Many practices qualified as “religious psychological abuse” by the guidelines of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare are just normal expressions of freedom of religion.
by Massimo Introvigne
Article 2 of 2. Read article 1.
Minors, we read in the “Q&A on Handling Child Abuse and Similar Cases Related to Religious and Similar Beliefs” published at the end of 2022 by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which we started examining in the first article of this series, have a right to keep their religion confidential, perhaps because by revealing it they may be bullied at school or ridiculed. As a consequence, parents cannot require “children to wear ornaments and similar that objectively reveal their belief in a specific religion.”
Perhaps Japan has not experienced the heated European discussions about the Muslim hijab, or does not have enough male minor Sikhs for which it is mandatory to wear a turban since a very young age, but here it seems that minor Jewish boys should be prevented to wear a kippah in public as well.
Taking children to religious activities is not illegal per se, but it becomes “psychological abuse” to socialize them into religions that “significantly deviate from accepted social standards.” Again, a stand is taken discriminating against religions that may just want to live differently. How and by whom it will be determined that a religion “significantly deviates from accepted social standards” is also unclear.
There are severe threats against parents who make excessive donations to religious organizations and have no money left to provide for their children and pay their tuition fees. They are threatened with the possibility of losing the custody of their daughters and sons. This is a clear allusion to the case of Abe’s assassin and the controversy about donations to the Unification Church.
The text even mentions cases in which parents-thieves steal the money earned by their student children through part-time jobs to donate it to dubious religious organizations. I believe the only such case in Japan is the claim against her parents by a girl who once belonged to the Unification Church and goes under the pseudonym of Sayuri Ogawa. Her story is demonstrably false.
Parents and guardians are also threatened with losing the custody of their children if they refuse for them “essential medical treatments.” The example repeatedly given is “refusing a blood transfusion,” and also having children “carry a card to express that they refuse blood transfusions.” This indicates that, without naming them, the provision targets the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Catholic and other Christian groups are in turn the targets of a provision that defines as neglect, again punishable with the loss of custody, the parents’ refusal to give their consent to an abortion in the cases where Japanese laws allow it for underage girls. Without entering into the merits of such laws, the Catholic Church and several conservative Protestant denominations forbid their members from approving of or cooperating with an abortion in all cases.
That sexual abuse cannot be justified by religious pretexts is obvious, but the directive specifies that children should not be exposed to materials using “sexual expressions” or discussing sexual acts, which may create a problem with certain books of the Bible. More problematic is including into the field of “sexual abuse” situations where minors are requested to “disclose their own sexual experiences” to the “staff” of any religion. In this case, not only the religious personnel but also the parents will be punished.
Stated in these terms, the provision forbids and qualifies as “sexual abuse” the Catholic confession of minors and similar practices in other religions. Confession in the Catholic Church starts at age seven. All the scholarly literature on the subject agrees that the sins most frequently confessed by Catholic teenagers and young (but minor) adults have to do with their “sexual experiences,” and certainly the questionnaires used for preparing the confessions do include references to sexual sins.
Special provisions refer to adopted children and children in foster care. Techniques to discover religion-based abuse are suggested, observing that minors subject to “psychological abuse” in a religious context often are not aware that they are abused, and would insist they are not. The directive implies that they should not be believed. A lengthy part listing agencies who can offer support to the Children Guidance Centers in this field, including the unavoidable lawyers who fight against the Unification Church, is also included.
Fighting child abuse is a laudable aim. Sexual and other forms of child abuse unfortunately do occur in a religious context too. They are not protected by religious liberty. Children are beaten, forced to work without a salary in a variety of businesses, and sexually abused or trafficked by several organizations and individuals. Some of them are religionists, including as we all know priests and ministers of mainline religions. They betray the trust of children and families, and should be severely punished.
However, physical violence, being submitted to slave labor in a factory or agricultural field, rape, sexual assault, and forced prostitution are all-too-real forms of abuse. “Religious child abuse” and “psychological child abuse” are much more elusive categories. Parents have a right to pass their religious faith to their children. This is not a right for parents in mainline and majority religions only. It extends to parents who belong to minority religions, whose values are not those regarded as “normal” by social majorities—but in our increasingly secularized societies the gap is widening between the opinions of the majority and what most religions teach, on several subjects.
Perhaps parents want to teach their children that the prevailing social attitude on sexuality, abortion, or economic materialism is wrong. Perhaps they find the majority’s view reflected in movies, comics, magazines, or video games they want their children to stay away from. Some of them may believe, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses do, that celebrating birthdays is against God’s command expressed in a sacred text.
Others would insist that teaching their children that criminals not only go to jail but may eventually go to hell may contribute to educating them to become good law-abiding citizens. Some parents donate significantly to religious organizations or charities, and teach their children that this generosity makes them better persons. And some ask children to go to confession, and discuss their wrongdoings with a minister of God.
We may agree or disagree with each of these attitudes or behaviors. They may not correspond to our preferred idea of pedagogy. But it is absurd and discriminatory to equate these ways of educating children based on certain religious belief with child abuse or neglect.
Respecting religious pluralism and freedom of religion or belief does not mean only to allow citizens to freely practice their faith, but also to pass it to the new generations and their own children. The post-Abe-assassination hysteria is not reason enough for a democratic country such as Japan to forget its commitment to religious liberty, which is consecrated in its Constitution and by its having signed the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
