In the fiscal year 2016/7 up to March, 250 children from elementary to high school age were recorded as having taken their own lives.
The number is five more than last year, and the highest it has been since 1986.
Concerns the children had reported included family problems, worrying about their futures and bullying.
But schools said the reasons behind about 140 of the deaths are unknown as the students did not leave a note.
Most of those who took their lives were of high school age, where Japanese students typically study until they are aged 18.
A report released by Japan’s Cabinet Office in 2015 looked at child suicide data in the country from 1972-2013, which recognised a massive peak at the start of the second term of the school year on 1 September.
Japan had one of the highest suicide rates in 2015 but since preventative measures were introduced, the figures have dropped, according to World Health Organization.
Overall suicides across Japan fell to about 21,000 in 2017, police say, down from a peak of about 34,500 in 2003.
However, child suicide rates remain relatively high - making it the leading cause of death among young people in the country.
“The number of suicides of students have stayed high, and that is an alarming issue which should be tackled,” education ministry official Noriaki Kitazaki said as the latest figures were released.
“In Japan, your biggest problem is that there is a greater stigma about mental health problems than in other countries,” said Vickie Skorji, director of the crisis hotline at TELL, a counseling and crisis intervention service in Tokyo. “You’re most likely to get bullied, and less likely to get support services and understanding from your parents.”
Some experts say that children do not receive as much support from family as they might have in the past. While several generations of a family used to live together, such arrangements are less common now.
“I think support networks for children have been weakening,” said Yoshitomo Takahashi, a professor and psychiatrist at Tsukuba University. “Now, we cannot expect the same thing from families that we used to expect. We can’t expect parents or grandparents to provide the support they used to. And in this situation, children remain alone.
Experts say that schools are generally not well equipped to cope with mental illness among students and, in general, education about mental illness is lacking. “Teachers are busy, and they cannot respond to each individual student in many cases,” said Yuki Kubota, professor of clinical psychology at Kyushu Sangyo University.
Over the summer, a junior high school in Aomori, in northern Japan, admitted that bullying provoked the 2016 suicide of a 13-year-old girl, Rima Kasai. In a report about the suicide, the school said that it had relied on individual teachers to respond to the bullying but that the situation “reached its limit as no organized action was taken.”
Commenting on this story People of Japan say:-'
Youth suicide should be less than before given that the population is less and competition is much less.
It’s easier than every to go to University or get a job.
So what’s different? I’d say the one thing that has changed is divorce. There are so many children now in divorced families. And 70% of children don’t see one of their parents after divorce. If they do, it’s usually a few hours once a month. And not overnight.
So, life changes when you have to forget your father or mother exists. If there are custody or visitation disputes it can take years to settle, and children are often made to lie and/or say that they don’t want to meet the other parent.
That’s not easy to handle.
There’s also the widening gap between rich and poor.
As for
” or pressures from living in a single parent family, were the sole bread winner either a father or mother has to work crazy hours”
I don’t agree with this at all. A single mother with two children in Tokyo makes more than most OL’s.
Many of them don’t work, or just work part-time.
Now that women know how much they get in welfare, divorce will further increase.
Remember, 150,000 children each year stop seeing one parent after divorce. That’s a million in ten years.
If things don’t change regarding after divorce care of children, wait for even more depression, mental illness, behavioral problems and yes, suicide in years to come.
Another says
This is a sad statistic, and many reasons that politicians and people won't admit, or just ignore. There is so much pressure kids have to face in todays society, they don't have time to be children. School pressures, bullying, social media, Juku, school clubs, pressure from parents to study and pass tests, latch key kids, going home to an empty house every day, both parents working , or pressures from living in a single parent family, were the sole bread winner either a father or mother has to work crazy hours, children stuck in nurseries from morning till night, the list is endless . So the child never gets chance to a child. maybe at weekends, but then the parents or parent is either working or sleeping, no time to listen to their own children. Society in general has collapsed world wide, no job security anymore, money problems, etc, the list goes on. If the parents have so many problems how do you think they find time to listen to the problems of their children. Perhaps the lack of empathy, probably cultural as well, a pat on the back and a well done now and again from those who teach and parent would probably go a long way, I know the child would feel good and appreciated.
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Suicide