now holds or
hereafter may receive it.
JAPANESE
CONSTITUTION(1946)

5. Article 24
Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of
both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual
cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as
a basis. With regard to choice of spouse, property rights,
inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters
pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be
enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the
essential equality of the sexes.

6. • Clear legal discrimination clauses in Family Law were eliminated
from Japanese law. And new Family Law (1947)was enacted after
the new Constitution was introduced.
• Adultery statute was removed from Japanese Criminal Law in 1947.
It said that a married women who had sexual
intercourse with a man should be punished.
• However Criminal Law did not amended totally.
• This means we are still using a very old, gender-non friendly
Criminal Law even now.
And gender discrimination and gender stereotypes has been
survived in criminal justice system and every day lives.
SOME LAWS WERE AMENDED
BUT SOME LAWS DID NOT

7. CURRENT
JAPANESE CRIMINAL LAW IS
VERY OLD
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• Japanese Criminal Law was introduced in 1907
No female members in Imperial Diet
No universal suffrage
IE system, patriarchal family system, was fundamental
concept of family law system
• Woman’s suffrage and equal opportunities for higher
education: 1945
after current democratic constitution was introduced

8. HISTORY OF JAPANESE SEX
CRIME LAW REFORM
• 1947 Adultery provision was deleted
Gender equal clause in the Constitution
• 2004 Gang rape provision was introduced: 4 years and over
imprisonment
Gang rape by university students
Minimum penalty: Rape 2 years → 3 years imprisonment
make penalty harsher : murder: 3 years to 5 years
• 2005 Trafficking in Persons provision was introduced
Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish
trafficking in persons, especially women and
children, supplementing the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organized
Crime
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9. BRIEF HISTORY OF
LAST YEAR’S REFORM
• 2000’s Gender Equality basic plan, UNCRC, UNCEDAW
Repeatedly recommended sex crime reform
• 2012 Cabinet Office Gender Equality Bureau
Women’s violence special advisory committee
Clarified the issues in sex crime law
• 2014 Midori Matsushita, Minister of Justice
S stressed necessity of sex crime law reform
in her first press conference
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10. BRIEF HISTORY OF
LAST YEAR’S REFORM
• 2014 Special Committee for Sex Crime Law Reform
Comprehensive discussion on sex crime
law reform
such as: Offence prosecuted on complaint,
Assault or intimidation requirements,
sexual consent age,
neutralize rape victim, variation of
rape, temporally cessation of
prescription of prosecution, spousal
rape, rape by parents or guardians,
minimum penalty
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11. BRIEF HISTORY OF
LAST YEAR’S REFORM
• Abolishment of statute of complaints
• Raise of legal penalty-under limits
• Reconsider of legal terms on ‘with through assault or
intimidation’
• Raise of age for sexual consent:13 years
• Rape: victims should be both male and female
• Reconsider of legal terms on sexual conduct
Rape: intercourse only to using object or fellatio
• Temporally suspension of limitation of prosecution
• Introduce new provision on using power or status
• Introduce new provision on marital rape provision
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12. • 2016 Legislative Council of Ministry of Justice
focused several issues
such as : Offence prosecuted on complaint,
neutralize rape victim and variation of
rape
rape by parents or guardians
minimum penalty
robbery and rape
• 2017 Sex crime law reform in 2017
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13. SEX CRIME LAW REFORM
IN 2017
• Rape statutes
Before: male sexual organ penetrates into female sexual
organ
minimum penalty: 3 years imprisonment
After: male sexual organ penetrates to female sexual
organ, human excretory organ and/or human
mouth cavity
minimum penalty: 5 years imprisonment
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14. SEX CRIME LAW REFORM
IN 2017
• Sex crime prosecution process
before: Offence prosecuted on complaint
after: no complaint needed
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15. SEX CRIME LAW REFORM
IN 2017
• Sexual abuse by parents or guardians
before : no special statutes
after: Under age of 18
consent has no effect to establish sex crime
Sexual consent age : 13 years old
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16. SEX CRIME LAW REFORM
IN 2017
• Supplementary resolution in both houses of Representatives
and Councilors - To government and Supreme Court
such as : promoting victim/survivors support system
rape myth should be eliminated from
criminal justice system
sex crime perpetrators should be punished
and educated
board and comprehensive survey should
be conducted
• Sex crime statues should be reviewed after 3 years
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17. OUR CHALLENGES
• Male sexual organ centered
case of lesbian couple: not rape but indecent assault
rape: maximum penalty 20 years imprisonment
indecent assault : maximum penalty 10 years
imprisonment
• Assault or intimidation requirements remain
‘with through assault or intimidation’
Victim’s sexual autonomy is not prioritized
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18. OUR CHALLENGES
• Sexual consent age is too low: under 13 years old
• Criminal justice system is not gender neutral
Rape myth is overwhelmed inside criminal justice
system: resist, run away, ask for help
• Unconscious gender biases within criminal justice system are
so strong
Practice should be reconsider and education to
judges, prosecutors and lawyers should be
essential!!
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19. OUR CHALLENGES
• How to educate legal professions?
Law School : gender and law?
but marginalize
breaking down silos is essential
• It is impossible to use the same statutes for different
interpretation
keep women’s chastity → right to sexual
determination
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20. OUR CHALLENGES
• Terminology in statutes were not changed
Quasi Forcible Indecency and Quasi Rape
‘by taking advantage of loss of consciousness or
inability to resist, or by causing a loss of
consciousness or inability to resist’
Forcible Indecency
indecency is common terminology with
pornography
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21. WOMEN’S VOICE SHOULD
BE HEARD
• ‘ Most women will tell you that law has little to do with their
everyday lives. ….. To most women, the law is a foreign
county with an unintelligible tongue, alien mores, secret
traps, uncontrollable and unresponsive dynamics, obscure
but rigid dogmas, barbaric and draconian rituals, and
consequences as scary as they are incomprehensible.
Actually, this is true for most men as well. The difference is
that the people who can and do make law work for them ,
who designed it so it would work for them as if they were
the whole world’ (Catharine Mackinnon, Women’s lives,
Men’s laws, 2005)
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22. LESSONS FROM
MS.SHIORI ITO
• Her voice was not fully heard in criminal justice system
• Coming out brings huge risk in Japan
she moved to UK
• One stop centers for victims/survivors are dysfunctional
• Rape myth is overwhelmed in Japanese Society
date rape=real rape( Susan Estrich) is not rape
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23. 23

24. SHE STARTED NEW
MOVEMENT: # WE TOO
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