Horrific child abuse cases in Japan trigger soul searching about the destruction of traditional family values
One man was arrested for allegedly killing his girlfriend’s baby with stimulants at a love hotel
A series of horrific cases of child abuse in recent days have shocked Japan and are, according to commentators, symptomatic of the collapse of the sense of family and society in a country that not long ago prided itself on the care it lavished on its children.
Police in Kumamoto Prefecture, southern Japan, on Sunday arrested 24-year-old Tensho Yoshimura on suspicion of killing his girlfriend’s infant son with an overdose of stimulant drugs.
The 3-month-old baby died in a love hotel after Yoshimura checked in with the baby’s mother. Paramedics called to the hotel when the baby started frothing at the mouth were unable to revive him.
At the heart of the problem, I feel, is the destruction of many of the traditional values and institutions that made up Japanese society in the past
The same day, police in Wakayama Prefecture took a woman aged 22 into custody after she tried to strangle her 6-month-old son with the cord from an electrical appliance.
Naomi Misu told police that the baby would not stop crying and that caring for him was “stressful.” The baby remains in a coma.
A week previously, a man aged 23 and his 17-year-old wife were arrested after placing their daughter, just 16 days old, inside a plastic bag and then into a rubbish bin in the bedroom of their apartment.
The baby, named Misora, died of suffocation. Interviewed by police, Yoshimi Suzuki and his wife, who cannot be identified because she is a minor, said they put the baby in a plastic bag because she was making too much noise while they were playing computer games.