Tokyo, 12 September, /AJMEDIA/
The government and nonprofit organizations are stepping up efforts to prevent child suicides amid a rise in the number of such cases in Japan.
The number of suicides among elementary, junior high and senior high school students has been on the rise, reaching 514 in 2022, the highest level since comparable data became available in 1980, according to the welfare ministry.
In April, the government established a countermeasures office within the Children and Families Agency. In June, it adopted an emergency program to strengthen related measures, including checking children’s mental and physical condition and concerns through tablet computers distributed to them at schools.
The agency will collect statistics from police, fire departments and schools to analyze the causes of suicides.
Between March 2020 and August this year, a 24-hour online chat-based counseling service operated by Anata no Ibasho, a nonprofit organization based in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, received about 750,000 consultations. About 70% of them were from people age 29 or younger, with most inquiries made between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.
According to the group, some children said they did not want to go to school and wanted to die after long school breaks, while others said they had a vague feeling of anxiety.
During a suicide prevention week that started Sunday, the nonprofit group is handling consultations from children with an increased number of counselors.
“We want children to know that they can feel a little better by talking with us,” said Koki Ozora, head of the group. “It’s not shameful to use a consultation service.”
“It’s necessary to establish a system to study what’s behind suicides among children,” said Toshihiko Matsumoto, head of the Department of Drug Dependence Research of the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry. He called on parents and others to listen to what their children are saying.
“It is also important to have a relationship that allows children to talk about negative things,” Matsumoto said.
