RIGHTS-JAPAN: Child Abuse by Parents Shocks Society

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Aug 21 2000 (IPS) - His mother says her nine-year-old son Ryuji was not listening while she was trying to help him with his math schoolwork, so she hit him. Then her boyfriend did the same.

But the beating went on for two days. They rushed him to the hospital when he finally fell unconscious, but by then it was too late.

When news of Ryuji’s death in the hands of his own mother and her boyfriend became public this month, the Japanese public was aghast.

But lawyers and commentators say physical violence against children by their own parents or guardians is not really new in Japan. They concede, however, that it has only been recently that such behaviour is being seen as abuse.

“Hitting children has always been considered a form of discipline in Japan. It is only during the past year that such attitudes (have begun) to be challenged,” says lawyer Fumiaki Isogai, who has been working on such cases for the past 10 years.

“The biggest problem is setting child abuse as a human rights issue,” he says. “For many people in Japan, children ‘belong’ to the parents and this (thinking) allows the parents to do what they like with their children.”

In early August, the National Police Agency released a report showing that in the first half of this year alone, there have already been 94 documented child abuse cases nationwide. This is a more than 50 percent increase from the figure posted during the same period in 1999.

Of the cases recorded from January to June this year, 20 were fatal. Fifty-two of the total involved victims younger than six years, including 15 who were under the age of one year.

According to the police, there were 103 people suspected of child abuse who were either arrested or had papers regarding them sent to prosecutors during the same period. Of this number, 31 were mothers while 30 were fathers.

The police said most of the assailants explained their violent behaviour toward the youngsters by either saying that they wanted to teach their children a lesson, or claiming that they had wanted to protect their offspring from doing something incorrectly.

In one case that was cited in the National Police Agency report, a two-year-old boy died after his mother pushed him too hard against a step and ruptured one of his vital organs.

The mother told the police that she had become angry after the child was unable to climb the stairs by himself. She said she was merely trying to teach him to do it better.

In March, a woman and her two friends were sentenced to six years in prison after being found guilty of causing injury that led to the death of a child, who happened to be the woman’s six-year-old daughter.

For not eating her dinner, the little girl was tortured for six hours — hit with a metal mop, thrown into the air and burnt with a cigarette lighter.

Social workers say Isogai’s observation that the Japanese view of children not as individuals but as “family belongings” is accurate. They also say that it is among the reasons why reports of child abuse often come too late to save the young victim.

News reports on the death of Ryuji, for instance, included statements from neighbours who told the police that they had heard the boy alternately weeping or crying out for help. But they had apparently done nothing and spoke up only after his death.

“People do not want to interfere because they think parents know what is best for their children,” says Katsuji Kurashina of the Child Abuse Prevention Centre affiliated with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

The Centre, which was set up just this April, is the first such organisation in Japan. Kurashina and seven other social workers help local child consultation centres boost services for abused children.

In May, a new law was also passed allowing child centres to temporarily take victims of abuse into protective custody if alerted by medical doctors or teachers.

The term “child abuse” now has also been clearly defined, with “violence” now included to mean neglecting to provide meals or care to children, and “verbal abuse” as one causing serious psychological damage.

Still, Kurashina points out that the new law does not make abuse a serious offence warranting heavy prison sentences. She also notes that its stipulation for concrete evidence places many social workers in a quandary, because of the reluctance of neighbours to talk to authorities.

“With the rise in fatal cases, there is a need to increase vigilance,” adds Kurashina.

Meanwhile, she says that one emerging trend in child abuse has been the rise in the number of mothers who hit their children over trivial matters, or because they suspect the youngsters of being too slow to learn.

One mother, for instance, sought counselling recently after realising that she had been hitting her child for being in diapers longer than her friends’ children.

Kurashina believes the trend is the result of more young mothers relying too much on books on child rearing, as well as the lack of understanding by husbands of their wives’ anxieties.

One good news, however, is that the increase in media reports about child abuse cases has made people more aware of the issue. Thus, says Kurashina, “telephone calls, many from abusive parents themselves, are on the rise”.

A child consultation centre last year, in fact, received more than 4,000 phone calls. Social workers say they have been barely able to cope with the volume of queries.