Japan’s Children and Families Agency will examine ways to have more pregnant women under difficult conditions, such as abuse and poverty, benefit from the agency’s program to provide them with a safe childbirth environment. Assistance seekers include youngsters who ran away from home due to bad relations with their parents, or other guardians, and those fleeing their partners’ violence, agency officials said.
Japan will allow major functions of the My Number personal identification card to be available on iPhone smartphones from June 24, digital transformation minister Masaaki Taira said Friday. Users of Apple Inc.’s smartphones will be able to access the Mynaportal website for My Number-related administrative tasks and get copies of their public certificates at local convenience stores via iPhone-based biometric authentication. There will be no need to carry a physical My Number card.
Some 80 pct of needy pregnant and nursing women in Japan are struggling to secure funds to cover living expenses, according to a survey conducted by Save the Children Japan. By employment status, 49.2 pct were jobless, and 24.8 pct were part-timers. Asked about their financial conditions, 47.6 pct said they were barely making ends meet. Meanwhile, a majority stated that they were short of money, with 29.9 pct saying they are dipping into savings and 21.7 pct saying they are relying on borrowings.
NHK reported on May 28th that the city of Higashiosaka announced that it has decided to revoke the designation of two offices operated by a nonprofit organization (NPO) providing employment support for people with disabilities, after determining that they fraudulently received over 120 million yen in subsidies by falsifying service provision records. The city is also demanding repayment of the funds. One of the offices responded to inquiries by stating that it plans to contest the decision in court and will seek a reassessment of the penalties.
NHK has reported that the city of Higashiosaka announced that it has decided to revoke the designation of two offices operated by a nonprofit organization (NPO) providing employment support for people with disabilities, after determining that they fraudulently received over 120 million yen in subsidies by falsifying service provision records. The city is also demanding repayment of the funds. One of the offices responded to inquiries by stating that it plans to contest the decision in court and will seek a reassessment of the penalties.
It was learned on the 25th through interviews with involved parties that the Japan Pension Service (JPS) secretly re-evaluated over a thousand cases that had previously been denied disability pension benefits in fiscal 2024, as part of an internal review following media reports. Normally, such cases are not re-evaluated, making this an unusual move.
It was learned on the 25th through interviews with involved parties that the Japan Pension Service (JPS) secretly re-evaluated over a thousand cases that had previously been denied disability pension benefits in fiscal 2024, as part of an internal review following media reports. Normally, such cases are not re-evaluated, making this an unusual move.
Japan’s Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Takamaro Fukuoka announced that he will investigate the actual situation and make the results public in one month. The incident began with a Kyodo News report dated April 28th. The report stated that the number of people who were denied disability pensions in fiscal 2024 is more than double the number in fiscal 2023, reaching about 30,000. It has also been mentioned that the requirements have become stricter since the director of the Japan Pension Service Disability Pension Center was replaced in October 2023, and that centre staff may be inducing doctors to deny pensions.
Reports that the number of people who applied for disability pensions and were denied in fiscal year 2024 are causing a stir. For disabled people with low incomes, whether they can receive the pension or not is a matter of life and death, and several disability groups have issued statements expressing doubts and concerns, such as “this cannot be overlooked” and “this will greatly shake trust in the system.” The issue has also been raised in the Diet, and Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Takamaro Fukuoka announced that he will investigate the actual situation and make the results public in one month. The incident began with a Kyodo News report dated April 28th. The report stated that the number of people who were denied disability pensions in fiscal 2024 is more than double the number in fiscal 2023, reaching about 30,000. It has also been mentioned that the requirements have become stricter since the director of the Japan Pension Service Disability Pension Center was replaced in October 2023, and that center staff may be inducing doctors to deny pensions.
A woman, aged in her 80s, lives in the city of Suzuka in western Japan’s Mie Prefecture. She has an artificial bladder due to cancer and so is unable to work. Her son, with whom she lived before he passed away, suffered from an intractable disease and required canes to walk. Both had disability certificates. The woman had been receiving welfare since August 2019, but in September 2022, the payments abruptly stopped. Subsequent district and high court rulings accepted the mother and son’s claims, and ordered the city to rescind its decision, although the city appealed the ruling.
Barrier Free Japan