Japan teen stabber prompts debate on troubled youth with no outlet for ‘everyday stress’
- More young people are seeking help, in a society where distressed and increasingly desperate youth have nowhere to turn, says welfare expert
- Japanese netizens have been divided in opinion, with some calling for stricter punishment and some raising mental health, public safety concerns
The girl, who has not been named as she is a minor, told police she wanted to kill her family with whom she lives in Saitama Prefecture and to “see if people could die from stab wounds”.
Videos circulating of the attack showed passers-by comforting the two victims with others pinning the assailant down until police arrived. Three knives were recovered at the scene, police told local media.
The girl was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after attacking a 53-year-old woman and her 19-year-old daughter on a street in Shibuya around 7.20pm on Saturday. Mother and daughter sustained stab wounds up to 10cm deep.
A child welfare expert has warned that the teenager – who reportedly told police she hoped to get the death sentence – is just the tip of an iceberg of a society with distressed and increasingly desperate young people who have nowhere to turn in Japan.
Fujiko Yamada, founder of the Child Maltreatment Centre, said her organisation had seen an increase in young people appealing for help.
“The problem in Japan is that children just do not know how to express the way they are feeling about everything that causes them stress, which is often related to relationships within their families,” she said.
Japanese schools have mandatory moral education classes during which pupils are taught respect for others, not to discriminate and to consider other people, “but that education does not include ways to protect themselves, either from physical threats from other people or from the stresses of everyday life”.