Minister’s Message on International Women’s Day 2019

March 8, 2019

KATAYAMA Satsuki
Minister in Charge of Women’s Empowerment
Minister of State for Gender Equality

The 8th of March is International Women’s Day. This celebration was established as an opportunity to reaffirm the extent to which women have broadened their potential by playing larger roles in peace, security and development and by enhancing their standing in organizations and communities. The day is also intended to be an occasion for us to talk to each other and renew our determination to achieve further progress for the future of women.

The United Nations and countries around the world hold various events on International Women’s Day to celebrate it. In Japan, against a backdrop of the current growing trends for ESG investing and women’s empowerment in the stock market, the Tokyo Stock Exchange will also hold the “Ring the Bell for Gender Equality” event. I wish the bell rings with the hope that women will demonstrate their capabilities to the full and eventually contribute to the economic growth of Japan and the entire world.

As one of its most important issues, Japan gives priority to creating a society in which all women can fully demonstrate their individuality and ability as they see fit. For the empowerment of women in all fields, we have been implementing a range of initiatives, including the establishment of the Act on the Promotion of Female Participation and Career Advancement in the Workplace, work style reforms, and the expansion of childcare facilities.

Through these efforts, Japan has made great achievements. For example, the number of women in the workforce increased by 2.88 million over the last six years and the workforce participation rate of women raising children has risen from 67.7% to 76.5%, with the number of female directors in listed companies also being boosted by a factor of 2.7.

In order to give stronger momentum to these trends, we aim to revise the Act during the current session of the Diet. The revision will increase the number of companies that are mandated to formulate action plans to help employees make their work and childrearing compatible, and we aim to broaden the scope of measures taken for women’s empowerment. Specifically, the revised law will mandate companies with 101 or more regular employees to formulate action plans, while presently only companies with 301 or more regular employees are required to do so. Also, in last May, the Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field was enforced in Japan. Encouraged by this, we will further foster the empowerment of women in economic, political and all other fields by directly listening to the opinions of female entrepreneurs and women working in a range of areas.

As a precondition to foster the empowerment of women, it is essential to provide women with an environment where they can lead their life safely and with peace of mind. To this end, we will work to eliminate all forms of violence against women, including spousal violence as well as sexual crimes and violence through various initiatives, including the activities of the study group on the support to be given to private shelters for the victims of domestic violence. We will foster this from the viewpoint of the victims of such violence, who are in vulnerable positions.

This year we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women by the United Nations and the 20th anniversary of the promulgation of the Basic Act for Gender Equal Society in Japan. In this milestone year, Japan will also host the G20 summit, and on March 23 and 24 the meetings of the World Assembly for Women (WAW!) and of Women 20 (W20) will be held concurrently in Tokyo for the first time. W20 is a group that makes recommendations to G20 on the empowerment of women in the economic field.

Moreover, this year, women’s empowerment and gender equality will be discussed as important themes at the G7 Summit to be held in France as well as at the APEC meetings to be hosted by Chile. Through these international conferences and other opportunities, we will introduce Japan’s measures in an effective manner, while also making use of the results of international discussions and meetings held between Japan and various other countries.

On International Women’s Day, we will commit ourselves again to doing our best to contribute to the creation of a sustainable society where both men and women can work with comfort and lead their lives with peace of mind.