To Prevent Students Suicide

The Diet of Japan passed a law, which was aimed at reducing suicide of students on Friday. It has been a serious problem for Japanese society to protect kids from suicide caused by physical or psychological aggression of their classmates. In Japan, that exercise was so invisible and systematic that some recognize it as committing of a crime. That was why they needed new law. The measures addressed in the law, however, look to be insufficient unless the society itself would fundamentally be changed.

It is not easy to translate those exercises, ijime in Japanese, to English. It of course includes bullying, but bullying is mainly refers to physical attack or threat to a victim. In schools in Japan, it is exercised in a manner of mean activities from multiple classmates to single student. The victim becomes isolated with no help, and even a teacher may sometimes join the aggression. Desperate student would commit a suicide, leaving thank you letters for his/her parents.

New law, Ijime Countermeasures Act, requires all elementary, middle and high schools to hire a counselor and consider appropriate measures to prevent activities that affect a student in psychological or physical way. When a school recognizes that activity, it has to confirm the fact, support the sufferer, and make a guidance or advice to the aggressor. When it is acknowledged as an exercise of crime, the school has to report to police. In a case with jeopardy of life, it needs to investigate immediately and provide the sufferer with the result.

Distinguishing ill-natured action from friendly relationship is extremely difficult. Even if a student reaches his classmate with friendly manner, the classmate may feel aggressed or threatened. The punishment needs to be very careful, but doing nothing may leads to a tragedy. In the schools in the United States, it is rare for a student to be completely isolated in a classroom. When someone is aggressive to one, at least one of the classroom say something to support the sufferer. In Japan, all students try to ignore that activity, because being against the aggressor may causes being targeted next time.

This is exactly the reflection of adult society in Japan. It has been said that the society was divided more than ever: between rich and poor, powerful and weak, or urban and rural. Rather than being involved in a trouble, it is comfortable for an ordinary citizen to take certain distance from that to maintain his/her ordinary life. There is no sense of justice in that society. It is not only the responsibility of teachers to tell students good is good and bad is bad, but of everyone in the society. That creates a unique way of life in a community.