Isolation and pressure driving more Japanese minors to suicide, says PIME priest

This photo taken on December 8, 2023 shows Mirai Kisaragi (front Right), one of a growing number of victims of financial and sexual exploitation linked to establishments that have dotted Japan’s red-light district Kabukicho for decades, silhouetted as she poses along a street in Tokyo. Growing up, Kisaragi fled her abusive parents, barely survived homelessness and contemplated suicide. At 18 she met her “saviour” at one of Tokyo’s hundreds of host clubs where men entertain women. (Photo by Richard A. Brooks / AFP) / TO GO WITH JAPAN-CRIME-SOCIETY-ENTERTAINMENT-NIGHTCLUB-PROSTITUTION,FOCUS BY TOMOHIRO OSAKI – TO GO WITH Japan-crime-society-entertainment-nightclub-prostitution,FOCUS by Tomohiro OSAKI

By LiCAS.news

A missionary of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in Japan pointed out that increasing isolation, academic pressure, and bullying are driving more minors to take their own lives, despite an overall decline in the country’s suicide rate.

Fr Marco Villa, who has been serving in the Diocese of Saitama since 2009, said “Children, increasingly alone in their families, feel the pressure to excel all on them.”

“There is strong competition within the classes, and the phenomenon of bullying continues to be a plague, even if in a less explicit way,” the priest said in a report by AsiaNews.

In 2023, Japan recorded 527 cases of youth suicides, an increase of 14 from the previous year, and up from 513 cases in 2022.

High school students accounted for the majority of the cases, with 349 deaths, while 15 involved elementary school children. The rising number of suicides among young girls is particularly alarming, with 288 cases recorded.

A Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare official described the situation as “serious” and stressed the need for deeper analysis to understand the causes of this distressing trend.

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