Japan Revises Child Custody Law, Widening Door for Divorce

Changes to Japanese law have finally prompted 46-year-old television presenter and actress Mariya Yamada to finalise her divorce after five years of separation. “Next week I will submit these documents with the custody column checked for both me and my husband, and then it will all be over,” she said. Shortly afterwards, Yamada, who has a 13-year-old son, announced that her divorce from her actor husband was officially complete. The process concluded after Japan introduced a joint custody system for divorced parents in April. The divorce of the well-known couple received widespread media attention in Japan, including from national television stations and sports newspapers. “My husband kept saying he did not want to lose custody of our son,” Yamada said. “But now he has finally been able to accept the divorce.”

Before the new rules were introduced, Japan was the only G7 member state that applied a sole custody system after divorce, granting custody of the child to only one parent. Through the revision of the Civil Code, parents who obtain joint custody are now required to consult each other when making important decisions affecting the child’s life, including matters of residence and education. If the parents fail to reach an agreement, the family court will intervene to determine custody arrangements based on the best interests of the child. The new rules also open the door for couples who divorced before the reform to apply for a change from sole custody to joint custody through the courts. However, in cases involving domestic violence or child abuse, the court can still grant sole custody to one parent.

In Japan, around 90 per cent of divorces are settled by mutual agreement without court intervention. Before the joint custody system was introduced in April, the law only recognised sole custody, meaning the interests of the child were often neglected after the parents’ divorce. A 26-year-old woman working in Tokyo recalled her own parents’ divorce when she and her younger sibling were in primary school. Although both children felt much closer to their mother, custody was granted to the father based on factors deemed important by adults, including financial stability. “I always wished I could live with my mother,” she told DW. “Every time I had to fill out official documents, I could only write my father’s name as my parent.” She noted a gap between the legal arrangement and daily life, as her mother continued to play a major role in raising them, regularly inviting the children for dinner at her home. She still vividly remembers her younger sibling crying every time they had to part from their mother. “Looking back, I wish joint custody had been allowed then,” she said. “If children are old enough to have their own opinions, adults should not make these decisions alone. They should also listen to what the children want.”

Shinji Nozawa, a professor of family sociology and stepfamily researcher at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, believes children often lose contact not only with one parent after a divorce, but also with that parent’s extended family. According to Nozawa, in many cases children can no longer see their grandparents either. “In most cases, they also can no longer meet their grandparents,” he said. “For a child, losing half the network of people who love and care for them is a major problem.” Nozawa understands that some single parents in Japan, who are predominantly single mothers, feel burdened by the prospect of having to maintain contact with a former spouse after divorce.

Since the joint custody system came into effect in Japan, requests for consultations regarding post-divorce child custody have sharply increased. Seiya Sato, a family law specialist at Setagaya International Law Office in Tokyo, told DW he now receives five to ten consultations each week, including those related to cross-border divorces. According to Sato, many of his clients are American and European citizens married to Japanese women. They are often shocked to learn that the Japanese legal system previously only recognised sole custody, meaning one parent could lose meaningful access to the child. In some cases, the parent without custody was only allowed to see their child once a month. The rising number of international marriages and divorces has highlighted Japan’s custody system, which for years drew criticism from the international community. In 2020, the European Parliament expressed concern over the many unresolved cases of parental child abduction, particularly those involving EU and Japanese nationals. The European Parliament urged the Japanese government to open the door to the implementation of joint custody, referencing Japan’s participation in the Hague Convention since 2014. Meanwhile, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly asked Japan to strengthen the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which it ratified in 1994. Meiji Gakuin University Professor Shinji Nozawa noted that taking a child away from the other parent is considered a criminal offence in several countries, including the United States.