opinion

Various maltreatment and criminal cases keep increasing in different countries.

The Japanese Ministry of Welfare and Labour published last year that the number of cases of maltreatment of the disabled confirmed by local authorities at all levels in 2023 reached 3 477, or 398 more than the previous year, setting the highest record.

The number of victims of maltreatment of the disabled was 4 641 to hit a record high. Among them, the number of those victimized by employees of disabled facilities is said to be 2 356.

According to the white paper on crimes issued by the Japanese authorities last year, the cases of child abuses amounted to 2 385 in the country in 2023, or the highest record in the 2000s.

Family violence is on the increase in the UK, too.

According to the recent report released by the police authorities in Gloucestershire of the country, 244 persons were arrested by police for committing family violence in December 2024 and criminals are said to have committed physical violence, made threats and hurled outrageous insults against their lovers or family members. Among the arrested criminals, there were many women and they are generally suspected of having committed violence, murder and criminal destruction. 

Meanwhile, the police authorities reported that the number of arrests and reports related to family violence in December was the largest since July.

Gun related crimes are going on in the US, which styles itself a so-called “human rights champion”, irrespective of time and place. According to information available, 490 cases of large-scale gun violence were reported on a nationwide scale by mid-December last year.  The country defines the shooting case producing over four victims as a large-scale shooting incident. 

As gun violence is rampant ceaselessly, American publications carry such messages as “I don’t wish for freedom and equality, but I want to live free from the feeling of uneasiness that I may be dead by a random shot”.

At the beginning of this year, various kinds of criminal acts were committed in succession like an annual event. 

A truck rushed into the crowds celebrating the New Year in New Orleans at dawn on January 1, crushing many people. As a result, a dozen residents lost their lives and tens of others were injured. And two explosives were discovered from the truck. 

Such crimes constantly occur in different countries as the misanthropic ideas that “humans should be wolves against humans” and “I can be alive only when I kill you” prevail in society.

Distrust, antagonism and contradictions deepen among people as individualism forms the ideological basis of social relations, and this precisely leads to misanthropy.