The Yomiuri Shimbun
We live in a time when divorce has become commonplace. In Japan, a couple gets divorced every two minutes. Consequently, the number of divorced parents filing requests with the courts for visitation rights is increasing.
There is also a growing number of conflicts resulting from breakups of couples from different countries. Due to differences in interpretation regarding child custody, parents have been accused of abducting their own children and taking them to another country.
As families and people's values diversify, certain problems have become difficult to resolve under the existing system.
Starting today, we will look at some of the problems divorced parents face as they struggle to win the right to see their children.
After separating from her husband five years ago, a 51-year-old woman in Tokyo began a long struggle to see her 15-year-old son.
The woman, a temporary worker, has only been able to see her son twice in the five years that have passed. The meetings, held in a court and in the presence of a court personnel, totaled just 95 minutes.
On both occasions when the woman saw her son, she was unable to stop tears welling up.
"My son, who is taking piano lessons, put his hand on mine to compare the size," she said. "As I saw him staring at me while talking, I felt we were deeply bound inside."
Desperately wishing to see her son more often, in July 2007 she applied to the family court for mediation on the issue of visitation rights.
However, the woman's former husband initially resisted all requests to allow her to visit her son, citing the boy's need to focus on his schooling, including preparing to move up to the next grade.
As part of the mediation process, in which a voluntary settlement is sought with the help of commissioners, the court initially set up two short meetings between the woman and her son as a way of determining the format future meetings should take.
The two met for 50 minutes in March 2008 and 45 minutes in April 2009.
"My son remembered the meeting we had a year earlier," the woman said.
While the court advised that the woman be allowed to visit her son every two months, the couple failed to reach an agreement. As a result, the mediation process moved to the next stage, which will see a final decision issued by a judge.
"I'm so worried that I might never be allowed to see my son again," she said.
===
Children caught up in disputes
The number of divorces nationwide reached 250,000 in 2008, according to a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry survey. Of those divorced couples, 140,000 had children aged under 20, which numbered more than 240,000.
The rising number of divorced couples is accompanied by an increasing number of conflicts involving children.
According to an annual survey compiled by the Supreme Court, family courts across the country mediated in 6,261 cases concerning disputes over meetings between divorced parents and their children and judges were forced to deliver a final decision in 1,020 of those cases. Both figures were triple the numbers a decade ago.
Even through such court-mediated procedures, only half of the parents involved in the cases won permission to see their children.
In addition, regardless of an agreement or court order reached on visitation, if the parent who lives with the child strongly resists allowing meetings, it remains difficult for the other parent to see the child.
===
Maintaining contact important
Several years ago, a 40-year-old man from Kanagawa Prefecture seeking the right to see his then 1-year-old son applied for court mediation.
He had helped his wife take care of the baby, feeding him milk and changing his diapers at night. On his days off, he took the boy to a park to play. "I had no inkling I'd be prevented from meeting my son after the divorce," he said. "But I was completely wrong."
He said that even after the official mediation procedure started, his former wife maintained she would never allow him to see their son. She even pushed back the scheduled date for the mediation. Time passed and no decisions were made.
Desperate to see his son, the man even visited the neighborhood where the boy lived with his mother.
The former couple failed to reach a compromise through the court-led mediation process and began proceedings that would lead to a decision by a judge. Two years later, the court concluded that the man should be allowed to see his son once a month, for half a day. Nevertheless, the former wife broke the appointment set for the first meeting, leaving the man unable to see the boy.
After repeated negotiations with the woman through lawyers, he finally managed to ensure he could regularly see his son. "I believe it's important for children's growth to maintain a relationship with both parents," the father said. "I think adults shouldn't deprive their children of this right due to selfishness."
Waseda University Prof. Masayuki Tanamura argues the existing system no longer meets society's changing needs. "It was previously believed that divorced parents had to accept they couldn't see children they'd been separated from," Tanamura said. "In recent years, however, men have become more involved in child rearing and the number of children born to couples has declined. Because of this, many divorced parents have an increased desire to maintain their relationship with their children even after a divorce."
What needs to be done to ensure that parents can see their children after a divorce? There is a growing need for this nation to find an answer to this question.
===
Sole custody causing headaches
A key factor behind disputes involving divorced couples over their children's custody is a Civil Code stipulation that parental prerogatives are granted to either the mother or father--not both.
The parent who obtains custody assumes rights and duties for his or her child, such as the duty to educate the child and the right to control any assets they might have. However, the parent without parental authority can claim almost no rights concerning their children.
In fact, mothers win in 90 percent of court decisions concerning the custody of a child--known as mediation and determination proceedings.
There is no provision in the Civil Code referring to the visitation rights of a parent living separately from his or her child, so whether the absent parent can meet the child depends on the wishes of the former partner who has been granted custody.
If the parent who has custody refuses to let his or her child meet with the former spouse in a court mediation, it is difficult to arrange visits.
Even if the parent living separately from his or her child or children is allowed to visit, the chances are limited--for example, to once a month. Moreover, if the parents who have custody ignore the court's decision to grant their spouses visiting rights, there is almost no legal recourse to implement such visits.
Waseda University Prof. Masayuki Tanamura said: "The current system strongly reflects the Japanese family system established in the Meiji era [1868-1912]. Since that time, parental authority has been regarded as the right of the parents to control their children, so couples fight over it."
Meanwhile, as the number of divorces increased from the 1970s to the '90s in Europe and the United States, such countries began allowing joint custody, in which former couples cooperate in bringing up their children even after breaking up.
Lawyer Takao Tanase, who also serves as a professor at Chuo University, said: "[In such countries,] the rights of parents who live separately from their children after divorce to visit and communicate with their children are recognized, and such visits occur regularly. For example, there are cases in which such parents meet with their children once a fortnight and spend the weekend together."
The number of international marriages is increasing yearly--reaching a record high of 18,774 cases in 2008--and the difference in the custody system between Japan and foreign countries causes serious problems when a Japanese splits from his or her foreign spouse.
Cases in which Japanese living in foreign countries take their children back to Japan after divorcing a foreign spouse have become an international problem. The Foreign Ministry confirmed 73 such incidents in the United States, 36 in Canada, 35 in France and 33 in Britain.
There is an international law to deal with such disputes. The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction stipulates that if a former husband or wife takes his or her child or children to another country without the consent of the former spouse, the spouse can apply to bring the child back to the country where they were living. Member countries assume an obligation to cooperate in bringing the child back to the home country.
Many European countries and the United States have joined the convention, but Japan has yet to ratify it. International pressure on Japan to adopt the convention is growing.
"We need to separate the problems of parent-child relationships from the problems between couples. We need to establish laws enabling children to meet with the parent who is living separately after divorce, with the exception of cases in which the child is exposed to potential physical danger by meeting the parent," Tanase said.
"In Japan, divorce is becoming increasingly common, and it's important to accept the idea that divorced couples will share child-rearing duties even after divorce," he added.
(Feb. 3, 2010)
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Ministry unveils incentive stopgap
The Phnom Penh Post
James O'Toole
Monday, 25 January 2010
THE government has put forth a plan to ease the transition period following the surprise cancellation of salary supplement programmes for civil servants announced last month, though members of the development community said the precise nature of both the transition phase and the government’s long-term goals remains unclear.
In a letter dated Thursday and sent to the UN, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the British and Australian ambassadors, Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon said the move represented “decisive action ... taken to consider both the short- and long-term challenges of motivation and performance in the public sector”.
Under various kinds of salary supplement programmes, donors had been assisting the government in bolstering the often-paltry salaries of civil servants. In recent weeks, some members of the development community have expressed alarm at the proposed revocation of supplements, which they say are essential for maintaining a functioning civil service sector.
Though two supplement schemes – Priority Mission Groups (PMGs) and Merit-Based Performance Incentives (MBPIs) – will remain defunct, Keat Chhon said, straightforward salary supplements will be allowed to continue throughout an interim period during which the government will formulate a new compensation scheme. This interim period is expected to last six months, he added.
Keat Chhon’s most recent letter marked a moderation of the policy he announced in a December 4 letter to World Bank country director Annette Dixon, in which he stated that “in addition to the MBPI and PMG, the termination also applies to the salary supplement and all other such incentives/schemes”. This termination, which was to go into effect January 1, was ordered to maintain fairness in government compensation and spur broader public administrative reform, Keat Chhon told Dixon.
MBPIs and PMGs were implemented in recent years through cooperation between the government and development partners in order to target key projects and promote a culture of meritocracy among civil servants. Under these initiatives, workers received incentives based on their participation in specially designated projects and their attainment of performance goals. These more stringent conditions were not attached to traditional salary supplements, which were distributed as bonuses and in a less targeted manner.
With MBPIs, the government hoped to “retain and attract well-trained staff members” and “facilitate the transfer of technology and expertise from international advisers”, said Hang Chuon Naron, secretary general at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, in a presentation at a 2007 conference hosted by the World Bank.
In Thursday’s letter, however, Keat Chhon said the government hoped to establish a replacement payment system based on a principle he termed “daily operational cost”, though he provided few details on how this new system would work.
“This will replace existing salary supplementations and allowances, and will take account of issues such as equity, motivation, performance and accountability,” Keat Chhon wrote. Money earmarked for MBPIs and PMGs may be distributed in the form of traditional salary supplements during the transitional period, he added.
UN resident coordinator Douglas Broderick had little to say in response to the letter, explaining that his organisation is awaiting further discussion with the government and development partners.
“No one’s had time to analyse this yet,” he said.
ADB spokesman Chantha Kim said the ADB and other development partners are “seeking clarification” on the implications of the letter.
Chan Theary, executive director of the Reproductive and Child Health Alliance, was cautiously optimistic about the decision, calling it preferable to an abrupt termination of all supplements. She cautioned, however, that it remains for the government to take public administration reform beyond the issue of compensation.
“If they said something like that, I hope they will really take a real action,” she said.
Sin Somuny, director of the local health group Medicam, said earlier this month that many civil servants, particularly in rural areas, are likely unaware of the compensation reforms, even as they draw most of their monthly income from various salary supplements.
According to Hang Chuon Naron’s 2007 presentation, MBPIs at the Ministry of Economy and Finance ranged from $50 per month for administrative staff up to $679 per month at the secretary general level.
James O'Toole
Monday, 25 January 2010
THE government has put forth a plan to ease the transition period following the surprise cancellation of salary supplement programmes for civil servants announced last month, though members of the development community said the precise nature of both the transition phase and the government’s long-term goals remains unclear.
In a letter dated Thursday and sent to the UN, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the British and Australian ambassadors, Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon said the move represented “decisive action ... taken to consider both the short- and long-term challenges of motivation and performance in the public sector”.
Under various kinds of salary supplement programmes, donors had been assisting the government in bolstering the often-paltry salaries of civil servants. In recent weeks, some members of the development community have expressed alarm at the proposed revocation of supplements, which they say are essential for maintaining a functioning civil service sector.
Though two supplement schemes – Priority Mission Groups (PMGs) and Merit-Based Performance Incentives (MBPIs) – will remain defunct, Keat Chhon said, straightforward salary supplements will be allowed to continue throughout an interim period during which the government will formulate a new compensation scheme. This interim period is expected to last six months, he added.
Keat Chhon’s most recent letter marked a moderation of the policy he announced in a December 4 letter to World Bank country director Annette Dixon, in which he stated that “in addition to the MBPI and PMG, the termination also applies to the salary supplement and all other such incentives/schemes”. This termination, which was to go into effect January 1, was ordered to maintain fairness in government compensation and spur broader public administrative reform, Keat Chhon told Dixon.
MBPIs and PMGs were implemented in recent years through cooperation between the government and development partners in order to target key projects and promote a culture of meritocracy among civil servants. Under these initiatives, workers received incentives based on their participation in specially designated projects and their attainment of performance goals. These more stringent conditions were not attached to traditional salary supplements, which were distributed as bonuses and in a less targeted manner.
With MBPIs, the government hoped to “retain and attract well-trained staff members” and “facilitate the transfer of technology and expertise from international advisers”, said Hang Chuon Naron, secretary general at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, in a presentation at a 2007 conference hosted by the World Bank.
In Thursday’s letter, however, Keat Chhon said the government hoped to establish a replacement payment system based on a principle he termed “daily operational cost”, though he provided few details on how this new system would work.
“This will replace existing salary supplementations and allowances, and will take account of issues such as equity, motivation, performance and accountability,” Keat Chhon wrote. Money earmarked for MBPIs and PMGs may be distributed in the form of traditional salary supplements during the transitional period, he added.
UN resident coordinator Douglas Broderick had little to say in response to the letter, explaining that his organisation is awaiting further discussion with the government and development partners.
“No one’s had time to analyse this yet,” he said.
ADB spokesman Chantha Kim said the ADB and other development partners are “seeking clarification” on the implications of the letter.
Chan Theary, executive director of the Reproductive and Child Health Alliance, was cautiously optimistic about the decision, calling it preferable to an abrupt termination of all supplements. She cautioned, however, that it remains for the government to take public administration reform beyond the issue of compensation.
“If they said something like that, I hope they will really take a real action,” she said.
Sin Somuny, director of the local health group Medicam, said earlier this month that many civil servants, particularly in rural areas, are likely unaware of the compensation reforms, even as they draw most of their monthly income from various salary supplements.
According to Hang Chuon Naron’s 2007 presentation, MBPIs at the Ministry of Economy and Finance ranged from $50 per month for administrative staff up to $679 per month at the secretary general level.
Australian agro-deal in Cambodia carries risks, rewards - Feature
Mon, 01 Feb 2010
Phnom Penh - As a former finance minister of Australia, Peter Costello is comfortable with large numbers. The latest is his proposal on behalf of an Australian fund to invest 600 million US dollars into at least 100,000 hectares of land concessions in Cambodia. The concessions would see private equity investors pumping money into plantations of teak, palm oil, sugar, rice and bananas. In return, Cambodia would get 150,000 jobs, the government said after Costello met with Deputy Prime Minister Sok An.
Significant investment, plenty of jobs plus the promise of improved agricultural methods? Such a deal should be good for Cambodia on all three counts.
But human rights workers said they worry the country's ongoing problems with corruption and poor governance combined with often-violent land evictions mean it is less certain that ordinary people would benefit.
And as veteran opposition legislator Son Chhay made clear, transparency in investment deals is hardly the order of the day.
Son Chhay has plenty of experience in how the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) operates when it comes to investments. He headed parliament's foreign affairs committee until 2008 but said his deputy, a member of the CPP, regularly prevented him from getting information on deals.
"It's still the case that we are not able to get our hands [on investment documents], and that's a cause for great concern," he said.
In the past two decades, much of rural Cambodia has been carved up into economic land concessions (ELCs). The UN's human rights office released a report three years ago that said 59 large concessions totalling almost 950,000 hectares had been granted to private companies to develop agricultural-industrial plantations.
The report made it clear that the true figure was certainly higher because data on smaller ELCs were not available. What was clear, it concluded, was that the concessions had "adversely affected the human rights and livelihoods of Cambodia's rural communities."
In the intervening three years, government figures showed it has approved 33 more agricultural-industrial projects worth 837 million dollars although they did not indicate how much land is involved. State-to-state deals, however, are not on that list, and Qatar, Kuwait and South Korea have so far expressed interest in, or signed deals for, ELCs.
Human rights workers said risks to the rural poor over such deals are significant because they are regularly evicted to make way for foreign investors. The government's often-brutal approach to evictions and its disregard for its own laws in doing so have raised concerns abroad.
Such government behaviour was one of the items discussed by the UN's special rapporteur on human rights during a recent two-week visit. Surya Subedi asked the government to suspend all land evictions until proper legal safeguards are in place.
The government denied the request, citing the need to develop the country. It told Subedi that national guidelines on evictions were being drafted but did not say when they would appear.
The UN envoy expressed cautious optimism in telling reporters that the UN Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution that requires guidelines be put in place to protect the vulnerable.
"So it is now becoming an international requirement," Subedi said.
One relevant regulation recently approved by Cambodia's parliament was a much-criticized expropriation law. Subedi criticized parts of the law for being far too vague.
"For example, what do we mean by public interest?" he asked. "If land can be acquired in the public interest, how do you define it? Who defines it?"
Acceptable compensation measures for those affected were absent, too, he said.
Those concerns are shared by many in Cambodia, including Son Chhay although he did welcome one of the benefits touted by Costello: new ways of farming to boost production.
The opposition lawmaker said new methods could help 80 per cent of the 14 million people who rely on outdated farming techniques. The country's rice yield of around 3 tons per hectare, for example, is far below that of some of its neighbours.
But the primary motive for Costello's investors is financial. Investors want a return on their money, and the food crisis of 2008 when prices rocketed showed that food can be profitable.
"I think agriculture is going to come back into its own as an investment in the decades that lie ahead, and of course, that's a great opportunity for Cambodia," Costello told the Phnom Penh Post.
For his part, Son Chhay would prefer investment from countries like Australia rather than from Cambodia's more traditional investors, such as China and Vietnam, whose companies, he said, are uninterested in improving local skills.
Yet he insisted that a transparent, corruption-free approach is vital to ensure the Cambodian people benefit from the deal.
"A lot of concessions have caused problems to our farmers and indigenous people who have no knowledge of what is in the contracts," he said.
But he called on Costello to make public the full details of any contract with the government.
"He should act upon his word [to do so]," Son Chhay said. "We would hope that this kind of investment from a society like Australia would be done in a proper manner."
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/306857,australian-agro-deal-in-cambodia-carries-risks-rewards--feature.html
Copyright DPA
Phnom Penh - As a former finance minister of Australia, Peter Costello is comfortable with large numbers. The latest is his proposal on behalf of an Australian fund to invest 600 million US dollars into at least 100,000 hectares of land concessions in Cambodia. The concessions would see private equity investors pumping money into plantations of teak, palm oil, sugar, rice and bananas. In return, Cambodia would get 150,000 jobs, the government said after Costello met with Deputy Prime Minister Sok An.
Significant investment, plenty of jobs plus the promise of improved agricultural methods? Such a deal should be good for Cambodia on all three counts.
But human rights workers said they worry the country's ongoing problems with corruption and poor governance combined with often-violent land evictions mean it is less certain that ordinary people would benefit.
And as veteran opposition legislator Son Chhay made clear, transparency in investment deals is hardly the order of the day.
Son Chhay has plenty of experience in how the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) operates when it comes to investments. He headed parliament's foreign affairs committee until 2008 but said his deputy, a member of the CPP, regularly prevented him from getting information on deals.
"It's still the case that we are not able to get our hands [on investment documents], and that's a cause for great concern," he said.
In the past two decades, much of rural Cambodia has been carved up into economic land concessions (ELCs). The UN's human rights office released a report three years ago that said 59 large concessions totalling almost 950,000 hectares had been granted to private companies to develop agricultural-industrial plantations.
The report made it clear that the true figure was certainly higher because data on smaller ELCs were not available. What was clear, it concluded, was that the concessions had "adversely affected the human rights and livelihoods of Cambodia's rural communities."
In the intervening three years, government figures showed it has approved 33 more agricultural-industrial projects worth 837 million dollars although they did not indicate how much land is involved. State-to-state deals, however, are not on that list, and Qatar, Kuwait and South Korea have so far expressed interest in, or signed deals for, ELCs.
Human rights workers said risks to the rural poor over such deals are significant because they are regularly evicted to make way for foreign investors. The government's often-brutal approach to evictions and its disregard for its own laws in doing so have raised concerns abroad.
Such government behaviour was one of the items discussed by the UN's special rapporteur on human rights during a recent two-week visit. Surya Subedi asked the government to suspend all land evictions until proper legal safeguards are in place.
The government denied the request, citing the need to develop the country. It told Subedi that national guidelines on evictions were being drafted but did not say when they would appear.
The UN envoy expressed cautious optimism in telling reporters that the UN Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution that requires guidelines be put in place to protect the vulnerable.
"So it is now becoming an international requirement," Subedi said.
One relevant regulation recently approved by Cambodia's parliament was a much-criticized expropriation law. Subedi criticized parts of the law for being far too vague.
"For example, what do we mean by public interest?" he asked. "If land can be acquired in the public interest, how do you define it? Who defines it?"
Acceptable compensation measures for those affected were absent, too, he said.
Those concerns are shared by many in Cambodia, including Son Chhay although he did welcome one of the benefits touted by Costello: new ways of farming to boost production.
The opposition lawmaker said new methods could help 80 per cent of the 14 million people who rely on outdated farming techniques. The country's rice yield of around 3 tons per hectare, for example, is far below that of some of its neighbours.
But the primary motive for Costello's investors is financial. Investors want a return on their money, and the food crisis of 2008 when prices rocketed showed that food can be profitable.
"I think agriculture is going to come back into its own as an investment in the decades that lie ahead, and of course, that's a great opportunity for Cambodia," Costello told the Phnom Penh Post.
For his part, Son Chhay would prefer investment from countries like Australia rather than from Cambodia's more traditional investors, such as China and Vietnam, whose companies, he said, are uninterested in improving local skills.
Yet he insisted that a transparent, corruption-free approach is vital to ensure the Cambodian people benefit from the deal.
"A lot of concessions have caused problems to our farmers and indigenous people who have no knowledge of what is in the contracts," he said.
But he called on Costello to make public the full details of any contract with the government.
"He should act upon his word [to do so]," Son Chhay said. "We would hope that this kind of investment from a society like Australia would be done in a proper manner."
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/306857,australian-agro-deal-in-cambodia-carries-risks-rewards--feature.html
Copyright DPA
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