opinion

Suicides grow in number among students in Japan.

Last year, more than 500 students committed suicide. This year, the number of student suicides reached 229 in the period between January and June, five more than that in the same period of last year.

Especially, the number of middle school student suicides hit a record high since 2020.

According to a Japanese media outlet, the mistreatment cases confirmed in primary, middle and high schools in 2022 amounted to an all-time high of over 682 000 and the “grave situations” likely to lead to serious damage increased by about 30 percent as compared to the previous year.

That year, the number of consultations on child abuse amounted to more than 214 800.

In Japan, students have nowhere to go to appeal when they suffer ill-treatment.

A typical example is a suicide case of a middle school girl in Hyogo Prefecture whose truth was ascertained some years ago.

In order to escape from the torment inflicted on her by the extracurricular group and others, she submitted a document of appeal to her school authorities to express her distress and ask for help. But the authorities ignored it and, after her suicide, they did not try to clear up the cause of the suicide, but deliberately covered up the truth.

In February this year, another middle school girl in Nagasaki Prefecture killed herself after leaving a suicide note condemning the maltreatment being meted out in the campus.

Such tragedies are inevitable events in Japan which is devoid of love and affection intrinsic to human society and where abuse of the aged and children has become a social ill.

Relevant Japanese ministries and agencies, including the children and family agency and the Ministry of Welfare and Labour, are reportedly conducting research studies to analyse the main causes of child suicides from various angles and taking measures to grasp beforehand their suicide risks and prevent them, but it is as good as trying to deceive others by a transparent guile .