Body of missing 14-year-old Nara girl found in mountains near her home

If you are having suicidal thoughts or you suspect anyone you know is, help is available.

TELL is dedicated to providing effective support and counseling services to Japan's international community and its increasing mental health needs. TELL's contact info (https://telljp.com Tel:03-5774-0992).

For Japan, call Yorisoi Hotline at 0120279338 (toll-free). Press 2 after the recorded message for consultation in English, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese, Nepali, or Indonesian. The service in these languages is also available on Facebook messenger.

Emergency service in Japan: 119

Heartbreaking. Japan has a serious problem with kids killing themselves (if indeed that is what really happened).

God bless you

RIP

The school should definitely be looking into bullying, though, I agree.

My daughter at that age was always up in her room, and I was forced to learn to use texting to keep communication channels open.

Rest in Peace. At 14, she had her whole life and limitless possibilities ahead. Much, much more needs to be done to reduce youth suicide.

Very sad news. May the girl's soul rest in peace.

According to her Dad, the day she left home, was "normal" and nothing out of the ordinary, as he tearfully asked people to help find her!

There is a HELL of a lot more to this story, and I feel for her family and friends! RIP young one!

@Japanoob

Thank you for adding that information in your comment. It’s a shame that JT cannot see fit to do this at the end of their own article.

I have banged this drum many times. Mental health issues are severely unsupported in this country, so publicising these support groups whenever appropriate is a responsible thing to do.

This is a tragic story that appears to be a suicide. I don’t understand the thinking of any news company that chooses not to include such appropriate information.

As the father of a 14 r old girl, this guts me. It's a tough age for anyone. If only she had spoken to someone. Anyone. Nothing at 14 is worth killing yourself over.

Bullying at school? Sadly parents can be the last to know.

No call from school to say she hadnt turned up?

@japanoob, why would so many people down vote a post that just provides very useful information, which quite honestly should have been in the article if only at the end????

Tragic to hear this outcome, was hoping she’d turn up safe. Hope the police thoroughly investigate this and don’t assume it’s just another suicide (as the press seem to have)

My God. My condolences to Hiiro's family, friends, neighbours and schoolmates.

RIP young Hiiro...

jpn_guyToday  09:23 pm JST

Hi Japan Today. It is well established that reporting suicide causes more suicide. Yes, that is correct. Research shows that when there are more stories of suicide in the news, suicide rates go up.

As other posters have mentioned, it is standard practice to include helpful contact information for suicidal people in a piece like this. All news organizations that wish to be taken seriously do this.

Similarly, it is now standard practice not to provide details on how the deceased passed since it may encourage people to copy the method. It is certainly completely unacceptable to provide information on the precise tool used to carry out the act as you have done here.

Please take a look at how the BBC, for example, reports these tragedies.

Of course, this approach will sometimes leave the more certain readers wondering about the details, but if it is proven that leaving out the details saves lives, perhaps you might want to follow this approach.

As I am not a journalist or a professional in a related field, I cannot point you to the precise research that concluded detailed reports on suicide literally result in more people dying, but I am sure the various journalistic and professional associations to which you belong to can point you in the right direction so as to bring your reporting into line with international standards.

Thank you. I hope you can take this on board.

A poor young girl is dead! Please show some respect!

@ Michael Craig

If you’re asking jpn_guy to be respectful then, with all due respect to you, you’re entirely missing the point of his post.

He’s quite rightly asking JT to exercise some journalistic integrity and adhere to established journalistic practices with regard to articles of this type. (Apologies if you’re on board with this and I misunderstood your post.)

Jpn_guy “It is well established that reporting suicide causes suicide”

Only in the case of the reporting of celebrity suicides is there a clear demonstrated correlation.

https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m575

@oyatoi

Results in the case of celebrities yes but non-celebrities were inconclusive.

General reporting of suicide did not appear to be associated with suicide although associations for certain types of reporting cannot be excluded.

Either way good link thanks for sharing.

From your source:

The best available intervention at the population level to deal with the harmful effects of media reports is guidelines for responsible reporting. These guidelines should be more widely implemented and promoted, especially when reporting on deaths of celebrities by suicide.

Poor girl. Condolences to the family.

Please JT, could you please follow the media rules of other organisations and do not describe how a person committed suicide and please post information on how to seek help if you are distressed. This article is very irresponsible.

Deepest condolences, very, very sad.

Please JT, could you please follow the media rules of other organisations and do not describe how a person committed suicide and please post information on how to seek help if you are distressed. This article is very irresponsible

I disagree, I think the public has the right to know all the details as horrific as they are in order to know. learn snd to make sure our loved ones and children never follow a similar and tragic fate, the public should never be censored, we can all make the decisions ourselves of what we can or cannot handle.

It would be nice and fitting if Japantoday.com could post/host and promote permanently *Yorisoi Hotline** at 0120279338 (toll-free). some where on the website where it can be seen 24/7 and hopefully some one will phone the hotline before another life is tragically lost.*