ABSTRACT
In May 2014, the Tokyo office of Human Rights Watch published a 129-page report entitled ‘Without Dreams: Children in Alternative Care in Japan.’ The report begins with the words of a 15-year-old girl, who, as a ward of the Japanese state, lives in a child welfare institution: “I don’t have any dreams [for the future]” (HRW 2014: 1). The quote is attributed to ‘Nozomi M.’ ‘Nozomi’ means ‘hope’ in Japanese, an irony that Human Rights Watch does not highlight. The report takes an exposé-like tone, illuminating a population that has been referred to in Japan as socially invisible “hidden minorities” (Nishida 2011). Most people in Japan are unaware that around 30,000 children whose parents cannot care for them live in institutions, including over 3,000 newborns and infants. Around 9 per cent of state wards are placed in family-based foster homes. Because average care placements are over four years, many children in state care spend a significant portion of their childhoods in institutions (MHLW 2017).
