A woman, whoever she may be, desires to live under the respect and protection of the people as the flowers of the family and society.

But in the Japanese society, women are held in all kinds of maltreatment, contempt and scorn, writhe in misfortunes and agony, and fall victim to social evils for the mere reason that they are women.

“When I saw a woman looking happy, I couldn’t resist the impulse to kill her.” This is a testimony given by one suspect for attempted murder who was arrested in Japan some time ago.

Through these creepy and abusive shocking words, we can easily guess the circumstances of the Japanese women which are getting more miserable with each passing day.

According to the “White Paper on Gender Equality” issued by Japan, the number of women consulting on violence by their spouses increased by 1.6 times compared with 2019, amounting to about 190,000 and those on sex offences and sexual violence reached 51,141, 1.2 times higher than in 2019. And the women are faced with difficulties to find an employment opportunity due to the increased unemployment rate which is worse enough to be called “female depression”.

Moreover, women abandon their rights to motherhood for the fear that they may lose their jobs when they get married, become pregnant and give birth to a baby. Thus the birth rate keeps being reduced.

Japan took 120 th place in the “Report on Gender Gap” which was synthesized and analyzed by the World Economic Forum at the end of March, 2021 targeting 156 countries in the fields of politics, the economy, education and health. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) also appraised that the gap of average salary between men and women in Japan is 23.5%, nearly two times higher than the average one of the world.

This is only one typical example showing the extent of maltreatment and discrimination of women in Japan.

In this Japanese society, women are maltreated as subhuman beings, being subjected abusive language, humiliation and sexual harassment, and they choose suicides cursing the society or fall into the abyss of crime.

In 2020, 7,026 women committed suicide, an increase of 935 in number compared with 2019. In March this year, too, tragic incident happened in Fukuoka Prefecture where a woman left behind a testament expressing her anxiety about her life and child breeding before committing suicide with her three children.

Against ethics and morality, a mother threw her newborn baby to death and abandoned it like garbage, a wife murdered her husband and family by assault, and a daughter kept the corpse of her mother in the refrigerator for ten years…

Barbarous women criminal incidents come close on the heels of another in Japan, which can be hardly imagined by a woman, human being.

It is not surprising that a society for the intelligent group under the Cabinet Office of Japan deplored to this effect:

People standing near a cliff were driven to the cliff edge by COVID-19.

Women, who are supposed to create beautiful lives as equal members of society and as housewives, are wandering about at the dead end of lives. It is an inevitable outcome of reactionary political climate and social system in Japan.

The Japanese society looks flamboyant in its appearance. But it is the barren land, the tundra of human rights of women, where the highest degree of maltreatment and contempt for women are deeply rooted.

Kim Sol Hwa

Researcher of Institute for Studies of Japan

Ministry of Foreign Affairs DPRK