Opinion

Japan which is so eager to talk about the human rights situations of other countries is now being troubled by ever-growing human rights abuses at home.

Of late, murders took place in the country in succession. An employee of an old people’s home in Fukushima Prefecture was arrested on a charge of murder of an old woman, a man was hit to death with a chair by his wife in Hokkaido and a female student was killed in a hotel in Nagoya City.

Meanwhile, a woman killed her three young daughters at home in Aichi Prefecture, a woman suffocated her seven-year-old son to death by covering his mouth and nose in Kanagawa Prefecture, a man stabbed his father to death with a kitchen knife in Fukui Prefecture, a man strangled his mother in Saitama Prefecture, a man killed his grandmother in Kurashiki City of Okayama Prefecture and a 22-year-old man hit his grandparents and brother on the head with a hammer to death in Hamamatsu City of Shizuoka Prefecture.

And maltreatment of the aged, the young and the disabled does not cease.

Such victims included newcomers in a special facility for the disabled in Hokkaido and children at a nursery in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Especially, mistreatment of the aged by employees is rampant at rest homes.

According to a survey conducted by the Japanese Ministry of Welfare and Labour, ill-treatment of old people by family members and relatives amounted to 17 281 cases in 2020, or a 2.1 percent increase against the year before and a record high since 2007 when the survey of maltreatment of old people started.

Japan is just a land barren of human rights where people do not hesitate to kill even their relatives in pursuit of their own indolence, pleasure and interests, extreme misanthropy persists and homicide and cruel treatment are omnipresent.