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Police in Osaka have arrested a 28-year-old unemployed woman on suspicion of abandoning the body of her newborn baby girl in a car parking lot this month.
According to police, the woman, Erika Yoshida, of no fixed address, said she gave birth to the baby at a hotel in late April, Kyodo News reported. The baby was found in a plastic bag inside a paper bag at around 11:45 p.m. on June 15 in the Nihonbashi parking lot in Chuo Ward. The parking lot is in the Minami entertainment district, near Nankai Namba Station.
Police said there were no external signs of injury on the infant who was naked and still had her umbilical cord attached. Decomposition of the corpse had begun when it found.
A receipt from a nearby store was found in the bag and police were able to trace Yoshida after examining surveillance camera footage of customers in the store at the time the receipt was issued on June 15.
Police arrested Yoshida, who was staying at a cheap hotel, on Tuesday. She was quoted as saying she had been moving around from hotel to hotel after she gave birth.
© Japan Today
18 Comments
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Newgirlintown
This seems to happen an awful lot here.
diobrando
Rip little angel...lack of education, responsabilities and help from government. When dinosaur politicians will create an agency to deal with such problems?!!
David Brent
Imagine being this callous and devoid of human instinct. I always thought the bond between a mother and baby was very strong. Not in Japan though.
Speed
Provide Baby Hatches.
Joe Blow
No, they're dummies.
If they weren't dummies they would give the baby to an orphanage. But being dummies, they think this is a good idea.
shogun36
Tired of seeing these stories.
Can we get some education or common sense lessons for these people?
Chico3
So much for good old family values (lack of, in this case).
Rose
Can someone explain something, why are there so many stories of babies bodies being abandoned in Japan? Like, why is this a recurring theme, because they don't want to pay for the burial or something?
Are they abandoned instead of being buried after passing away from complications?
Or are the babies passing away after being abandoned?
aaaaaiiiiiiiiiii
It is actually illegal to have abortion in Japan. Maternal Helath Act make it okay to have abortion if you go to certain licensed doctor. You will be asked to have consent(signature) from the father of the baby, but some men ghosts women after the pregnancy. As you can read from below link, while a woman look for a doctor who will agree to terminate their pregnancy without the father's consent, the term limit exceeds and then she cannot have abortion anymore. (the Ministry stated that the consent from the father will no longer be needed in case of unusual case such as DVs though, since last year.)
The story of abandoned baby
-She went to several hospitals, but each time she was asked to get consent from father and couldn't get surgery. As a result, the term limit of Maternal Health Act has passed and abortion was no longer available.
https://www.vogue.co.jp/change/article/feminism-lesson-vol16
Japan's abortion rule
The woman is one of many sexual assault survivors denied abortions across Japan by hospitals that require consent from their attackers.https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japan-s-abortion-rule-Get-consent-from-your-sexual-predator
Maternal Health Act
https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/2603
therougou
Title is misleading. Gave me false hope that the baby was still alive.
David Brent
Yes. Often put into a coin locker or flushed down the toilet.
kaimycahl
WOW, everything about the young women that we don't really know about but could probably guess was not posted. Sad all around, she had no help the system failed her, she had a child probably didn't know who the father was. Where was the HELP. She will live that scene over and over for the rest of her life, it will only contribute to what I can guess was her mental illness. No job, no home in japan means no personality or self worth. Just when she THOUGHT she could get away with her crime little did she know a date and time would place her at a location to identify her. Moving from cheap hotel to hotel says indirectly she was selling herself to survive.
Police arrested Yoshida, who was staying at a cheap hotel, on Tuesday. She was quoted as saying she had been moving around from hotel to hotel after she gave birth.
Aly Rustom
I really hate reading about news like this. It just spoils your whole day. RIP little baby. I'm sorry you didn't get a chance at life.
WeiWei
It seems so because in many other countries news outlets have a pact not to report certain child related crimes, suicides, etc.
In Europe most countries don’t publish these as news so the public has no clue on how often it happens.
purple_depressed_bacon
These stories, which are sadly reoccurring, is blatant evidence of how the system is failing its people and yet J-govt doesn't seem inclined to do a damn thing about it. So much for caring about the low birthrates huh?