24-year-old mother arrested over death of 2-month-old daughter

This seems like an every day news story now. I'm pretty sure it's just coincidence but it's becoming very painful to read the news these days. Poor child. Poor children.

The best time I ever shared with my children was when they were little children. All 7 of my children are all adults now, But I wish I had more children of a young age to raise and here we are a women blessed with a little baby girl & she kills her. I'm sure it was hard for her living in a shelter and it seems she had no family support but once the smoke cleared and she got herself back on her feet she had years of happiness ahead of her with her daughter. Sad that this seems to occur so often. R.I.P Little One.

Are you kidding!? Every single day this week! Wake up Japan!

This is truly a sad thing to hear. Too many babies and young children are being hurt or murdered.

There is no excuse for her actions. Doesn’t matter how difficult things are.

@ zones2surf

Knowing that information helps paint a picture of where her mind is. Again, this goes into lack of awareness and help for mental health issues.

@doel justino

When you say that she would be able to get back on her feet. There is no guarantee of that. The current system in Japan makes it very difficult for single mothers to survive. Especially those without families. There are many companies that still discriminate on such things. Also, should she find a job, even a part time job, any benefits she receives from the government becomes severely cut. Also, should she find a job, there is no guarantee that the child would be accepted into a daycare. So then the mother may have to give up the job and not work because of that. Also, jobs will see her more as a liability because she won’t be able to commit the long hours that are “expected” due to her having to care for a child.

An example of these expenses is single non working mothers receive ¥68,000 stipend per month plus ¥15,000 for the child. When you make over ¥60,000 per month that stipend is lowered to ¥20,000. Plus the cost of the daycare will then be increased from as little as ¥2,000 per month to as much as ¥25,000 per month.

@Amir Marzouk,

An example of these expenses is single non working mothers receive ¥68,000 stipend per month plus ¥15,000 for the child. When you make over ¥60,000 per month that stipend is lowered to ¥20,000. Plus the cost of the daycare will then be increased from as little as ¥2,000 per month to as much as ¥25,000 per month.

Awesome example of how the system penalizes those that try to get back on their feet. Honestly, they are dammed if they do, dammed if they don't!

Abe moved into the facility, which is a shelter for victims of domestic abuse, last September and gave birth to Ryuna in December.

Unlike so many of the stories about mothers killing their children / babies, this one is particularly complicated.

-- The mother was the victim of domestic abuse and moved into the facility while she was pregnant.

-- This means that, more than likely, her abuser was also the father of the child. Not for certain, but likely.

-- Which meant that if her abuser was also the father of her child, then one cannot discount the idea that she may have felt she would never be free of her abuser as long as the child was alive.

-- And it also means that, given that she moved into this facility, her own family either could not or would not help support and protect her. Or she didn't want to burden them.

Not justifying, just feeling deep sorrow about the circumstances here and the loss of a young baby girl.

This is the dark side of Japanese culture.

This is the dark side of Japanese culture.

This is the dark side of humanity.

An example of these expenses is single non working mothers receive ¥68,000 stipend per month plus ¥15,000 for the child. When you make over ¥60,000 per month that stipend is lowered to ¥20,000. Plus the cost of the daycare will then be increased from as little as ¥2,000 per month to as much as ¥25,000 per month.

Awesome example of how the system penalizes those that try to get back on their feet.

True, yet the same system penalises left-behind and loving parents -usually the father- when they want shared custody, or at least some part in their child's life in a divorce case. For some reason shared custody is not accepted in Japan so the alternative is visitation. But then there is no enforcement of any visitation right in a post-divorce settlement, unless one counts returning to court for some judge's toothless recommendation as enforcement.

So if a custodial parent makes life difficult for their former spouse out of vindictiveness or because they mistakenly believe that having the other parent around is detrimental to the child's welfare despite there being no history of child abuse, then the alienated and ostracised parent will, in many cases, eventually give up on their child(ren) and move on. Or they will simply stop paying child support. How is this beneficial in any way for kids in single parent families?!

Regardless of the high number of reported child abuse cases and feigned concern, the government and Japanese family court keeps this antiquated system in place when having the LB parent around could actually be used as a safety net in many cases.

The government needs to offer more support for parents that suffer from postmortum depression. Which I assume is mostly the case.

Sorry I meant postPARTUM.

RIP Ryuna.

This is very hard for me to digest considering my daughter is only 7 months old. This is like a knife in my heart

@Marsh Mallow

”this is the dark side of Japanese culture”

Please elaborate on how abusing and killing children is part of Japanese culture. I somehow missed this in all the years I’ve been living here