Confucianism, which spread to Japan from China and Korea more than a thousand years ago, emphasises the importance of a child's relationship with its birth parents and reverence for ancestry
When women give birth they must enter the child's name on their family register, a powerful incentive for single women to end a pregnancy or even abandon a newborn rather than risk its being discovered by a potential employer or future husband
For much of Japan's history, adoption has therefore remained within the extended family, with childless couples often taking in a nephew or other relative to carry on their family name or business, rather than because the child was in need of care.

"Special adoption," of needy non-relatives was not introduced until 1989 and only a few hundred cases are approved each year, compared with three to four thousand in the United Kingdom, which has around half Japan's population.

Quick, someone alert Angelina Jolie!