A mayor in Japan announced her maternity leave - and got the whole country talking

A mayor in Japan announced her maternity leave - and got the whole country talkingTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.This video can not be playedFigure caption, Watch: Shoko Kawata will make history as the first Japanese mayor to take maternity leaveByKurumi MoriJapan correspondent, Reporting fromYawataPublishedJust nowWhen the mayor of a small town in western Japan announced she was taking maternity leave, she expected some raised eyebrows.But the reaction was far stronger - and more divided - than Shoko Kawata had ever anticipated.The 35-year-old has been plunged into a national debate about whether elected officials should take time off for childbirth, in a country that's struggling to lift birth rates."I was so surprised because the reaction was so big," Kawata tells the BBC.Sitting on a blocky, cushioned armchair, she's flanked by two older men - her deputies - in a fifth-floor meeting room at City Hall in Yawata, a town south of Kyoto known for its shrines and cherry trees.As there is currently no legal framework for local elected officials to take time off when they have babies, Kawata won't be taking maternity leave officially. Instead, she is assigning the man on her left, Shigeto Nose, to temporarily carry out her role.Image caption, Kawata says her colleagues were supportive - but reaction online was dividedShe laid out her plans at a news conference in May, where she said she'd be off two months before and two months after her mid-September due date. She will be making history as Japan's first ever mayor to take maternity leave.Everyone at work, where the average age is 39, was supportive, she says.But that wasn't the case among members of the public, who've expressed varying views in thousands of X posts and several YouTube videos.Some say having a baby is tough and Kawata is doing her best. Japanese society has failed to design systems with pregnancy in mind, one claims.Another...