Japanese Couples' Aversion to Child Adoption Changes Only Slowly

Extended family ties are strong in Japan, and relatives often care for each other's children when the need arises. But when that is not possible - for financial or other reasons - many relatives would rather see these children in state homes than adopted by strangers.

As a result, Mayu and 25,000 others who live in Japan's 527 state-run or subsidized children's homes do not really belong to any family. They arrive at these homes because they were abandoned, neglected or abused by their biological parents. And there they live as Japan's invisible children, rarely discussed in public, and subtly discriminated against in private. In a nation where fitting in and being like everybody else is valued, growing up in a state home can make it hard to find a job, to get married, or to just be a kid...

She hates the stories she hears about how Mayu becomes so sad when other children at the home receive phone calls from relatives. The Satos have given Mayu a phone card she can use to call them. ''It makes us love her more,'' said Miss Sato, 39, who sews handbags in her home for a living, while her husband, 40, works as a supervisor in a plastics factory. Mayu and the other thousands of children in these homes are labeled in whispers on the playground as ''the children from the facilities.''

The homes have no budget for cram schools or private tutors, and so they do not spend after-school hours as the majority of their classmates do. They would have to pay for college themselves, so virtually no one goes. Typically, one day, between the ages of 18 and 20, they walk out on their own...