Children call for measures to prevent parents from killing themselves

Seven university and vocational college students are calling on the
public to prevent parents from killing themselves. They are children of
parents who committed suicide for some reason.

On December 3, they held a news conference at the office of Ashinaga
(Daddy Long Legs), a private non-profit organization to provide support to
children who have lost their parents.

Eleven children whose parents committed suicide, including the seven who
held the news conference, made representations to Prime Minister Koizumi
Jun'ichiro on the same day, calling on the government to take measures to
prevent workers in their 40s and 50s from killing themselves. Suicide among
these age groups is increasing in proportion to an increase in unemployment.

More than 30,000 people a year have killed themselves for three
consecutive years. Ashinaga has announced that 32 children a day are losing
their parents because of suicides and the total number of these children has
reached 120,000.

Kobayashi Hideyuki, 23, said that after his father killed himself when he
was 13 years old, he was so worried about what other people think that he
couldn't go out of his house for a while.

He said, "People are driven into a corner by long hours of work, company
bankruptcies, and dismissals. I want to help change the society."

Matsutani Keiko, 19, whose father died after worrying too much about
loans, said, "People are talking about 'structural reform' and 'reform with
pains.' But I won't accept silently such a reform that would take someone's
life." (end)