“Of course, we don’t think it’s a very good thing to have junior high school children running around having sex. Tokyo wants to make sure it gives them every chance to have a wholesome upbringing, but in the end, sex is a very private matter and, despite our responsibilities, it’s not really an area we should be encroaching on.”
He has a point. I would be more interested in how, exactly, you would prosecute.
Teenagers at junior high and high school in Tokyo have been responsible for rapidly escalating rates of abortion and sexually transmitted diseases in recent years.
Well, this is bad. But I’m not sure that writing “teen sex is prohibited” on a piece of paper would really help. If the government wants to do something, maybe they could, for example, put pressure on the makers of television shows not to depict junior high school students in love relationships that go beyond simple “like”.
Of course, fundamentally, I’m against even that. It’s not the TV’s job to raise kids, just like it’s not the police’s, or the government’s. What people should really be looking at is how to enable parents to better do their jobs, rather than taking the responsibility away from the parents. Maybe this would be by enforcing a shorter work week, to allow parents to be home more. Or by working to provide housing closer to the businesses where people work–those two and three hour train commutes are no good for families. While a law prohibiting teen sex would probably shame Japanese parents into keeping an eye out, ultimately they can’t really do anything if they don’t have the time to do so.
Essentially, I think laws like this are far too simplistic. There are reasons for why problems crop up, and those reasons should be looked into. This goes for any problem, anywhere in the world. You can’t outlaw the effect, ignore the cause and expect to see results.
[Note: I don’t know if the first paragraph of the article is in error, or if Governor Ishihara misread the law.]