Record 1,957 child abuse cases investigated by police in 2019

Increased child abuse and declining birthrate do not paint a pretty picture for Japanese society. Less kids, but more abuse? Perhaps they need to create an app for that too.

A 41.8 percent increase in child abuse cases in just 1 year is absolutely shocking. Time to start implementing far harsher penalties for injuring and abusing children - and removing children permanently from their parents after even 1 incident of abuse.

What makes things sad is that I truly believe this is just the tip of the iceberg. An entire underbelly will make it's way to light in the coming years as even more children find the strength to speak up.

And the crux of it..... we're at a record low for child births in the last 80 years. We all know this isn't about more parents beating or mistreating their children, its about stricter rules regarding it and proper reporting of incidents. I look around and I see a lot of kids that look like they might be living in a trauma filled environment. Kids that have parents that grew up in those environments too and figure its what is normal. A lot of the trauma is mental. Threatening children and forcing them to do unreasonable things. It is not only the cases were kids are being physically abused. In addition I see a lot of lonely looking kids too. Both parents work and one child..... little communication. That is a big problem too.

90 percent of child abuse go unreported

I'm not ignoring the statistics but is this increase due to a sudden change in behavior OR changes in the method or scope of abuse reporting?

It is true that increase of child abuses in Japan is terrible. But I found the good news that the number of criminal offenses in 2019 dropped sharply. The statistic of child abuses was a part of release of criminal case number.

@roylance.norton

I was thinking the same thing. Can such a sudden and drastic increase can only be due to, well, an actual increase in instances of abuse?

I'm of course not denying an increase either, but I'm sure there's more to it than just that. Have people stopped closing their eyes on instances of abuse? Has the police been doing a better investigative job? Has Japan, as a whole, reconsidered the very definition of what constitutes an instance of abuse vs what doesn't?

Surely only an expert could answer these questions. We can only speculate. Nevertheless, genuinely hope there is more to those numbers than what they imply at first glance.

What else would you expect when authorities don't make examples of these criminals?

These lowlives only get slaps on the wrists, and the cycle continues.

Start making punishments more harsh and permanent and you will see numbers start to go down.

Child ijime investiged ???. Good. Pls start also adults to adults ijime , which is very common in japan.

It’s been shown time and time again all over the world. When the economy is in poor condition the child abuse increases due to the stresses put on families. This is especially true in Japan due to culturally ingrained expectations in schooling and in society in general. It is likely a percentage of the increase is due to more cases being reported and more awareness, the increase does not match the decreasing birthrate. If more cases are being reported and the birthrate is decreasing it should balance out to a similar average. It should not show a marked increase.

Child abuse is a very delicate situation due authorities to deal with. The mandate of child welfare workers is to keep the kids in the home and not separate the family. It’s just that many of these cases end in serious injury or even death of a child who has been left or returned to the abusive environment. This is the responsibility of social workers and counselors to make sure the parents are being treated and monitored to ensure the child’s safety. Unfortunately, this is where the Japanese system is failing the children.

However, most Japanese believe that western societies are much worse than Japanese one regarding sex abuses to children.

wow, you shouldn't have let this happen, Japan. First 2018 record high child abuse case and now 2019 record high child abuse case? If this happens again in 2020, this is gonna be another huge problem not only for Japanese people but for foreigners working and living in Japan, meaning one thing, wipe out the Yakuza who controls everything including child pornography and child prostitution as well, this is what's causing record high child abuse cases to happen so much. Keep monitoring Japanese girls who are continuing to misuse social media platforms for dating purposes because this type of situations are getting out of hand