- Title: Japan clamps down on school bullying as cases continue to rise
- Date: 24th April 2017
- Summary: KASAI'S FATHER, GO KASAI, HOLDING FRAMED PHOTO OF KASAI (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) RIMA KASAI'S FATHER, GO KASAI, SAYING: "At school, she received direct verbal abuse. When she came home it was through (chat application) LINE, or Twitter. She lost any place for solace." TRAIN APPROACHING STATION PLATFORM WHERE KASAI JUMPED TO HER DEATH TRAIN ARRIVING AT PLATFORM SIGN AT THE PL
- Embargoed: 8th May 2017 12:58
- Keywords: Japan bully suicide school teenager
- Location: NAMIOKA CITY, CHIBA, TOKYO JAPAN
- City: NAMIOKA CITY, CHIBA, TOKYO JAPAN
- Country: Japan
- Topics: Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA0046DWC9QD
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: As students head back to school this month, Japan is hoping for a fresh start in its clampdown on bullying amongst schoolchildren.
Last August, 13-year-old Rima Kasai jumped to her death in front of a moving train at Kitatokiwa train station, northern Japan.
She took her own life on the second day of her eighth-grade fall semester, after she was bullied for more than a year. Her father, Go Kasai, said classmates called her names like "ugly", "pest" and said she should die. When she came home, the bullying would continue via texts. Go Kasai said his daughter would get invited to group chats and bad-mouthed as though she wasn't there.
"She lost any place for solace," said her father, Go Kasai, adding that her pleas for help were not taken seriously by teachers.
Though it is unclear why Kasai was targeted, people who knew her said it may have been because she stood out, for her participation in national competitions for a traditional Japanese dance.
Latest government figures showed that there were 224,540 school bully reports between April 2015 and April 2016, a 19.4 percent increase from the previous year. It was the highest since the Japanese record started in 1985.
Nine of those students who reported they were being bullied committed suicide, a rise from five in the previous year, according to authorities.
In March, before the start of the new school year, the Ministry of Education released recommendations for a revision of the law that includes giving extra attention to students that could potentially become targets of bullying - such as victims of the March 11 nuclear disaster, disabled students, foreign students, and those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).
Officials are unsure whether these measures are able to truly address the root of the problem, which critics say stems from a culture of conformity.
"I think Japan is behind in terms of diversity, where differences should be accepted as normal, people consciously still try to be the same'," Tomohiro Tsubota, Director of the Student Affairs Division of the Ministry of Education, said.
As part of an anti-bullying campaign, an elementary school located in a Tokyo suburb decided to use the concept of conformity to their advantage. Teachers encouraged children to form their own anti-bullying "patrol team" in 2013. Since then, the school says reports of bullying have tremendously decreased.
Once a day, the team, which has more than 250 members in a 400-population school, rally through the campus chanting slogans such as "Let's prevent bullying together!" and "We will not tolerate bullying!"
Patrol team leaders sometime play music through the school's public announcement system during lunch break to encourage students to dance together.
"I think bullying doesn't happen here because the act of bullying itself has become something that would make you 'different' from others," Kosuke Isogai, a sixth-grader and leader of the patrol team said.
Shigeru Nakano, the school's principal said it is important that the students are the ones taking initiative since bullying often happens in places adults do not notice.
Bullying first entered national discourse in Japan in 1986 when a 13-year old boy hung himself at a shopping centre bathroom after enduring months of torment at school.
The Ministry of Education has since expanded the definition of bullying through the law in the hopes that no victim falls through the gaps.
But Kasai's case is a reminder that more needs to be done. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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