The Japanese government will submit a bill to allow women to assume the imperial throne in the parliamentary session that starting in January. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said that a 15 members team had been established to work on the legislation, which would mirror a recent report by a special panel on the issue. ‘We are making preparations to hand in the bill’, he told to the reporters. The panel last week recommended revising Japanese law to give an emperor's first-born child of either sex the right to head the world's oldest hereditary monarchy. The revision is expected to make Crown Princess Masako and Crown Prince Naruhito’s only child Aiko - who celebrated her 4th birthday Thursday - second in line to the throne, behind her father. Under the 1947 Imperial Household Law, only males can succeed to the throne. However, no boy was born to the family since the 1960s.

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