Japan Press Weekly

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2013 April 10 - 16 [EDUCATION]

Respect the right to know for families of bullied suicides: JCP Miyamoto

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Miyamoto Takeshi on April 10 argued that families of children who committed suicide due to school bullying deserve access to information and that their right to know the truth should be respected.

Responding to the JCP lawmaker, Education Minister Shimomura Hakubun at the Lower House Budget Committee said, “We will review the current situation, including the role of information disclosure, at an advisers’ panel.”

At present, the ministry advises that schools and education officials prevent information or materials obtained in investigations and background surveys from being made public or disclosed to outsiders.

Miyamoto pointed out that this has been used as a pretext to conceal the facts from bereaved families. He added that bullying tramples on human dignity and thus the country should sincerely address the issue.

In September 2011, a junior high school girl in Izumi City in Kagoshima Prefecture committed suicide after suffering from bullying. The City Board of Education used the ministry advice as an excuse to not show even a single paper of survey results conducted in the whole school to the victim’s family who wanted to know the facts behind what had forced their daughter to kill herself.