A United Nations committee has reviewed efforts by the Japanese government to achieve gender equality, especially Japan’s legal requirement for married couples to use the same surname.
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women met in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday. It reviewed a report from Japan for the first time in eight years.
The committee in 2016 described a Japanese Civil Code article on the surname requirement as “discriminatory,” saying it “in practice often compels women to adopt their husbands’ surnames.”
At the time, the committee urged Japan to revise the article as soon as possible to enable women to retain their maiden names. That was the third such recommendation issued by the committee to the country since 2003.
During Thursday’s session, a Japanese delegation said the government regards the introduction of a system allowing married couples to use separate surnames as an important issue connected to how the family is generally perceived in the country’s society.
The delegation also said the government believes that it is necessary to gain broad-based public understanding about the system.
It added that the government has also been committed to expanding the use of former surnames so that people who change their surnames for marriage are not inconvenienced or placed at a disadvantage.
In addition, a committee member inquired about Japan’s lack of an independent institution designed to save victims of human rights violations.
The committee will release the outcome of its latest review as early as this month.
The committee regularly reviews reports submitted by Japan and each of the other state parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The convention was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979.