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The reality of Japanese society where human rights and dignity are trampled down can be grasped by some figures.

Student suicides double in number

The Japanese government recently announced that the number of student suicides in 2025 increased as compared to the previous year, doubling that 20 years ago. According to it, the number of student suicides in 2025 was 538, nearly doubling 288 20 years ago. Among them 356 were high school students, 172 middle school students and 10 primary school pupils.

The causes of student suicides are reportedly ill-treatment, abuse and sexual assault.

Schools do not take the stand to prevent violence and maltreatment and protect children, but rather ignore and foster such behaviour.

According to data available, in 2024 alone, acts of violence at primary and middle schools increased by about 20 percent over the previous year and the number of maltreatment cases reached a record high.

A few years ago, a middle school girl in Hyogo Prefecture complained about her situation to the school and filed a document asking for help to escape from torture she had suffered at the extracurricular group and others. But the school authorities ignored it by putting the document into the paper shredder and continued to connive at the school violence. Eventually, she was compelled to commit suicide.

In February 2024 a middle school girl in Nagasaki Prefecture committed suicide, leaving a note condemning the maltreatment committed in the campus. This tragic case was revealed in April during news coverage.

That’s why Tokyo Shimbun carried the following article on the occasion of the school-opening day.

“Many schools start their new school terms tomorrow, and today is the day with the greatest danger of child suicide. If a school is the place which compels children to die, you should not let them go there.”

Extreme gender gap in equality

The World Economic Forum in its 2026 report announced that Japan’s index of sex equality takes 117th place among 145 countries, the last place among G7 (the Group of Seven).

According to it, in 2025 the present ruler took office as the first woman prime minister, but two of 18 cabinet ministers were women. The proportion of women in the Diet is about 15 percent in the House of Representatives and about 30 percent in the House of Councillors, a low level. The proportion of women officials in the economic field is 14.4 percent, a big difference from Western countries.

According to a Japanese media outlet, the gender gap in earnings in this country has hardly narrowed, and the wage of women is 30 percent less than that of men.

In Japan, more than 70 percent of the working people who eke out a scanty livelihood with low income are women.

A research institute of the country published a survey result that 200 000 women are losing jobs on maternity leave every year and that they cannot get a job again even after finishing child raising, deploring the reality of society in which the abilities and talents of women are mercilessly trampled down.

In Japan, where the social climate of labelling women as “machines giving birth to children” and despising them is rampant, it is nothing but a mirage to ensure the equality and human rights of women.

The country where young people have to give up life and commit suicide and women suffer persecution, contempt and other social inequalities, is a society with a gloomy future.