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Tokyo Imperial Palace at sunset. The Palace, which is the official residence of the Emperor and his family, is located in the centre of a beautiful park surrounded by water and bridges. Photo by Pierre Blaché, retrieved by Pexels, 6 October 2019
Questions about gender equality arise in Japan after a CEDAW report denounces the country’s imperial laws banning women from the throne.
At the end of January 2025, Japan interrupted its funding for the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) after a report published in October 2024 by the Committee criticised the country’s tradition of prohibiting women from succeeding to the throne. With its criticism, the CEDAW challenged the Japanese Imperial Household Law, which has been in place since 1947 and has prevented female members of the imperial family from succeeding to the throne.
In particular, the CEDAW report encourages Japan to promote gender equality in the imperial family, drawing inspiration from other countries that have reformed their succession laws and it suggests certain amendments to the Imperial Household Law that would guarantee equal rights for women and men in the royal succession, such as allowing couples to maintain different family names after marriage.
The CEDAW report enraged several members of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party, the ruling party in the country, who described the suggested reforms as an attempt to change the country’s traditions.
As a counter-argument to the report, Kitamura Toshihiro, Japan’s foreign ministry spokesman, claimed that the eligibility criteria to ascend the Japanese imperial throne should only be discussed at Japanese national level and not by the International Community as they do not concern basic human rights. He also added that the requests made by the CEDAW are regrettable (APNews, 2025).
A conservative Japanese newspaper, Yomiuri, elaborated on Toshihiro’s words, adding that by discussing the succession to the throne, the foundation of the Japanese state is also questioned, and no international entity should be allowed to interfere with the core values of a sovereign state in the name of the United Nations.
Despite the opposition of the most conservative members of the parliament, surveys show that 90 percent of the Japanese population agrees with the provisions of the report advocating in favour of the possibility for women from the imperial family to become empresses. The reason is that the current Japanese Emperor, Emperor Naruhito, has only one female child, Princess Aiko, who was born in 2001. Naruhito’s closest male heirs are his younger brother, Crown Prince Fumihito; Fumihito’s 18-year-old son, Hisahito; and the Emperor’s uncle, Prince Hitachi. Except for Hisahito, all the other male members of the imperial family are quite old, and, as such, they cannot ensure a long-lasting reign. Moreover, since 2021, younger generations have distanced themselves from certain old-fashioned traditions of the Imperial family, following Prince Fumihito’s eldest daughter’s forced estrangement from the imperial family after her marriage to a non-aristocrat person.
For this reason, within the CEDAW’s report, the International Community suggested a radical change to Japanese law. However, the Japanese parliament fiercely opposed any change of the law.
Instead, several influential politicians proposed alternative solutions that do not involve any amendment of the law and exclude women from the throne, such as the idea of allowing princesses to remain within the imperial family after marriage, thus enabling existing members of the imperial family to adopt descendants of the former ministries of the imperial family who lost their aristocratic status after the Second World War (The Times, 2025).
The ensuing discussions concerning the CEDAW report underline how gender equality is a highly debated topic in contemporary Japan, where many argue that Japanese women should receive more freedom and greater equality (Sri Lanka Guardian, 2025).
Sources and Further Findings:
Parry, R. (2025, January 30). Japan cuts funds to UN women’s body after ‘sexist succession’ report. The Times https://www.thetimes.com/world/asia/article/japan-cuts-funds-to-un-womens-body-after-sexist-succession-claim-vb23fxl67
Sri Lanka Guardian. (2025, January 31). Japan Freezes Funds to UN Women’s Body Sexist ‘Succession Report’. https://slguardian.org/japan-freezes-funds-to-un-womens-body-after-sexist-succession-report/#:~:text=Japan%20has%20announced%20it%20will,succeeding%20to%20the%20Chrysanthemum%20Throne
Yamaguchi, M. (2025, January 29). Japan to halt funding for a UN women’s rights panel over call to end male-only imperial succession AP News https://apnews.com/article/japan-un-gender-equality-women-emperor-succession-d093b3e1774493548c7b1bd183d2c516#:~:text=World%20News-,Japan%20to%20halt%20funding%20for%20a%20UN%20women’s%20rights%20panel,end%20male%2Donly%20imperial%20succession&text=TOKYO%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20Japan%20on,male%2Donly%20imperial%20succession%20rule
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