As promised in “about” (seems that not many ppl are reading it lol), this is one of the Japanese darker side.
(Added in July 11th: It’s from ABC news)
By Akiko Fujita Jul 6, 2012 10:29am
Kids and Laughing Teachers Bullied Suicide Teen
The suicide of a 13-year-old boy in southern Japan after classmates systematically bullied him — even making him “practice” suicide — while teachers ignored the abuse or laughed has prompted soul-searching among educators across the country.
One of the boy’s last acts was to text his tormentors and leave voice mails for them to say, “I’m going to die.” They texted him back to say, “You should die.”
The middle school student, whose name has not been released, jumped from his 14th floor apartment in the city of Otsu last October after enduring heartrending tales of abuse at the hands of his classmates.
His father filed several reports with the police, but officers never accepted them, saying that they could not prove that bullying led to his suicide, according to Japanese media reports.
Details of the harassment are coming to light eight months later, following a student survey conducted by the city’s board of education. In that anonymous survey, students write the bullying escalated to “punching and kicking” in September last year, about a month before the teen jumped to his death. The victim was pressured into shoplifting, had his legs and arms tied while bullies duck-taped his mouth. Students watched as their peers pressured the teen into eating dead bees, “pantsed” him, and made him “practice” committing suicide.
In the survey, some classmates report alerting teachers to those “practices,” but say nothing was done.
Instead, teachers reportedly laughed as bullies tried to choke the victim.
“He was forced to eat paper, students choked him. Teachers only gave a verbal warning, but then joined in on the bullying by laughing,” comments in the survey read.
Today, the tearful mayor of Otsu, said that she would launch a new investigation into the teen’s suicide to “seek the truth,” calling the board’s survey “inadequate.”
“I feel awful I have to put students through this again,” Naomi Koshi said. “I cannot apologize to the students enough.”
Local media report Otsu has been bombarded with hundreds of calls and emails from angry parents since the bullying came to light on July 4. A bomb threat was called into the board Thursday, forcing students to go home early.
The teen’s family has not commented publicly on the case since the new details surfaced, but in a letter sent to Koshi, the boy’s father called on the mayor to “seek the truth” and come up with a new anti-bullying policy.
“I want bullying to disappear from every school in Japan,” he wrote. “I want schools to become a safe place again.”
It’s not rare that tragic suicide cases of pupils are sensationalized in Japanese media. In my childhood, at least you didn’t get bullied if you don’t join bullying. Maybe it’s partly because I was good at studying in those days. Though, nowadays, if you don’t join, you will become a next target. Perhaps insidious bullying exists everywhere, but it’s too much.
As a patient who experienced multiple suicide attempts, if you are told “you should die” when you are considering suicide, you’ll commit it.
After the incident, in the Japanese net, many people confess “Actually I was bullied too…” in Twitter, while some go too much and bullying pupils’ names(supposedly) are exposed. Not tempted to watch TV.
This is from Dr. Yosyan’s website, “New Monologue of A Pediatrician”(Japanese only, title translated by me), with permission. As I couldn’t paste its html in WP, captured as an image instead.
From the left to right, Year, Death of Children(under 19), Suicides, Accidents, Population of Children, Death Rate of Children (per 100,000 population). You can see death from suicides of children is around 500 per year.
One of the reason bullying happens in Japan could be that you should harmonise with surrounding people, not only in my opinion but widely said. You should wear uniform (depending Prefectures, some high schools have none) in the same way, act in the same way, anyway to be different from other people negatively draw attention from others.
I’ve no idea where this nation goes…
Many people, especially from abroad, would wonder why such a developed country has high suicide rate (30,000 per year). I’ll tell you why, although in my opinion and experience, near future.
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