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Forced participation in religious activities to be classified as child abuse in Japan
(www.straitstimes.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2026
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If a parent tells a child that if they don't do what you want them to do some wolf in the forest that you just made up will eat them in their sleep, I would see that as clear psychological abuse. However in this case the parent may literally believe that if their child does not go to the religious activity that child will go to hell. If that's the parents' actual convinced belief then the parent should have all right to tell that to their child for the exact same reason that a parent can tell their child that they will get run over if they play in the middle of a busy road. Both things are, to the parent, true dangers that they are conveying to their child.
I can't see how you can ban telling your kids of dangers that you truly believe yourself to be dangers. And for the career path part. If my religion says that job X is immoral I can't tell that to my kid? But if my non religious belief is that job X is immoral then I can tell my kid? This is the same as above. It's singling our religion and putting harsher standards on the religious than the secular. I understand that Japan has had problems with crazy cults recently but this clearly is putting restrictions on religious freedom.
Their perception isn't reality. A parent can literally believe whatever they want and we don't allow them to physically harm their child for it. This is a simple extension into the psychological.
"The exact same reason?" That reason is that getting run over is a real, provable danger.
Intent is not what determines whether something is abuse.
Sincere belief in some shit you have no evidence for does not justify any action at all, ever. It's that simple.
There should be no religious exemption for child abuse
The key distinction between these 2 examples is the former is a subjective, intangible belief; and the latter is an objectively tangible, disprovable possibility.
A delusion should never be permitted as justification for harming anyone, especially of a child in one’s care.
Brother, they've been having problems with crazy cults since the 80's.
This is a good comment and it forced me to really think about this. So here's my try:
Firstly, regarding the "social" position of different beliefs. The danger of playing on the road is as close to objective and universally accepted as it gets (that's why the state made laws against playing on the road); the belief of going to hell for whatever is usually instilled by a particular institution/community, which is aware that their belief is not accepted as true or relevant by many, including the state (otherwise, the state would make laws in accordance with that belief).
Secondly, the parent might also have delusions and hallucinate nonexistent dangers, thereby harming the child similarly as the religious cases, just limited to an individual situation. In such cases the parent is also completely convinced of the danger, just like how a religious parent is convinced of the danger of hell and practically everyone of the danger of playing on the road. But the state can't view all these beliefs as the same. In the case of insanity, it would be expected for the parent to lose custody of the child, so it seems logical to punish the same outcome with different motivation, i.e. religious. Or do we permit ridiculous and possibly harmful belief as long as it is religious, i.e. communal?
I do however agree that the religious limiting of career paths shouldn't be focused on. I think that a law against such limiting should be general, assumimg it is tenable at all. I am not aware of the exact situation in Japan, how the Unification Church affects people's beliefs regarding career paths, which that might help understand this law better.
In that case, shouldn't the law be against causing children significant and unnessasary distress/anxiety/fear? Like, if I were to start the Church of Street Safety and say that running into oncoming traffic might get you sent to Traffic Hell, which is "bad", should that be considered child psychological abuse? Like you said, the motivations aren't the important part, the actions/outcome are, so the religion (or lack thereof for that matter) shouldn't be the deciding factor, the damage caused by the parents should be.
I think so, yes, that sounds like a better approach.
I guess the problem in Japan's case is that there's a particular cult that's been causing a whole lot of harm, so through the law they're aiming at that type of organisations specifically.
I'd say that this is actually a pretty good comparison. Like, I wouldn't say parents should be banned in discussing concepts like hell just like they shouldn't be banned from discussing people being hit by a car. At the same time, there is a huge difference between talking about death or suffering in a kid-safe way and scaring them - that should be where the line is drawn. If a parent tells their child that running into the road will have their body painfully crushed and smeared down the road, it doesn't matter if its secular, its psychological abuse, and conversely, if a parent says their child needs to go to services to protect them from hell, its not inherently abuse just because its religious. Ultimately, religion is just a collection of ideas/beliefs, and they shouldn't have more or less privilege based on the label applied to them.
You raise some good points and I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted.
I think, while it’s been exaggerated, getting eaten by a wolf/coyote/dingo/bear/whatever in the woods/your sleep etc are based on things that have happened or are seen at least as a possibility.
I feel the same can’t be said about people’s interpretations of the contents of one book, edited many times over the centuries to suit whichever rulers agenda, and based on ideals from the late Stone Age to be any basis for modern life.
I support religious freedom for adults when it’s their own choice. I can’t support it when it’s inflicted on impressionable minds when the alternatives aren’t discussed.