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Japan struggles to rein in bullying
Reports that harassment among schoolmates led to suicide spark soul-searching, scandal
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Originally published March 25, 2007
TOKYO // Keisuke Mori was isolated and desperate. A victim of bullying, he was shunned by other kids, and even one of his teachers picked on him in class. Hours before his death, a group of students tried to pull his pants down in a restroom.
Too ashamed to seek help, Mori finally snapped, hanging himself on Oct. 11 in a barn at his home in southern Japan. "I am bullied and can't go on any longer," read one of the suicide notes the 13-year-old left behind.
The boy's case was one of a string of recently uncovered student suicides linked to bullying in Japan that have triggered allegations of a cover-up, commanded headlines and even eroded the prime minister's support ratings.
The furor has also grimly illustrated that despite a decade of education reform and soul-searching, Japan's fight against the endemic bullying in its pressure-cooker schools has failed to vanquish the problem.
Some say the scourge is only getting worse.
"Bullying is nothing new, but I don't recall hearing about as many cases that are linked to suicide as there are now," said Kotoe Yonezawa, who oversees Toyota Child Hotline, which counsels distressed youth.
Bullying has long been a problem in Japanese schools, where students are under harsh competitive pressure, conformity is valued and those who don't fit in can be mercilessly picked on.
Authorities took countermeasures in the 1990s, allowing victims to attend alternative schools, lecturing students against bullying and lowering curriculum requirements to reduce the pressure.
Until the latest scandal, Education Ministry statistics suggested some success. Bullying cases plunged from 60,096 in 1995 to 20,143 in 2005, and there were no bullying-related suicides logged since 1999, according to the ministry.
But disclosures since late last year have called those numbers into serious doubt.
The reassessment began when authorities ruled that a 12-year old girl had committed suicide because of bullying. Then Mori, who hanged himself in Chikuzen, about 720 miles southwest of Tokyo, left suicide notes that clearly spelled out the link of bullying to his death. Investigations by education officials later found that one of the boy's teachers picked on him months before his death.
The stream of reports prompted a storm of criticism against education officials, accusations of teachers and school officials covering up bullying-related suicides and fierce calls for punishment and other quick action.
After conducting a review, the Education Ministry conceded on Jan. 19 that bullying was involved in at least 14 of 40 cases of child suicides between 1999 and 2005. Officials acknowledge their oversight has not been tight enough.
In February, police said that there were 233 cases of bullying that were punished through the courts or juvenile authorities -- a 41 percent jump from 2005.
"Bullying is everywhere in the world, but it is significantly long-term, inhumane and malicious in Japan," said lawyer Yuji Kodama, who is representing a mother and father who are suing the government over their daughter's suicide.
The scandal has also put bullying at the top of the political agenda, as recent polls showed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plunging in popularity over allegations of a laggard response by his government.
Abe made a rare trip to an elementary school in early December to show his concern, and the government announced it would dispatch advisers to elementary schools and extend the hours of counseling in junior high schools.
Critics say the government will have to do better than that.
Keiko Okuchi, director of Tokyo Shure, an alternative school for bullied children, blamed a 2003 government recommendation against leniency for students refusing to attend school because of abuse by classmates or teachers.
That resulted in increased pressure on kids to stay in schools even if they're being bullied, she said.
"Kids wouldn't go so far as to kill themselves if they were physically separated from bullies," she said.
Teachers have been criticized for not doing enough to discourage the abuse, and a prime ministerial panel in November urged punishing teachers for participating, encouraging or ignoring the abuse.
"They are giving high grades to teachers who report fewer bullying cases," said Midori Komori, whose daughter committed suicide after being bullied in high school.
The persistence of the bullying problem shows just how deep its roots are in Japanese society, which is characterized by an emphasis on group action and a distaste for the individualism of the loner.
Many people tend to blame the victims, urging them to get in line with their peers and not to be so weak. That means that bullied kids are reluctant to report the abuse or seek help.
Masami Tomiyama, 18, now a student at Tokyo Shure school that helps bullying victims, recalls just that kind of isolation. In junior high, she was ignored by her classmates -- or abused. Some of the kids bullied her into shoplifting for them.
"Every day you are on edge," Tomiyama said.
"One day I just felt, 'This is going to kill me, and I shouldn't go to school,'" she said. "So I stopped going."
