- TOKYO -- The death from starvation
of a Japanese teenager this week has prompted another round of soul-searching
over the dramatic rise in child abuse and the lack of help available for
the victims and their abusers.
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- Paramedics found the emaciated body of the 19-year-old
boy, who cannot be named because he is still a minor, at his mother's home
in Osaka on Monday morning. Though he was over 180cm (6ft) tall, he weighed
just 32kg when he died.
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- His 48-year-old mother, arrested on suspicion of child
negligence, said her son had starting refusing meals three weeks earlier
and would drink only water. She said she could not afford to take him to
hospital, even after he became seriously ill.
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- The boy's death came just weeks after official statistics
showed that cases of child abuse had risen more than 20-fold in the past
10 years, shocking a country that long believed it was immune to the levels
of abuse seen in the West.
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- Last year, there were a record 23,738 cases of child
abuse, up almost 2 per cent from 2002, according to the cabinet office.
About half involved violence and 40 per cent neglect by parents or guardians.
Child welfare centres also reported a record number of calls: 26,573 connected
with child abuse, an increase of 2,800 from 2002.
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- The local media have been reporting harrowing cases of
abuse for several years but the biggest jolt to public complacency came
earlier this year when a man and his girlfriend were accused of attempting
to starve his 15-year-old son to death.
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- The boy had been locked in a dark room and fed only once
every three days. He was regularly punched and kicked and his body was
covered in dozens of cigarette burns. Local welfare officials were criticised
for failing to help the boy, whose weight had dropped from 41kg to 24kg
when, last November, he lapsed into a coma from which he has not recovered.
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- In other cases to make the headlines, a couple were caught
trying to leave their five-month-old baby inside a coin-operated locker
while they dined out, and this week a man was arrested for allegedly leaving
his two-year-old son to die of heat stroke in a locked car while he went
gambling.
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- Public revulsion is such that neighbours and authorities
appear more inclined to report abuse, which partly explains the rise in
cases.
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- 'Awareness of child abuse is growing,' said Jun Saimura
of the Child and Family Research Institute. 'But there are still many more
cases out there that go unreported. We just do not know what the real figure
is.'
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- Saimura said more official help is needed to prevent
parents allowing their emotions to boil over into violence. 'The key is
stopping the abuse before it starts by helping parents who have not harmed
their children but feel that they are struggling to keep a grip on things,'
he said. 'There are more advice centres than there were, but they are still
overstretched and staff cannot give each case as much attention as they
would like. Unfortunately I think the figures will continue to rise for
the time being.'
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- Japan will have to brace itself for more horror stories
until it ditches its traditional reluctance to interfere in others' 'private'
lives, Masaaki Noda, a professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, warned in
a recent article titled 'The utter poverty of child welfare'.
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- Noda accused Japanese society of condoning violence against
children. 'Society itself is abusing children,' he said.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/
- international/story/0,6903,1278631,00.html
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