Japan

In April 2001, an antidomestic-violence law was promulgated in Japan. Since 1995, spousal violence by husbands became a social issue. In 1997, the Tokyo metropolitan office did research on the situation of domestic violence in the Japanese family. Women who suffered any kind of violence by their husbands constituted 33 percent of the sample. This rate was unexpectedly high. The kinds of violence vary greatly and include physical and psychological violence and verbal dehumanization. Forced sexual relations and nonuse of condoms are common forms of domestic violence. Complaining about the way housekeeping is done another way that it manifests itself.

Japan lacks sufficient counseling services and shelters for the women who have experienced domestic violence. As of 1999, there were only thirty private women's shelters available in Japan. (At the local government level, each prefecture established an anti-prostitution facility in the late 1950s, but these are not for married women who are victims of domestic violence.) Public service by local governments does not show an understanding that women are vulnerable when they are not economically independent. Even if women are sheltered from abusive husbands for several weeks, they have no house to return to other than their husbands'.