Interview④ (Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse(APCA))

APCA is the first private organization in Japan established to prevent child abuse. We would like to thank APCA and the people in charge of the organization for their correspondence.

About APCA

The organization was established in March 1990 with the cooperation of Kansai Television and the Osaka Prefectural Government, after many people came together in response to the great impact of the documentary program “Parents and Children in a Locked Room” produced by Kansai Television. The staff of the association is basically volunteers, and is made up of professionals (in fields such as psychology, welfare, childcare/education, and medicine/health) who have been involved in abuse-related support fields. With the goal of building a support system that includes supporters as well as the entire society as a link, the association conducts a variety of activities, including not only consultation on problems through telephone calls, but also lectures at high schools, projects to support supporters in the community, and projects commissioned by the government.

Reality of Child Abuse

First, the person in charge says that child abuse tends to occur in poor families (especially in relation to neglect), in societies that pursue personal responsibility for guardians and family members and have few social support systems, and in societies that disregard women and mothers (societies with gender discrimination and gender gap issues). In other words, isolation due to various factors leads to child abuse.

In order to detect many of these cases of child abuse, it is important for professionals working with children to learn to recognize the problem of abuse and for the general public to report it when they witness it, and since Japanese society began to become more aware of these issues, the number of cases of abuse detected has increased. However, there are many types of child abuse itself that are difficult to detect, and in a society that disregards the rights of children, such as denial by the children themselves, moderate or mild abuse is easily disregarded, according to the person in charge. Therefore, it is fundamental for society as a whole to keep a close watch on children and families, and to provide support to those families who need it. It is also important to prevent abuse before it occurs, and it is necessary to create an environment in which everyone can easily raise children. The person in charge of the interview said, “Our association promotes child abuse prevention education because we believe it is necessary in the long term for children themselves to know what abuse is and to learn whether they themselves are valued and whether their rights are guaranteed.”

What each of us can do

When we hear about solving child abuse, it is hard to imagine what each of us can do from an everyday level. However, “child abuse” is not limited to major incidents or serious abuse; there are a surprisingly large number of parents in their immediate families who think they may have committed abuse. For example, there are parents who are annoyed by the cold stares of those around them when they put crying infants or strollers on crowded trains or buses, or those who live in condominiums or apartment complexes and are blamed by their neighbors for crying children, and it is said that there are gaps in the ease of raising children in different areas. In order to prevent abuse, it is important to first turn a kind gaze toward parents who are raising children and create an environment conducive to child raising. It is also important for junior and high school students to learn about child abuse by offering their seats to those with children on trains and buses, helping to put strollers on the seats, volunteering at daycare centers, and so on. It is also important to question not only the abuse of children, but also women, the elderly, the disabled, and all violent and discriminatory values and cultures. In addition, the person in charge of the interview said, “It's not just about the violence that is being sent out on social networking sites. Just be careful about what you say about violence on social networking sites, because you can get a lot of slanderous accusations. Unfortunately, violence, including war, is often glamorized. In addition, please support them by helping them understand domestic violence, which is closely related to the abuse issue, asking them if there are any perpetrators or victims of dating violence around them, and if they are friends, telling them where to go for public contact information.”

To the generation of future parents

The person in charge of the interview stated. As an association that has conducted abuse prevention classes at high schools, we hope that high school students, as adults and members of society in the near future, and as the generation that may become parents, will be aware that abuse is not something that happens to others, but is a familiar social problem, and that society as a whole will raise children, not only their own children, and that they will play a role in creating a society in which it is easy to raise children. I hope that we, as adults, will not forget to be aware of this. Child raising is not something that can be done by one person or completed within the home, but is something that is done with the help of society. And not only in raising children, but also whether we can help each other and compensate for each other's weaknesses on a daily basis, whether we can show our weaknesses to others and ask for their help, and so on. This is what we are trying to realize in our vision “A society where children grow up together, recognize each other, and compensate for each other to prevent child abuse,” and in our mission “Connecting society, children, and families.”