RIGHTS-JAPAN: School Murder Shows Stigma of Mental Illness

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jun 18 2001 (IPS) - The grisly murder of eight Japanese children by a schizophrenic man nearly two weeks ago continues to prompt calls for tougher action against such mentally ill persons, but some fear it may well go overboard and deepen the stigma against people with mental problems.

Take the case of Takeo Suzuki, a 33-year-old man who has been diagnosed as manic depressive and who says news of the Jun. 8 murder in Osaka, 500 km south-west of Tokyo, has made him lose confidence in himself all over again.

“I am feeling particularly low these days,” says the softspoken man, who lost his job last year after his boss discovered his condition. “The news reports of the murderer, who is said to be mentally sick, hit me real bad.”

Suzuki spent six months in a mental hospital, during which he was rarely visited by his father. He says doctors forced him to drink 30 pills a day and he felt groggy and sleepy all the time.

“At that time, life was a nightmare. Only my mother encouraged me. I feel like dying sometimes because life is so lonely,” says the young man, who wants to be a potter.

Suzuki’s feelings of isolation are shared by many Japanese who battle mental and emotional illnesses, who are often viewed as sources of shame and are little understood in a society that puts a premium on efficiency and conformity.

In the light of the killing of eight children in Osaka by a man who knifed them to death after chasing down them school corridors — an incident that shocked and angered Japan and evoked sympathy for the victims — people with mental illness have often been mentioned as offenders and dangers to society.

There have since been suggestions and calls for preventing a repeat of the crime, including newspaper editorials seeking controls on allowing people with histories of mental problems from going back to society.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, for instance, has promised to review Japan’s penal system with a view to protecting the public from the danger of mentally sick patients.

The alleged killer, Mamoru Takuma, 37, had just been released from a mental hospital before the attack. He had a history of violent behaviour and had been abandoned by his father and was divorced. He had jumped from job to job.

Police reports say Takuma, now in detention, has admitted to the crime and premeditated the murder. They paint a picture of a man with a violent character and a cunning planner, probably even one who pretended to be mentally ill in order to avoid charges.

Daily reports about the murder raise the issue of whether Takuma’s release from hospital contributed to the tragedy.

Amid this, and while saying Takuma’s actions could well indeed have been due to his condition, experts warn against labelling all mentally disturbed people as potential criminals.

Counselors and human rights activists supporting the rights of the mentally handicapped are appealing for sobriety and some understanding of people with mental problems.

They say the latest murder has been a blow to their uphill struggle to protect patients and get them understood by society.

Hajime Oketani, head of the 1,600-member Association for Mentally Handicapped, says the Japanese media ignored their statements sent soon after the murder.

“We pleaded for balanced reporting, pointing out the importance of not relating mental sickness as a danger to society, but to no avail. This biased reporting has left many of our members feeling fear and anxiety again,” he says.

Activists say the step back is particularly painful given the growing number of mental patients in Japan. Official statistics say there are 270,000 people visiting psychiatrists compared to 160,000 three years ago. There are 330,000 people in psychiatric institutions and wards in hospitals across the country.

The public outrage is understandable, not least because the latest massacre follows a series of cases involving murderers with mental disorders.

The bus hijacking in May 2000 by a youth who was on day leave from a mental hospital also turned attention on how to deal with mentally ill people.

The father of Rena Yamashita, an eight-year-old girl who died in the June school killings, vowed on television to work hard to make Japanese society safe for children. “I hate the man who killed my child. I will never forgive him. He has no right to take the lives of others,” he told the public, speaking on condition that his face not be shown.

Also in the aftermath of the killings, the ‘Yomiuri’ newspaper reported Friday that Takuma, the killer, may have pretended to be mentally ill.

“Takuma told police he studied how the legal system deals with the mentally ill so he could avoid criminal charges, and the Osaka police concluded that Takuma most likely pretended to be a patient suffering from mental illness in order to avoid criminal charges after reading legal books found in his home,” the newspaper said.

Activists say that going beyond the facts of the Osaka case, reactions to the latest incident show that stigma remains deep against mentally handicapped people in Japan. In fact, human rights lawyer Yoshi Ikenaga compares the stigma they struggle with the one that people with leprosy had to face before.

Before World War II, families of people with mental disabilities locked them away in special rooms built underground and treated them worse than animals, activists say.

“It was only after World War II that Japan built hospitals and sanitariums for the mentally handicapped. Things began to look better after the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Mental Patients,” says Yoshinori Nakanishi, a lawyer in Japan’s fledgling human rights movement.

Japan passed a mental health and welfare law in 1995, which acknowledges the need to protect the rights of the mentally sick.

But Oketani says the deep-rooted stigma has also made medical treatment for the mentally sick remain the worse than for other diseases, as in the case of Suzuki. Data compiled by the activists show that patients are kept in hospital on an average for five years and have to take drugs for years.

Likewise, there is inadequate counselling and support groups for the families of mentally handicapped. Takuma’s father, for example, abandoned his son after he could not deal with his violent behaviour.

Says Oketani: “Nothing much has changed. The recent school murder has only forced our movement several steps back.”