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8-year-old girl hangs herself at home in apparent suicide

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An 8-year-old girl was found hanging from the balcony of her home in Takatsuki, Osaka, in an apparent suicide, police said Wednesday. Her room had been locked from the inside, police said.

The girl's mother, 27, returned home from work about 6:20 p.m. on Tuesday and discovered her daughter hanging by a towel from the balcony. She called 110 and then her husband. The girl was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead upon arrival. An autopsy on Wednesday revealed that she died about 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

According to police, the girl and her family had moved to the Osaka area from Muko in Kyoto on Jan 25. On Feb 1, the word "die" was found written on a small case belonging to the girl. Her mother, 27, alerted the school and said that her daughter had been subjected to bullying. On Aug 15, her mother contacted the school again to tell them that the same note had been found scrawled on 12 of the girl's textbooks.

A school spokesperson said the words appeared to have been written by the same person but that they were unable to find out whose handwriting it was.

The girl had been absent for roughly 10 days in February but since moving up a year in April, only one absence had been recorded.

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A school spokesperson said the words appeared to have been written by the same person but that they were unable to find out whose handwriting it was.

There is something really sick going on in this society.

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RIP

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Eight? This is horrible. Throw the principal, and this girls teachers in jail. For life. Absolutely pathetic.

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She was at home by herself at 8 years old? Would that be illegal here? It is where I come from. Horrible that bullying starts so early.

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It sounds like she was at home alone, which is odd, if not illegal. Regardless, I'll bet you anything the school only JUST started seriously 'investigating' who wrote the 'die' on the girl's case and on others' notebooks. It usually takes a suicide to get them to try and crack down on bullying.

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8? how does an 8-year old know how to hang herself? this is so sad...

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And needless to say, this is horrible. I can't fathom where an eight year old would reach the point where they can honestly figure that suicide is an alternative to bullying.

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blame the school...?... not the parenting. Parents in Japan have no skills on how to deal with anything. What about self confidence. Self Respect. The girl obviously needed some counseling on both of those topics. Bulling by simply sending her notes. Missing 10 days of school and not going to see a councilor for her problems. The parents failed her.

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I think what's more important than the fact that this girl was home alone is that apparently she was bullied badly enough to see suicide as the only option. Absolutely tragic, poor thing.

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8? That is so sad....

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This is bad, real bad. This kid killing herself at a mere 8 should be an eye opener for the country if not the government. Another victim of Japanese society and Nihonjinron- and slacker parents, teachers with bullying. Sounds fishy too.

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an awful lot of negligence all around this little girl, no help from anyone, glad I wasnt born here!

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Dang...sobering and sad. I have kids this age, and hope we have instilled the confidence never to think about suicide as a way out.

Nororito, do you have kids? Kids subject to bullying?

If not, I do not think you can judge anyone in such a situat ion. If so, please enlighten everyone on how you coach your kids to deal with it.

The kids at my daughter's school were so vicious, the teacher went mental after relentless "bullying" type attacks on him. He was absent much of the school year, and ended up quiting.

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Somebody knows who wrote the message.

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Throw the principal, and this girls teachers in jail. For life.

er... why?

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I have seen so many TV shows here that normalise this kind of bullying - and show clearly to kids how to bully. These kinds of shows aren't morally instructive (not that everything has to be) and rarely show at best a passive empathy, but rarely empowerment for the victim.

Years ago I saw an drawing competition for anti-chikan posters. Almost all had a passive girl with tears dripping down her face while being molested by a chikan. Schools don't empower victims, the society doesn't empower victims.

A school where I taught one of the homeroom teachers (who admittedly was a jerk but that's irrelevent) came into his classroom one day with the blackboard covered in DIE ! WE HATE YOU! No students were suspended or expelled.

There are many things that could be done, as there have been in other countries, to reduce bullying.

My heart aches for her parents.

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Parents should be charged if they left her alone at the house. Japan is quickly turning into a cesspool.

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charge the parents for leaving an 8 year old girl alone? Are you people brain challenged? The parents are working. Will you provide for them so that they will stay home all the time? Cut the crap. The girl is dead because she choose to die. She don't understand the meaning of what was she doing but kids do that all the time.

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mikihouse,

Don`t be silly. 8 year olds being left alone all day is ridiculous. Job or not. Figure something out. Most families do.

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If I were the parents I would have changed her to a different school the minute I sensed she's been bullied. Bullying is very common practice here so you either join or quit.

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charge the parents for leaving an 8 year old girl alone? Are you people brain challenged? The parents are working. Will you provide for them so that they will stay home all the time? Cut the crap. The girl is dead because she choose to die. She don't understand the meaning of what was she doing but kids do that all the time.

unbelievable... this was the Nihonjinron I was talking about.

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More parents need to teach their children how to avoid being victimized. They shouldn't be relying on schools and teachers to handle these problems. Most teachers I know in Japan really do care about their jobs and students but when you have hundreds of students passing through your classrooms its hard to monitor everything. I think that if this little girl felt the love of her family she would have been able to overcome the bullying problems at school.

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Jesus Christ, just 8 years old? When are they going to do something about bullying? Absolutely tragic to see such a young girl commit such an act. More needs to be done to stop bullying in schools.

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OMG 8 years old? Both the parents and the school are out in lala~land for this to happen. The child should have enough trust to report it to the teacher, the teacher informs the parents and/or the child needs to also have enough trust in their parents to tell them what is happening as well.

Learn to be able to talk to your children so they will want to let you know if something is troubling them and they can rely on their mother/father to help them.

This is a harsh lesson for her parents to learn.

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Its so sad. Child depression cases need to be identified early and treated.

By the way, posters that turn this into an only in Japan issue should read news from around the world.

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seesaw: i think there in lies the problem. the problem isn't being addressed if the child changes schools. i have an 8 yr old girl (and boy, 6) and talk about this stuff all the time, the crap i had to put up with growing up. kids need to know that they're strong and can overcome bullying...if they're parents can't address the issue, then do you think the child can?

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An appropriate amount of bullying is tolerated in the west as it helps in children's character building, but Japanese kids take the bullying way too far.

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Really sad that a little innocent girl at that young age would resort to suicide. What would even motivate a person at that age to take their own life. Suicide is really off the chain in Japan and so is bullying. There needs to be more dialogue and better understanding and compassion to each other. Also, I really believe that parents need to take on a more pro-active role in talking to their kids asking them questions and yes, even be nosy/spying on them at times to find out what they are doing. Who their friends are, where they go all the time, how they are doing in school and with their classmates and get more feedback from the teachers. I always talk to my daughter and always reassure her that I am there for her, that I love her and if she has any problems to come to me. Transparency is very important.

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I dont think being left at home is the issue here. If the parent/s were home, she probably would have done it in her own bedroom. The mother did what any parent would have done and notified the school on a few occasions and the school did nothing. I feel for this little girl, and her mother as well. The school system failed!

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Questions to ask: An 8 yr old sucessfully made a knot out of a towel which could manage to kill her without the knot becoming undone?

What kind of towel is this?

From 3pm to 620pm nobody noticed the lil girl was hanging?

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"A school spokesperson said the words appeared to have been written by the same person but that they were unable to find out whose handwriting it was".

Yep, another example of Japanese let's just hope the problem goes away mentality. Well it has gone away.

So tragic. The long summer holidays should have been this little girls favorite time of the year.

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Eight years old.

I would like to teach my children not to mind the "die" thing so much. I have been told to "F.O.A.D." more than once and it did little to gaijin me.

"Die" seems to be the worst thing that one can say in Japanese and people take it more seriously than one might expect. Generally there is a dearth of swear words, and some words are very taboo.

While in many situations in Japan words are not taken all that seriously (white lies are more okay, political manefestos are wishy-washy and often ignored, rules are often bent, flattery and phatic acts of communication abound, and the Japanese pride themselves in their vaguaeness), but at the same time, certain words are taboo at weddings for instance.

The author of Japanese book on debate claimed that this is related to the belief in the spirit of words ("kotodama shinkou"), that words have the power to effect their meaning. The author went on to claim that this belief in the power of words produced a paucity of debate since debate usually involves going over the the possible negative outcomes each course of action, and saying such negative outcomes is likewise considered to bring about that outcome.

The Japanese believe in words, but, partly as a consequence, not in dialogue (c.f. Nakajima's "Taiwa no nai Shakai"). If the girl had been able to talk more about the word I guess she would have been saved from its power.

As Jane Bachnik argues "indexes" are important in Japanese society. Indexes are a type of sign (the most famous subclass being icons, as in those on your computer, or the Nike swoosh symbol) that has a contiguous relationship with that which it represents. I.e. signs simply go together in a binary pair with that which they represent. Our logo-linguistic signs on the other hand, mean what they do by virtue of their relationship to other linguistic signs. Death is the opposite of life. So, while thinking about the word death puts everyone in a bad mood (see "terror management theory"), if you are a linguistic sign/logocentric sort of Western person, then death can remind you of its opposite, but if you are into indexes, then death is more likely to remind you of the state and event itself.

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oh my goodness.. only 8 years old.. it is so sad that a child as young as 8 years old had to suffer so much that she thought she had to kill herself.. she probably couldn't tell anything to her parents because she thought parents would worry.. sometimes kids try not to make parents worry, and it is sad. as a mother of 2 kids, i would feel billion times better if they told me problems then at least i could worry .. much better to worry so that i can at least do something to solve the problems..

parents always need to make sure their (our) kids know that WE ARE HERE FOR THEM NO MATTER WHAT and they can count on us ANYTIME they need us.. when kids think there is no one they can count on, something like this happens..

so sad.

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How to figure out the bully: separate all the kids, pick the most likely ones and tell them that they've been ratted out the others, they'll collapse like a house of cards.

Not like this will help the victim or remove the cause. There's a permissive environment that allows bullying to continue and leaves victims unable to seek help. And this happens everywhere, not just Japan(check out the spate of bullying suicides in the news from other countries, geniuses). Unfortunately this country is thick-headed when it comes to seeking solutions to non-technical problems, plus some have confused the socially honorable seppuku with any old depressing suicide.

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i feel so sorry for her parents, too.. i wonder if and how much the mother and the girl talked about and how much the girl could open up to the mother/parents about what's happeneing at school. i am not sure if my kids came home with a note that says "die" if i would let them continue going to the school.. i am not blaming this mother, but i don't think i can..

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I think that what's even sadder here is that the bully is almost certainly another elementary school child, a child who caused the death of another child. Just knowing that they caused someone's death is going to mess them up for life. You're not looking at one death here, you're looking at at least 2.

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That's sad. J schools badly need qualified school counselors, most developed countries have them. Most of the counselors in J schools at the moment have no psychology backgrounds.

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Japanese kids needs to be disciplined so these kinds of things will never happen. I blame the parents of the bullies in school. If they were to spend more time with their kids and raise their kids in a better way, this kinds of incidents would never happen. It is so sad that these kinds of things takes place in Japan.

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As I have pointed out on JT many times bullying is a large part of just being Japanese, its evrywhere, all ages, absolutely pervasive in society!

Bottom line is its accepted, it weeds out the weak, Japanese society is a damned cold one, always has been, wud be nice if it tried to shake this awful trait but I doubt it ever will, the bullying will continue & many will die, its a sad fact about being Japanese

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And the person who wrote the note will feel nothing because once again I say it, "no empathy in this place outside pockets in society". Gotta have a good network set up to survive.

I wonder what lengths the parents went to to get to the bottom of it? You can't just sit back and take it if you get "teeth sucking" going on in such a situation.

In saying that I visited a school last month to see if I would enroll my kid there and when going past the principles office, I saw him ripping the hell out of two bullies who were crying their eyes out.

That made me feel good about the place.

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The same stuff is happening in America and around the world via social networking sites. Kids are telling other kids they are ugly, they hate them, they should die. This is not an "only in Japan" issue. It's time for parents and teachers to wake up and realize what's going on in the kids' lives.

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"A school spokesperson said the words appeared to have been written by the same person but that they were unable to find out whose handwriting it was".

yes they can. roughly 30-35 kids are assigned to a 担任先生 (homeroom teacher) easily narrowing it down. also, 8yr old means a second grader. if it's written in kanji, then it's most probably from the 2nd grade up, but i doubt the 3rd graders onwards would bother to "hate" someone to death. if its written in hiragana, then it would be even easier to find..

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benhur.

Often bullying happens by older grades. One guy once tried to bully my son in front of me. His excuse was it is common/standard for 6th graders to bully 1st graders, etc.

He never did it again after I pulled my keitai out and called his parents and the principal and gave them an earful what I thought of their child-rearing and what will happen if it re-occurs. This did NOT happen on school property but on the way home.

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This is seriously sad. Beyond words.

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I find the story hard to believe.

The second message on August 15... and she is left alone all day the next week, in a new town where she probably knows nobody ? Either the Mum wrote the messages to cover herself, or she was particularly careless. And I don't know many parents in Japan that move end of January, especially without finding an arrangement to let the child finish the school here in the old school, to avoid arriving in a new class 2 months before the end.

About bullying in school, that will happen as long as there will be kids. But the schools don't handle it properly. Which kid did it ? If you know, punish him. But teachers cannot do like cops and say "as we have not found, we arrest nobody, let's do as if nothing happened...". You need to give some kind of punishment to the whole class and let them know that their group has done bad. Nothing worse that letting the children go with the idea that "not caught, no consequences". The bullies will live without limits, and their victims will believe things are written in advance and they can't fight back.

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As someone who has been bullied myself I can tell you that changing schools and teachers won't help very much. Having 40 students in one class room doesn't help as well. The most important thing for me was knowing that my parents were behind me and that there was nothing wrong with me. That slowly gave me the confidence to ignore the people who were bullying me. One gets bullied because other students see that they can "touch" you in some way. Some kids are more sensitive than others and so seem to get chosen out. Changing schools ussually doesn't help much as you come into a new situation with people who don't know you. The first thing that kids tend to do at that age is test the new kid out. The result is the same.

The emphasis in bullying is to much on the school. I teach and I can tell you that as a teacher you don't have much influence on the kids that are bullying. The moment you start to protect the person that is being bullied the bullying is in fact starting to get worse.

May I reemphasize that the most important thing that helped me was realizing that nothing was wrong with me. In fact, one of the things that my parents thought me, and I've seen it again and again after that, is that the people who are bullying usually have problems themselves and are using bullying to get a feeling that they have some grip on the world. Most people that I've seen bullying or that have bullied me had parents who split up or other problems at home.

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This is such a sad news! How in the heck can a little 8 year old girl get this badly abused at her school?? Then kills herself?? RIP little girl!

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tega, I am a teacher too. When I saw some kind of bullying, I would go right up to the culprits, tell them I would kick their asses inside and out if they continued and showed these punks who was the boss. Somehow the ijime stopped RIGHT AWAY!

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wow this is terrible my heart goes out to the young girls family.

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Well of course it stopped right away...in front of you. How do you know what went on behind your back? Anyone can yell at kids and frighten them into immediate compliance, but you're kidding yourself if you think that's all it takes....

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kyushujoe.

I KNOW it stopped, btw I never screamed at the kid. My son talks daily and openly with me and tells me all the ongoings and asks for advise, etc.

What I told the kids parents(in front of the kid and his buddies) and the principal is that: "If I get another complaint from my son they can fetch the kid and his buddies at the local koban after I dragged them there and laid charges and social welfare worker from city-hall will also be there to question the parents."

The next PTA meeting was interesting. ;)

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@Zenny11

Sorry. My comments were directed at elbudamexicano. Should have made that clear.

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kyushujoe.

No problem.

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Sort of loosely related. Anyone seen the program last night on NTV about the "Childern Short-stay" places.

Was very interesting and informative as my son stayed last year at one and I can use them again on goverment expenses. Might need to as I got 3-day hospital stay coming up and no-one to look after him.

As for why an 8yr old is at home at 18:30, after-school care at most schools finishes earlier than that.

In my ward they got 2 types.

1.) Asobe here anyone can go and play no snacks are provided but finishes at 17:00

2.) Gakudou(sic) here you pay a monthly fee kids get snacks, more teacher supervision, home-work help, etc. This one closes at 18:30

I would think that the girl attended similar after school with parents working.

But sad that her parents(and teachers) when they realized she is bullied didn't give her a phone-number of one of the Child help-lines.

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Forgot to mention gakudou is only for grades 1~3.

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Breaks my heart to read news like this. I just wonder, how does an 8-year-old even know how to commit suicide by hanging? No words.

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The same stuff is happening in America and around the world via social networking sites. Kids are telling other kids they are ugly, they hate them, they should die. This is not an "only in Japan" issue. It's time for parents and teachers to wake up and realize what's going on in the kids' lives.

Utter BS.

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Police should do some profiling on it. I don`t think an 8-year-old can hang herself alone.

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benhur-- I've been in a lot of primary schools in Japan and I've yet to see one with a homeroom system. As an 副担任先生, myself, I can tell you that there are no lack of handwriting samples. I can also tell you that the school is going to do its best not to connect the dots.

What I don't see is an 8-year-old hanging herself. Kids of this age just don't think that way. I smell a rat!--a murderous one.

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An endemic problem and it goes on absolutely everywhere bt especially here. In this very office I'm working in now, there is a short spinster who missed the boat long ago (although in here case it's doubtful there was ever in fact any boat?) The targets are girls Ms. spinster doesn't like. Usually beautiful of course and the method is 'mokusatsu' . Meaning to kill someone with silence. An old Japanese chestnut and leaves no evidence, no marks. No doubt about it, it's a part of this culture.

So it's endemic but particularly here. Perhaps we should look to the scandinavian models for Japan as they've got this more or less under control in schools I've read.

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rtega at 03:16 PM JST - 19th August The emphasis in bullying is to much on the school. I teach and I can tell you that as a teacher you don't have much influence on the kids that are bullying.

I've found that public embarrasment of the bully or jokingly bullying the bully to show them how it feels it quite effective. Get the rest of the kids to play along and it puts everyone back on equal terms. The victim usually just needs a lesson in confidence and how to pretend like they are not bothered by what a bully says, which usually makes the bully lose interest.

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8 years old? Something doesn't add up. This kid would have been on summer vacation meaning she was home alone. Why is everyone looking for a bully? How about just plain old loneliness? - There is something seriously wrong with this society when it is normal to leave children and toddlers home alone for extended periods of time and then to have an 8y/o girl hang herself?? WTF is wrong with these people!?!?! I can't believe it!

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Disillusioned.

School day-care is still on during summer-holidays. ;) Kids can also go to the schools pool during summer, etc.

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i don't think i could successfully hang myself with a towel. shouldn't you call 119?

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Well, my2sense, it's easy to call it BS but I watched a documentary on it on TV. It was originally aired in America and dubbed over for Japanese news. Were those kids that were being interviewed just acting or lying? Cyber bullying in the states is very real. Just google it.

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Zenny11 - School day-care is still on during summer-holidays. ;) Kids can also go to the schools pool during summer, etc

The article states clearly, the kid died at home alone around 3pm and the mother returned home at 6:30pm. Where is the bit about day-care and going to the swimming pool?

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Disillusiond.

Where is the bit that she didn't attend? Day-care can be left early too.

Article states that she died at 03:00pm, you must be psychic to know if no-one else was there(like the bully).

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This sounds strange:

On Aug 15, her mother contacted the school again

Looking at my Calendar that was last Sunday. 2 days prior to the Suicide.

Now why would the mother contact the school during school-holidays unless the daughter was there during the day.

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Chotto.

I agree and it hurts that the mother tried to do something about it. So can't complain about lack of parental support here.

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The story doesn't add up.

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Suicide is endemic in many countries, not just Japan, and people using this as an opportunity to take a swipe at Japan are misguided. Can I see this happening? Yes, sadly I can. It's very unusual, but it is absolutely possible. All suicide stories are agonizingly sad. The parents will never recover from it.

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Anyone under 12 committing suicide is an extremely rare event. I will write off the calls for sweeping change on the basis of such a rare event as the foolishness caused by shock.

But what does it mean when an 8 year old has the ability to kill herself? Is it intelligence or teaching or both? Frankly, I think 8 year olds are mostly only as dumb as parents and society make them, especially girls. This girl had her own room with a lock on the door, and the knowledge. Those were not the problem though. Ignorance and policing are not the answer. My sister was babysitting me at 8 years old. The problem was some rotten creep writing notes saying "die" to her, or maybe even something else, but certainly not keeping her locked in a dark box like is done to so many kids.

This is a sad waste, and I hope we learn what we can from it. But how to prevent 8 year old suicides won't be learned. Its not like we actually have that sort of a societal problem or easily could.

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Frungy said: Just knowing that they caused someone's death is going to mess them up for life.

Some people are just evil and were born that way. In fact the kid might very well be laughing his or her little head off. If anyone feels guilty, there will be a confession. If not, odds are no one feels guilty.

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"The parents will never recover from it."

Somehow I wonder...

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Kids can be cruel to each other, but hanging oneself? How does that idea even enter an 8 year old´s head?

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It's a sad story, but still I don't think it's called for to immediately jump on the parents, teachers, and principal. Unless the kid is being visibly bullied, it's really difficult for teachers to step in if it's not happening right in front of them, in which case it becomes one kid's word against another, which is difficult to prove if the bully's friends all vouch that said bully didn't do anything and in fact it was the other kid who was the one starting trouble. And let's face it, these are teachers, not police detectives. It might have been really difficult to figure out whose handwriting it was, and simply asking "Who wrote 'die' on ____'s notebook please confess now" probably wouldn't have received an honest confession.

As to the parents, I don't know if Summer vacation is over yet for elementary school kids or not, but it sounds like both parents work, and since day care centers are usually unheard of, and as for babysitters that's only if there is a grandparent around. Otherwise after school most kids are assumed to be kept busy with club activities, cram school, other extracurricular activities (like sports teams, music lessons, language classes, etc.) or they just go home.

Anyway, yeah, it's a sad story but unless some evidence of real neglect is later found in this case I don't think it's really anyone's fault except whoever the kids were who actually did the bullying.

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Pixilated.

School holidays are still on, my son is still with his Gran.

Every public primary school in japan has day-care as I posted above. Also the teachers are at school as many classes get help with home-work, etc.

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classes = kids

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Heartbreaking, so sad that she thinks that the only way out is suicide.

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Is the word "towel" perhaps a mistranslation? A sheet or something similarly thin yet durable would make more sense. This story is still somewhat confusing, does anything have anymore info about it?

Do mid-day drama shows display acts of suicide at all? I'm not saying that TV is to blame, but I am curious as to how she would learn of a method. Granted, the bully (bullies) could have also been involved -- or even society in general.

I guess I'm just as shocked as most other posters.

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murder for sure....lets see how jpolice screw this one up

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Can you home-school in Japan? After the school couldn't/ or wouldn't do anything I'd take the child out of the school if I were able. Something needs to be changed in what morals Japanese kids are learning in a school setting, bullying to that extent is NOT ok. They were still babies in my eyes! So young.. :[

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Of course suicide of children under 10 is very rare, but it has been documented. Kids that young have no capacity for thinking that 12 or 20 years in the future you will no longer be in the bad situation. It seems a lifetime away.

What these poor kids have had to live through to even be able to have thoughts like this is scary to even think about. This makes me sadder than anything I have seen in a very long time.

If the parents are ignoring a child’s depression, it’s very likely that they probably caused it.

http://www.physorg.com/news185130296.html

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Unless the kid is being visibly bullied,

somebody wrote "die" on the kids books. And none of the school officials did anything about it. Or they didn't do enough. If schools were serious about stopping the bullying problem, if it was a high enough priority, they would have figured out who wrote that, and dealt with them appropriately.

But sadly, administrative types here know only how to give lip service to problems.(from teachers all the way up to prime ministers) They have neither the skills or courage to actually deal with them.

and now an eight year old is dead because of it.

How many more?

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@Potsu "The parents will never recover from it."

Somehow I wonder...

That's a very callous comment. You are suggesting from a news report that they are nonplussed about the death of their girl? That they don't love her like normal parents would? Ridiculous. I am telling you, they will never recover from it. I know from first hand experience.

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I wish that Japanese would grow a backbone and teach their kids how to grow one too. That would help prevent sad occasions like this. It's an absolute shame that this little girl did this at her age.

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RIP little one.

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as with all of you, i have a bit of saddness after reading about this terrible thing. for the kids that caused her to do this, i hope they receive the proper punishment. something should have been done from the first incident. i just hope that the spirit of the little girl can find happiness.

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Sad and shocking. How does an 8-year-old even know what suicide is let alone be able to carry it out?

The parents knew the bullying was happening but yet they left their distraught daughter alone after school. The teachers knew this poor girl was being bullied too but obviously did little or nothing about it.

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Exactly.

How does a 8 year old even comprehend the term suicide? Is this taught or gained throught the media?

Did the case or the textbooks instruct her to this. Unbelievable for one to take her own life at the age. I still can't believe it. For some reason I'm feeling someone other than the girl had their hand in this.

I could be wrong.

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I could be wrong.

quite likely. suicide is an observed phenomenon amongst a wide species of animals and even bacteria. 'suicide' is a word we chose for an instinct which predates language. so to answer your questions, no neither the media nor her textbooks 'instructed' her to choose this. sadly it was more than likely the behaviour of other humans in her vicinity.

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Very Bad my dear Japanese Parents. Again, you lost your selclaimed crimeless social system, it sucks, .. Child abuse, bullying..haaa. I cannot beleive in such country. I heard lot os such bullying stories.

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Suicide is common in Japan and the majority of Japanese persons know what it means. Bullying is a big problem in Japan and in other country. It happens on the internet and on cellphone. People are still writing mean things about other people in bathroom stalls.

Until there is concrete evidence that the parents are responsible for the daughter death, the parents are innocent until proven guilty.

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Sad to say, but it wouldn't surprise me if the little girl committed suicide. TV being what it is today in Japan and bullying being what it is makes it all possible. In the area I live in here in Japan, there have been several strange incidents of murder and suicide involving teens and pre-teens, and, for the most part, bullying has been a factor.

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Same old case, same old story. Its horrible. Unfortunately japanese children feel that bullying kids and outcasting people socially, even at that early of an age, is cool. What is worse is that the ones being bullied are actually affected by what others think of them. What is worse than that is that even as adults, Japanese people "muishiki ni" commit these same immoral acts. It never ends, but in response to the old Japanese saying, "A nail that sticks out of a wall must be hammered back in..." That nail could hang a beautiful painting!

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What a terrible sorry!My prayers go to her and her family. By saying the following i'm going to make enemies but i think parents should teach their parents to be tougher. This country system is just spoiling kids without give them any will to fight.I listened a lecture from a Japanese top member of Monbusho and he was saying that the kids are just too much spoiled. Where I come from , u got bullied u fight u don't need to bother your parents with that because they r busy to feed us and give us decent shelter n education. When i was crying my father and brothers use to tell you are man be strong.Even at school they raised as men in the other side my mom use to give me comfort.That balance was necessary. I got bullied a lot when i was kid but never thought at suicide and always fought back. Anyway in this world who listen at an African or even want to learn some good parts of African society specially when TV only show misery, masai jumping around.

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