the child is registered under the new parent's koseki, the child has to be under the age of 6. There are two main places to apply to for adoption. The first is a religious adoption agency. These private agencies are allowed to charge a fee for the adoption process, as opposed to the process being free through the government. The other is the local Child Guidance Center, which is a government agency. In 2010, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child noted that the CGC staff did not seem to be properly trained to work in child services and did not seem to be promoting adoption. In 2016, the Child Welfare Act was revised to explicitly state that the CGCs were responsible for the adoption process. Furthermore, when adopting through government agencies, prospective parents must be Japanese married couples. Surrogacy and Reproductive Technology Surrogacy Although there is no law banning birth by surrogacy in Japan, there is a strong stigma against it. "Japan's first surrogate birth was announced in 2001 and led to the Health Ministry calling for an immediate ban. Although this was blocked, the Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology successfully managed to prohibit [its members from conducting] surrogate births in 2003, citing the mental and physical burden to the surrogate mother and the fear that surrogacy could confuse familial relationships." As a result, Japanese couples tend to seek surrogate mothers abroad. However, "current law in Japan states that the mother of a child is the one who gives birth to the baby," and that children must be registered in the koseki (family registry) to be a Japanese citizen. Since the surrogate is not Japanese and the father is not the surrogate's legal husband, the legal status of children born via surrogates may end up in question. A famous case of this issue is that of the Japanese actress, Aki Mukai, who had twin sons through an American surrogate mother in 2003. The boys only had American citizenship, which resulted in a series of court cases that ultimately culminated in the Supreme Court concluding that surrogacy was ethically wrong and Mukai had to adopt her sons to be considered their mother. In 2005, a Tokyo-based sperm bank called Excellence began offering surrogate mothers and assisted conception services in South Korea to Japanese couples. At the time, it was the only Japanese company known to provide such a