The head of the personnel bureau of the Ministry of Defense of Japan Kazuhito Machida said that it is necessary to review the ban on tattoos in the army. Officials say the rule interferes with the draft.
The BBC writes about it.
Tattoos have been banned in Japan for a long time. The Japanese associate them with the yakuza mafia criminal gangs, whose members often identify each other by colorful skin designs.
But officials increasingly emphasize that young Japanese are getting tattoos to show off their own style, not to identify with the yakuza.
Japanʼs Self-Defense Forces are 10 percent short of troops, officials said, and fell short of their draft target last April.
"Rejecting applicants just because they have tattoos creates a problem with strengthening the workforce," a lawmaker from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party Masahisa Sato recently noted.
In this context, the head of the personnel bureau of the Ministry of Defense Kazuhito Machida drew attention to the decline in the birth rate in Japan. Last year, the country of 125 million had fewer than 800 000 newborns, compared to more than two million in the 1970s.
This, in particular, caused a problem with the recruitment of the military. After World War II, Japanʼs constitution allows the use of military force only for self-defense. However, the country has increased its military spending in recent years. There is also concern in Japanese society due to growing tensions in the Asia-Pacific region and Russiaʼs war in Ukraine.
- The tattoo taboo was reinforced in post-war Japan when Yakuza films became popular in the country in the 1970s and 1980s. It was then that they became synonymous with a criminal lifestyle. Fear and suspicion became so widespread that people with tattoos were banned from some beaches, as well as some onsen and public baths. But according to anthropologists, more and more young people choose tattoos solely to demonstrate their own style and individuality.