1)Women Diet members

The ratio of women members in the Diet has been increasing, and has exceeded 10 percent in the House of Councilors since July 1989. The number and ratio of women Diet members among the total were 24 and 4.8 percent in the House of Representatives and 36 and 14.3 percent in the House of Councilors, making the total for both Houses to 60 and 8.0 percent as of March 1998. However, these rates are still at low levels in view of the international standards, and some political parties have therefore been considering to introduce a quota-system for women candidates.

Moreover, as one of the memorial events of the 50th year anniversary of the House of Councilors, the "Woman Diet" was held on October 4, 1997 for qualified women voters throughout Japan. The 252 one-day-members of the Diet who were determined by lot out of 1,609 applicants discussed various problems ranging from issues familiar to their daily lives to particulars of the national administration, and issued a "Declaration of the Woman Diet" at the end.

2)Appointment of women ministers

Five women ministers and seven women parliamentary vice-ministers were appointed after the presentation of third periodic report in October 1993. (As of May 1998.)

3)Women members of prefectural assembly, administrative heads, and others

4)Women in the judiciary

The first women justice of the Supreme Court served from February 1994 to September 1997. There are six women president of court as of April 1997. The proportions of women who passed in the National Bar Examination, and who became court judges or public prosecutors have been all increasing in recent years. (Refer to the Statistics)

5) Women government workers

As reported in the third periodic report, restrictions against women in the application for any type of service (for regular service employee) had been abolished since FY 1989. In every fiscal year, the Government promotes government personnel management which pertinently complies with the promotion of gender equality in every field of society (the request of the times) in the "Administrative Policy on the Personnel Management" determined by the Director General of the Management and Coordination Agency after the resolution of the personnel managers' meeting, which turns out to be the fundamental policy for promoting gender equality in the personnel management of every government authority. The proportion of women in the managerial class still remains low, but both the number and proportion of women of the total of government workers and managerial class have been continuously increasing.

However, the first women administrative vice-minister in Japan was appointed at the Ministry of Labour in July 1997. Also, a woman Director General of Agency for Cultural Affairs (from July 25, 1994 to January 19, 1996) and Director General of Social Insurance Agency (from September 1st, 1994 to July 1st, 1996) were appointed.

6) Women local government workers

The number and proportion of women to the total number of workers in local government is increasing, and the number and proportion of women workers in management level is in the general trend of increase.

7)Active recruitment of women police officers and expansion of job areas

The police force is actively recruiting women police officers and expanding job categories according to increasingly complicated and diversified police-related matters.

Every prefectural police force has had women police officers since FY 1994, and 7,800 women police officers were in service on April 1st, 1997 (an increase of approximately 630 compared to the previous year, and an increase of approximately 2,400 compared to FY 1993).

The job categories for women police officers are also becoming more diversified to include various fields such as criminal investigation, identification, information analysis, escorting and protection of VIPs and security as well as traffic control, juvenile guidance, detention of women suspects and public relations.

The police force is diversifying job categories where women can play an active role independently. Particularly, as a measure of dealing with sexual crimes against women, in order to alleviate the mental burden on victims of the crimes, many women police officers were assigned to the sections in charge of investigation, police boxes and counseling rooms, etc.

The first women head of a police station was appointed in the Metropolitan Police Department in February 1994 and the first women Division Director was appointed in Shiga Prefectural Police Headquarters in August 1994, representing the progress in the appointment of women to higher managerial posts.