Reports of school bullying increase as Japan confronts high youth suicide rate
Japan ranks fourth among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries for rates of suicide, after Lithuania, South Korea and Hungary
Schoolyard bullying has long bedeviled Japan where some students have taken their own lives after being harassed in person or online through emails, text messages and blogs.
Bullying and suicide first entered Japanese national discourse in 1986, when a 13-year-old boy hanged himself in a shopping centre toilet after repeated bullying at school that included a mock funeral that teachers took part in.
One of the latest cases involved a 13-year-old girl Rima Kasai, who jumped in front of a train after enduring more than a year of bullying by classmates, including being labelled a “pest” and repeatedly told to die.
Japan ranks fourth among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries for rates of suicide, after Lithuania, South Korea and Hungary.
Overall numbers have been falling. Suicides peaked in 2003 at 34,427 and fell to 21,897 in 2016, according to the National Police Agency.