{"id":19788,"date":"2026-05-10T02:05:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T02:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19788\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T02:05:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T02:05:42","slug":"divorced-from-reality-japans-joint-custody-reform-divides-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/19788\/","title":{"rendered":"Divorced from reality? Japan\u2019s joint custody reform divides parents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yasuyuki Watanabe has not seen his daughter in more than 15 years. But he is not celebrating the landmark custody reform that <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/japan?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Japan<\/a> has just implemented.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Until last month, Japanese law required one parent to hold sole custody of children after a divorce, leaving the other party reliant on informal goodwill or court-encouraged visitation to maintain a relationship with their child.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">For Watanabe, 54, the result was a system seemingly designed to exclude him, where one parent could disappear from a child\u2019s life entirely \u2013 not through any court ruling, but through the simple refusal to cooperate.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">That system has now changed, at least on paper. On April 1, Japan revised its Civil Code to allow parents to share custody after divorce: a change backed by a majority of the public and welcomed by parents who believe children benefit from the continued presence of their mothers and fathers in their lives.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A sumo wrestler holds a child during a \u201ccrying baby sumo\u201d match at a temple in Tokyo last month. Photo: AFP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/f6e16790-b012-4a0a-be22-9ab1a9ce3a52_f5478e01.jpg\" title=\"A sumo wrestler holds a child during a \u201ccrying baby sumo\u201d match at a temple in Tokyo last month. Photo: AFP\"\/>A sumo wrestler holds a child during a \u201ccrying baby sumo\u201d match at a temple in Tokyo last month. Photo: AFP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A poll published by the Mainichi newspaper on April 22 found just 10 per cent of respondents were opposed to the changes, with 53 per cent in favour.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But Watanabe is not among them. \u201cThis legal reform provides absolutely no benefit to high-conflict couples and does not consider the best interests of the child at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yasuyuki Watanabe has not seen his daughter in more than 15 years. But he is not celebrating the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15724,2515,15726,15716,4208,8,17,15721,15727,15718,15719,15717,52,15723,15722,15720,15725],"class_list":{"0":"post-19788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-japan","8":"tag-akira-ueno","9":"tag-children","10":"tag-civil-code","11":"tag-divorce","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-japan","14":"tag-japanese","15":"tag-mainichi-shimbun","16":"tag-marseille","17":"tag-ministry-of-justice","18":"tag-nihonbashi-sakura-law-office","19":"tag-parents","20":"tag-tokyo","21":"tag-tokyo-high-court","22":"tag-vincent-fichot","23":"tag-watanabe","24":"tag-yasuyuki-watanabe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}