Japaner schlagen ihre Frauen?! - Gewalt in japanischen Beziehungen

Do Japanese actually beat their women or how is it with domestic violence in Japan? This is a topic that I think is present in many countries, if not in every country. And probably this is also somehow part of society, because there are always people in a society who make things a bit funny, who resort to violence, who may also be prone to temperament or character, which of course does not excuse the whole thing. Now the question is, how is the whole thing actually in Japan? Is there a lot of domestic violence in Japan or especially little? How is the situation? And I did a bit of research and would like to share my results with you today. Of course there are also a few nice graphics. The Japanese are really the masters in graphics, especially the Japanese government. The graphics here now also from a ministry, namely the Ministry for Equal Rights, of course a very modern ministry on the point. And they have listed here how many cases there were in the various consultations in Japan in 2021. And there were 122,478 cases of consultations. So that someone either went to this consultation center and sought help or that someone contacted them via the internet or by phone. This is the number of phone calls and visits that these institutions have received together. In reality, there are 74,979 different people behind it. So we see here, some have contacted more often, some have more often sought advice. These almost 75,000 people are divided into 72,979 women and 2,489 men. So much more women have sought advice in relation to domestic violence than men. Here in the graphic we see the dark bars below. These are the number of people who went to such a place. And the light gray ones are those who contacted each other by phone. And the rest is the white part of the bar at the top. What I also find interesting is the question of how many of the people who contact each other and say, yes, here I am exposed to domestic violence, have children. And there is also an interesting graphic. Here we see that of these almost 75,000 people, about 40,000, i.e. 39,931, have children. And at 14,250 the status of whether a child is there or not is not clarified. At 20,798 we know that they do not have children. So more than half, that can definitely be said, have children. And I find that particularly interesting and I think that children are also a driving factor that violence or domestic violence arises. Not because the children did something bad or something else, but because I simply believe that children, especially in the first years, are a strong burden for the relationship, because life with the parents changes from today to tomorrow, the priorities in the relationship change and of course new tasks have to be distributed. New tasks, who takes care of when, how, about the child, what time allocation and so on. And of course this leads together with the lack of sleep that you have, the hormonal problems that you have, of course to a very, very high potential for dispute and conflict. And I think that's where a lot of these domestic violence things arise, because at some point someone just goes crazy. Which of course is not an excuse for it, don't get me wrong, domestic violence is not to be excused, violence against the partner or other people in general should not be excused and is something that does not work either. Then I found something from the police, from a police station, I also found that very interesting. Here you can see that they had a total of 9042 cases and of these cases 20% were men. I found that very interesting. So it's a completely different representation than the cases of the counseling stories that we have. That means there seem to be a lot more women looking for counseling, but in the end 20% of men go to the police and say, my wife is committing domestic violence against me. So that you might have a comparison, how is the whole thing in Germany, I also looked it up. And in Germany it is probably the case that in 2021 143,000 people were victims of domestic violence. That's twice as much as in Japan and that although Japan has almost 50 million more inhabitants, so 45, 46 million, that's already awesome. That means, in terms of the rate, the problem in Germany seems to be much larger than in Japan. In Germany, it should be the case that 80% of the victims are women and 20% men. I find that very interesting, that fits a bit with the police statistics here from Japan. Because now you ask yourself, okay, referring to Japan, what are the reasons for that? And the reasons for domestic violence are, I think, very, very multi-layered and of course difficult to tell completely here in one video. But I think, especially in relation to Japan, it has to do with different things. Especially the economic situation at the moment. The economic situation is not quite as good, we have a bit of inflation now, the real wages have been falling for years. Many families have a bit of a problem, can we afford children, can we afford them? And that, of course, also causes incredible stress. Then also in Japan, the role distribution is still a relatively classic role distribution here. But it is also being softened more and more, so that men and women go to work, no longer everyone knows exactly what kind of tasks he has. And that, of course, also leads to stress and problems. Then in Japan, many large cities, in which very, very many people live by now, so millions of cities, people live together in tight spaces here. And the apartments are also relatively small, so a standard apartment. That means you live more or less together, don't always have so many retreats, usually you have a room or something where you can move back, you can do that, but it's still a bit tighter than you might know it from Germany, for example. And I could imagine that this also causes stress again and again. And then of course the situation of the children. In the past, in Japan, when a child was born, usually grandma and grandpa were still there, they also took care of the child a lot and the mother of the child also held her under her arms. This is also something that is becoming less and less in Japan, these multi-generation households. And it is often the case that grandma and grandpa don't even live where you live, because you moved to Tokyo to work or somewhere else. And that makes a lot of things a bit more difficult, of course. And raising a child alone or together is of course more exhausting and more difficult than raising it with grandma and grandpa. So I think that's also a factor that's not just small and definitely plays a role here. Especially because we see that more than half of domestic violence consultations are conducted by people who have children. That's a bit about the reasons I could imagine. Why there is this at all and of course there are also psychological factors, I would say. As I said, there are people who are rather aggressive in terms of character, who can't stay calm and who tend to violence alone in terms of character. And such people probably tend to violence against their partner. And I think there is a certain percentage in the population that is probably set up that way. And it's probably super, super hard for these people not to do that. Which, as I said, doesn't excuse in the end. Of course, you always have to say that very clearly. Let's take a look at the graph from before, where we see the course of the last few years of the consultations. And there we see a very, very clear increase over the last few years. And this increase that we see in the graph always leads to the fact that it is said in Japan, in the media, that cases would increase and the problem would get worse and worse. Now there are only a few problems with these graphs and the statistics and something you should generally pay attention to when dealing with statistics. Namely, how will these data actually be collected? In this case, we now have about 300 institutions that offer this consultation and the people who register there are considered a case in this graph. That is, only those who find this institution, by phone or just go there, are included in this statistic. What has changed a lot over the last few years, especially the last 10 to 20 years, is the way in which information is communicated and how information is obtained. That means, many, especially telephone or internet inquiries that are made there, are much easier to do in today's age than it was 10, 5 or even 20 years ago. 20 years ago, you still had to go there. It wasn't that easy to just call and search on the internet, where is such a consultation center, what phone number do they have? At that time, you couldn't make everything as easy as it is today. That's why I believe that we are also seeing an increase in this statistic, simply because more advertising is being made for it, especially in relation to women. In Japan, women are also very much focused on women, that where women go, advertising is made for domestic violence. So for this center, this consultation center, where you can also register with your phone number. That means, of course, there is more advertising. The institutions that offer consultations have become more. That means, there are more opportunities to take such consultations at all. And the information acquisition has also become much easier. And it has become easier to register for something like this. And these are effects that are never taken into account. They are never taken into account, they are never talked about. So that we would have to see an increase in the circumstances of the simplicity of taking such consultations. And I think that really makes up a large part. We can't really conclude from these statistics, in my opinion, whether there was a big increase in domestic violence cases or not, because this progress of technology and the fact that it becomes easier to register is not taken into account. There is certainly also a big dark number that we don't know anything about, because people don't register. Because the men who are attacked by women, for example, say, no, I'm not going to register now, it's already over, that's okay. Or the women are also afraid and say, no, I don't want that, I don't want to ruin the relationship, or no, I'm afraid that my husband will find out that I was there or whatever. So there is certainly a big dark number. Then another problem is of course the definition of domestic violence. Do you really mean domestic violence only if you get slapped? Or do you also mean psychological factors if someone puts you under pressure all the time or something else? And this definition also varies from country to country. Which is why the comparison I just made with Germany is not so easy to do, because the data in Germany may be raised quite differently, because the definition in Japan and Germany may be different and so on. So comparing the whole thing and so on is relatively difficult at this point. So to sum it up, these statistics are difficult and this is often the case, because you can't really read anything from them and you can't really deduce anything and you don't 100% know how many cases of domestic violence there really are now and has that increased over the last few years, yes or no. In my opinion, we can't read that out at all. I think domestic violence has always been there and always to a certain percentage. And my personal guess is that it hasn't necessarily increased, but that it's maybe moving at a relatively similar level. Maybe one year a little more, the other a little less. But I think it's relatively similar, because it also depends on the character and a certain percentage of the population tends to be more aggressive. And I don't think that changes over time, but you always have a certain percentage of such people. And that's why I personally don't think that it has changed a lot over the last few years, even if the statistics say something else. Why it says something else, why it's increasing, I just tried to put my thoughts there. In general, I think that the number of domestic violence or the cases, that there aren't that many of them in Japan now. Even if we look at the counseling cases here, that's about 75,000 people who have registered there. That's very, very few, considering 126 million inhabitants, I think personally. Especially if you then see how many are married there, have a partner or something. So that's relatively few, I would say. And what doesn't count here either is, if, for example, violence from the father is exercised against the daughter or something. That also counts as domestic violence, as far as I could see. So it's not necessarily just partner violence, but it can also be violence from the parents against the children, for example. Especially if you consider that there are still more generation households in Japan, this may also play a role that should theoretically be taken into account. So all in all, I think there are countries that have bigger problems there. Japan is actually relatively peaceful there. And you don't notice it in public either, at least. The Japanese always behave well in public. But there are definitely also fights and there are family dramas and everything. That exists, of course. So Japan is no different from Germany, I would say. But as far as domestic violence against the partner is concerned, I don't see the special feature in Japan and I don't see that it would be a lot compared to other countries. But I think there are cultural circles in which it is quite normal for religious reasons to beat the woman or something. We may know some of them. And I think these cultural circles are really a problem because it is somehow religiously legitimized to do that. And we don't find that in Japan at all. But Japan is against violence, they also try to act against it with laws. So the Japanese are good at inhibiting that and really follow my opinion on everything. And that's why I think you are relatively safe in Japan when it comes to domestic violence. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist at all. It definitely exists and we can see that here too. Now it's your turn. What do you think of such statistics? Do you also see similar problems with these statistics as I do? It's just really not always that easy. You also have to think about how you can interpret the statistics. Why can things increase or not? What could that have to do with? And of course that's not always that easy. Because statistics often just say something about the data you have collected. But how you have collected the data and what effects, whether the data collection itself or the method has changed over time and so on. Of course, you have to take that into account. Thank you for watching and I hope to see you again next time. Feel free to check out the video description. There are some links there, among other things discount links to my online courses. I would be happy if you would stop by. See you!