◎Why Have Such Dangerous Elements Infiltrated the Government in the First Place? … The Process Behind the Enactment of the Women’s Support Act Provides the Answer
February 10, 2023
The following is excerpted from the latest issue of the monthly magazine Hanada, featuring a powerful investigative piece by Ryoko Ikeda.
Still, one must ask: Why, and since when, has the government allowed such individuals to suck up public funds with impunity?
Ryoko Ikeda provides the most precise and penetrating answer to this question in her article titled “Yumeno Nito and the Red Network,” published in the March issue of Hanada, running from pages 80 to 89 in double-column format.
Every Japanese citizen capable of reading printed text must read it.
It is no exaggeration to say that if one does not read this real article, Japan will be doomed.
(Prefatory material omitted; following is from pp. 83–85. All emphasis within the body text—excluding headings—is mine.)
◎The Network Around Yumeno Nito
Looking at the roster of the expert panel in which Yumeno Nito is a member, we find names such as Kyoko Otani (attorney), Tamie Kaino (Professor Emeritus at Ochanomizu University), and Keiko Kondo (board member and former representative of the NPO “National Women’s Shelter Network”—hereafter “Shelter Net”).
Kyoko Otani, born in 1950, was an activist with the Bund (Communist League) involved in student movements while enrolled at Waseda University.
After the United Red Army incident—where 14 comrades were brutally murdered through group lynching—she withdrew from activism and became a lawyer.
As a lawyer, she took on the defense of Fusako Shigenobu, former top leader of the Japanese Red Army, who was arrested in 2000.
Otani defended Shigenobu by stating, “She’s gentle, kind even,” and denied the terrorist image: “She is not the cold-blooded female militant willing to accept death for the revolution as portrayed.
As a leader, she was extremely capable, and without her, the Japanese Red Army would not have held together.”
In 2020, she was also invited to give a lecture at a gathering hosted by Diet member Mizuho Fukushima.
Tamie Kaino and Keiko Kondo have also worked closely as supporters of Mizuho Fukushima.
Kaino, born in 1944, recalled her Waseda years as a time when “the Waseda dispute and student movements were at their peak—I was very busy.”
Kondo, born in 1947, reflected on her background: “As the era shifted from the 1960 Anpo protests to those of 1970, I entered high school and university, immersed in the Zenkyoto movement and Women’s Lib.”
Kondo has previously served as coordinator for events such as the so-called Testimony Assembly on the ‘Sex Slave Comfort Women’ Issue.
The closeness of the relationship between Kaino and Kondo is evident from the fact that the address of Shelter Net’s office (where Kondo was formerly the head) is identical to that of the “Network to Enact a Law Banning Sexual Violence,” which Kaino co-represents.
These individuals maintain not only deep ties with the Social Democratic Party but also with the Constitutional Democratic Party.
For example, the political organization “Kaori Sato’s Group for Progress,” linked to Kaori Sato’s candidacy in the 2019 House of Councillors election under the Constitutional Democratic Party, was registered at the same address mentioned above.
At that time, Kondo served as administrative manager of the organization.
Now, Kaino is the representative.
The election postcards distributed during Sato’s campaign featured endorsements from Kaino and Kondo, as well as from Kazuna Kanejiri (Chair of the NPO “PAPS,” formerly the “Association to Consider Pornography and Sexual Violence”), attorney Hideki Saito, and Yuki Chida (Professor at Musashi University).
Shelter Net’s business operations, which far eclipse those of Colabo, are detailed in my book The Dark Side of the Biological Child Abduction Business (Asuka Shinsha, 2021).
It is striking that many of the same individuals—Saito, Chida, etc.—also appear in discussions of the “Colabo problem” within my book.
From this, it is clear that the so-called expert panel includes many individuals who do not meet the qualifications required for government appointments demanding fairness and neutrality.
If Kaino and Kondo are serving as representatives or administrators of a political organization supporting a candidate from the Constitutional Democratic Party, then they should have resigned from all government positions at that very moment.
Why are they still on the expert panel?
The ruling party must pursue this matter to the fullest extent.
Due to space limitations in this issue, I cannot elaborate further, but in The Dark Side of the Biological Child Abduction Business, I detail how Akaishi Chieko and Hiroki Komazaki—also subjects of that work—have acted in unison with Kaino and Shelter Net to maneuver within the government.
They also appear at forums such as the Forum on Loneliness and Isolation hosted by the Cabinet Secretariat and the Child and Child-Rearing Conference hosted by the Cabinet Office.
Furthermore, Komazaki has placed staff from his own NPO “Florence” into the Cabinet Secretariat’s Children and Families Agency Establishment Preparatory Office.
These people care about only two things:
whether their own definition of “support for the weak” can be enacted, and how much they can expand their business operations.
The “weak” they refer to are those who are convenient for their narrative—hence the term “weakness business.”
Just like the “biological child abduction business,” these shadows run extremely deep.
◎“Unanimous Support”—Zero Deliberation
Why have such dangerous elements entered the government in the first place?
The answer lies in the process by which the Women’s Support Act was enacted.
When the Women’s Support Act passed, both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors allotted zero hours for deliberation.
It was referred to the House of Councillors Health, Labour and Welfare Committee on April 12 of last year.
Immediately after Komeito lawmaker Kanae Yamamoto—one of the bill’s sponsors—gave her explanatory remarks, it was “left to the chair’s discretion” and passed without any deliberation.
It was then approved in the House of Councillors plenary session the following day, April 13.
On May 18, Yamamoto again gave her explanation before the House of Representatives Health, Labour and Welfare Committee.
The bill was immediately put to a vote and passed.
It was then approved without deliberation in the House of Representatives plenary session the next day, May 19.
Why did this happen?
Because the bill had “unanimous party support,” having been jointly submitted by Yoko Kamikawa (LDP), Tomoko Abe (CDP), Kanae Yamamoto (Komeito), Satoshi Umemura (Japan Innovation Party), Wakako Yata (Democratic Party for the People), Akiko Kurabayashi (JCP), and Mizuho Fukushima (SDP).
There is a rule that bills with “unanimous support” from all parties do not require committee or plenary deliberation.
They exploited this rule.
As long as a bill’s contents are crafted in such a way that no party—from the LDP to the Social Democrats and Communists—will object, it can become law without a single minute of discussion in the Diet.
Thus, even if the clauses contradict one another or violate the Constitution, no one cares.
For example, even a ludicrous law like Italy’s notorious ban on bikini use by women deemed “unattractive” could, in theory, be secretly enacted in Japan—if consensus were manufactured behind the scenes.
