Jehovah's Witnesses' Japanese corporation and member families sued the state over 2022 guidelines on religion-related child abuse

The Japanese corporation of Jehovah's Witnesses and believing parents from seven prefectures have sued the Japanese state in the Tokyo District Court. They want the court to strike down government guidelines that treat certain religiously motivated acts toward children as child abuse, including refusing a blood transfusion that a doctor judges necessary. The suit was filed in March 2025. Jiji Press reported on 12 April 2026 that it had come to light the previous day.^[1]

The guidelines are a question-and-answer document that the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare sent to local governments across Japan in December 2022.^[1] According to Jiji, the plaintiffs argue that the guidelines violate freedom of religion and are unconstitutional, and they seek a declaration that the guidelines are invalid and ¥2 million in damages per person.^[1] Jiji describes it as believed to be the first lawsuit to challenge the guidelines' constitutionality, as does the English version of the same wire story carried by The Japan Times.^[1][2] The Asahi Shimbun, citing the government agency that now oversees the guidelines, reports that it is the first state-compensation suit to do so.^[3]

These are claims made in a lawsuit. The state was contesting them in full, Jiji reported in April 2026.^[1]

Who is suing, and for what

Jiji, citing the court record, says the plaintiffs are the Japanese branch of the US-headquartered religious group, based in Ebina, Kanagawa Prefecture, and believing married couples with children, living in seven of Japan's prefectures.^[1] A "branch," in Jehovah's Witness usage, is the national office that oversees the organisation's work in a country. The Asahi Shimbun names the corporate plaintiff as the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (ものみの塔聖書冊子協会), which it describes as a legal corporation set up by the religious group, also in Ebina.^[3]

The reports differ on the number of plaintiffs. Jiji reports that the suit was brought by "Jehovah's Witnesses" and 20 believers; the English version in The Japan Times says "around 20 followers."^[1][2] The Asahi Shimbun describes the individual plaintiffs only as married believers with children living in seven prefectures, and gives no number.^[3] None of the reports names an individual plaintiff.

The outlets also describe the relief sought in different terms. Jiji reports that the plaintiffs ask for a declaration of invalidity (無効確認, a court ruling that a measure has no legal effect) and ¥2 million in damages per person, among other things.^[1] The Asahi Shimbun reports that they seek the abolition (撤廃) of the guidelines and damages. It calls the case a 国賠訴訟 (kokubai soshō, short for "state-compensation suit"): a claim asking the state to pay for harm caused by the acts of public officials.^[3]

What the guidelines say

The document is titled "Q&A on Responding to Child Abuse and Related Matters Connected with Religious Belief." It was issued on 27 December 2022 as a notice from the director-general of the ministry's Children and Families Bureau.^[4] The ministry's official summary states its basic position:

The summary says "religion or the like" includes practices that stoke personal anxiety through spiritual claims or other methods that are hard to verify rationally.^[4]

Temporary protective custody (一時保護, ichiji hogo) means a child guidance centre, the public child-welfare office for an area, removes a child from home for a period to keep the child safe. Jiji summarises the guidelines as asking child guidance centres to take children into such custody where acts amounting to abuse occur, even when religious belief lies behind them.^[1]

The summary also says the examples are not to be applied "mechanically." Whether something is abuse is to be judged as a whole, in light of the circumstances of the child and the guardians and their living environment, and "from the child's side." It adds that conduct can amount to abuse even where each individual act is minor.^[4]

The examples fall under four headings. Among them:^[4]

• Physical abuse: forcing a child to take part in religious activities through corporal punishment; hitting a child, or striking the child with a whip, for reasons such as not listening attentively during a religious event.
• Psychological abuse: frightening or threatening a child with words, images or printed material; calling the child's friends "enemies" or "Satan"; banning all fairy tales, anime, manga and games, or allowing only those a religious group approves; refusing, without reasonable grounds and on doctrinal grounds, to let a child go on to high school.
• Neglect, meaning a failure to provide the care a child needs, which Jiji glosses as "abandoning child-rearing" (育児放棄):^[1] not taking a child to a medical institution, or not letting a child receive treatment a doctor judges necessary, "such as blood transfusion"; restricting a child's participation in school events without regard to the child's upbringing and education.
• Sexual abuse: showing or telling a child sexual material unsuited to its age "in the name of education"; forcing a child to describe its sexual experiences to staff of a religious group.

The summary says that people other than parents who direct or encourage such acts may be criminally liable alongside the parents, for offences such as assault or abandonment by a person responsible for a child's care, and that such cases should be taken to the police "without hesitation."^[4] It also warns that guidance given to parents may lead them to escalate, or lead a religious group to step up pressure on the family. In such cases, it says, the child's safety comes first, and protective custody should be used "without hesitation" where necessary.^[4]

Jiji and The Asahi Shimbun both single out the whipping and blood-transfusion examples in their reports.^[1][3]

Why the guidelines were written

Jiji reports that the guidelines were drawn up in response to the shooting of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.^[1] The Japan Times version adds that Abe was fatally shot in July 2022 by a suspect whose mother was a follower of the Unification Church, and that the gunman believed Abe had ties to the church, against which he held a grudge.^[2]

The Asahi Shimbun reports that after the shooting, "religious second-generation" people (those raised by parents who belong to a religion), including people raised in the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, the former Unification Church, spoke out about abuse they had suffered. The ministry drew up the guidelines that December.^[3]

The plaintiffs' case

According to Jiji, the Witnesses' organisation met government officials in 2023 over the refusal of blood transfusions and other matters and asked for the guidelines to be revised. It then filed suit in March 2025.^[1] The Japan Times English version of the same report says it was "followers" of the group who met the officials.^[2]

Jiji reports that the complaint makes these arguments:^[1]

• The guidelines were drawn up without seeking the views of independent experts or the general public, and so lack transparency.
• They label parents' religious activities as potential child abuse.
• Booklets based on the guidelines have been handed out at elementary and junior high schools in various parts of the country, and believers have suffered serious discrimination as a result.
• For these reasons, the guidelines violate the constitutional guarantees of equality under the law and freedom of religion.

The Asahi Shimbun's account of the complaint is similar in substance. It reports that the complaint says the guidelines were made without a public-comment procedure (意見公募, the process by which the government invites the public to comment on a draft rule). It also reports the complaint's claim that publicising the guidelines stamped the plaintiff parents as "persons suspected of religious abuse" and gave the impression that the organisation encourages child abuse. The complaint, it says, argues that this infringes the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution.^[3]

The state's response

Jiji reports that the state's lawyers answer that no rule requires public comment or expert review before a notice of this kind is issued. They say the notice is technical advice to local governments (技術的な助言, gijutsuteki na jogen, a legal category of non-binding guidance from the national government), and that the examples exist to help judge objectively whether conduct amounts to child abuse. They also say the guidelines do not treat conduct differently depending on whether it is based on religious belief.^[1]

The Asahi Shimbun reports the same point about public comment. It quotes the state as saying that it does not "treat [cases] differently" depending on whether religious belief is involved, and reports the state's argument that the notice cannot be said to infringe the plaintiffs' rights.^[3]

The Children and Families Agency, which now administers the guidelines, gave both outlets the same answer, which Jiji attributes to its abuse-prevention division: "As this is a matter in litigation, we will refrain from commenting."^[1][3]

Statement by three second-generation advocacy groups

Three advocacy groups for people raised in religious households, Snowdrop, the Religious 2nd-Generation Issues Network and the JW Child Abuse Victims Archive, issued a joint statement dated 14 April 2026 criticising the suit. The Christian newspaper Kirishin reported it. The statement cites Jiji's report as the source of the news that the suit had been filed.^[5]

The statement argues that the guidelines are "not aimed at any particular group." In its account, they set out "the standards of a state governed by law," under which whipping (physical abuse) and refusing a transfusion (neglect) count as child abuse under Japan's Child Abuse Prevention Act, whatever the religious background.^[5]

The statement says that in March 2023 the government asked the organisation to make the guidelines known to its members. It says the organisation declined, stating that publicising them was "the role of the government and administrative bodies, not something for a religious organisation to do." It calls the lawsuit "an attempt not only to neglect informing believers but to invalidate the guidelines themselves."^[5]

The groups say the suit amounts to arguing that whipping children and refusing transfusions should be tolerated if religious belief is used as a shield. They describe whipping, transfusion refusal and forced participation in religious activity as "organised unlawful acts" carried out by believers "under the organisation's direction." They ask the government to publicise the guidelines further and to investigate what they call decades of widespread child abuse and human-rights violations inside the organisation. If necessary, they ask it to use its powers under the Religious Corporations Act: the power to put questions to a religious corporation and to ask a court to order its dissolution.^[5]

Kirishin's report carries no response from the organisation to the statement.^[5]

The blood-components change

In a "Questions From Readers" article titled "How Do Jehovah's Witnesses Show Respect for Life?", the Governing Body, the Witnesses' central leadership, says that each Christian "must make his own personal decision" about the use of the four primary components of whole blood (red cells, white cells, plasma and platelets) derived from another person's blood. The same article says Jehovah's Witnesses "do not accept transfusions of whole blood."^[6] The article was released on 18 September 2026 alongside a video update in which the Governing Body announced "an adjustment to our position on blood components."^[7] JW Files reported that change separately. The reports on the Tokyo suit described here date from April 2026, before it was announced.

Where the case stood in April

Jiji reported in April 2026 that, after a first oral hearing in July 2025, the case had continued in proceedings closed to the public.^[1] An oral hearing (口頭弁論, kōtō benron) is the public session in which each side presents its arguments to the court. The Asahi Shimbun reported on 21 April 2026 that the state intended to fight the suit.^[3]

Asked about the case by The Asahi Shimbun, the plaintiffs' lawyer said: "The plaintiffs reject every form of child abuse and are seeking relief from the court."^[3]

About the sourcing of this article

Japanese courts publish no electronic case docket. Civil case records are inspected in person at the courthouse, here the Tokyo District Court, under Article 91 of Japan's Code of Civil Procedure.

This account therefore rests on Jiji Press's report, which cites the court record for the identity of the plaintiffs, and its English version carried by The Japan Times; on the separate reporting of The Asahi Shimbun; on the ministry's own published summary of the guidelines; and, for the September change on blood components, on the organisation's own published statements. It does not rest on the court file. The figures, dates and claims set out above are as those sources describe them.