Japan: "What I am today, I owe it to the baby box"

"I was wearing some of these clothes when they left me there," the 18-year-old told AFP.

Japan: "What I am today, I owe it to the baby box"

"I was wearing some of these clothes when they left me there," the 18-year-old told AFP. "These are the oldest memories of my childhood, I kept them preciously".

Koichi became the first person to testify publicly this year after being abandoned in the baby box at Jikei Catholic Hospital in Kumamoto (southwest Japan), which has been open since 2007.

His speeches revived the debate on this device inspired by a German experience, presented by its supporters as a last resort for marginalized women and parents who do not want or cannot resort to adoption, but which for its opponents encourages the abandonment of children.

For Koichi, however, the question does not arise.

The day he was abandoned "was the beginning of a new chapter in my life", explains this sociology and politics student. "What I am today, I owe it to the baby box".

According to the hospital, the device helps prevent child abuse and even death. In 15 years, 161 babies and young children have been entrusted to the establishment.

- "Engraved in my memory" -

Shortly after being abandoned, Koichi was taken in by Yoshimitsu and Midori Miyatsu in rural Kumamoto Prefecture. Biological parents of five children, they have also welcomed more than thirty others.

"I thought an angel had been sent to us," Yoshimitsu, 65, recalled of Koichi's arrival.

The couple have long been supporters of Jikei's program, having witnessed the hardships faced by other foster children: broken families, delinquency, unwanted pregnancies, some even becoming homeless.

"One day a young woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy and practically without money came to ask for our help on a freezing day in December...So we knew that there were children who needed" this baby box , says Midori, 63.

Koichi, among the first children abandoned in Jikei, did not carry any object indicating his name, age or place of birth.

"I have no memory of when I was dropped off...but the image of the box door is etched in a corner of my memory," he says.

About a year later, he was shown a picture of this door in a newspaper. "He told us, 'I was there. That's when we knew he remembered it,'" Midori explains.

- "Tell him that I have grown up" -

The town's mayor gave him a name, and his age was established by DNA testing. The first times were difficult, the child regularly having nightmares and constantly sucking his thumb.

But the couple never hid their past from her, and over time, the trauma faded. Years later, Koichi learned more about his origins, including discovering that his biological mother had been killed in a car accident, five months after he was born.

He keeps a photo of her, hair curly like his, and says he feels like she's "watching over (him) from heaven."

"I would like to tell her that I have grown up, that I am now 18 years old, and that I want to live the life which for her was interrupted too soon".

Each month, Koichi distributes meals for underprivileged children at a local church, and says he wants to work with children in the future, and maybe become a foster parent too.

He hopes that making his voice heard will inspire other abandoned children to tell their own story, saying they have overcome "complicated feelings".

"But even if a few pieces are missing, it doesn't fundamentally change who I am today. I don't think my identity should be dictated by the early years of my life," he thinks.

"Life after the baby box is much more important."