TOKYO, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday the government will check within a month to confirm the well-being of all children suspected of being abused.
The emergency mandate was issued after welfare officials admitted failing to act in a case of abuse that resulted in the heinous death of a 10-year-old girl near Tokyo last month.
At a meeting of ministers convened to address a lack of effective communication between authorities responsible for protecting children against abuse, Abe ordered the ministers to boost cooperation and prioritize protecting the lives of children.
"I would like ministers to make all-out efforts to eradicate child abuse with strong determination to take every possible measure, giving top priority to protecting the lives of children," Abe told the relevant Cabinet ministers.
The prime minister emphasized that all cases of child abuse that are currently being dealt with by welfare officials, public elementary and junior high schools, as well as local education boards, must be checked.
Abe's orders follow the arrests of the parents of 10-year-old Mia Kurihara who died after she was allegedly physically assaulted and had injuries inflicted on her, including those from food and sleep deprivation, that resulted in the young girl's death.
Mia was found dead at her home in Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, in late January.
Abe said it is reprehensible that institutions that are supposed to protect children monumentally failed to listen to the girl's repeated cries for help.
Based on Mia's father, Yuichiro Kurihara, coercing a local education board to handover a copy of his daughter's report of abuse and based on his forcing Mia to write a letter denying that he had assaulted her, the ministers on Friday introduced a new rule prohibiting suspected abusers from obtaining documents from claimants, while ensuring the anonymity of the victims and those who reported the abuse.
Mia was released from temporary protective custody in December 2017 into the care of a relative, according to the child welfare center in Kashiwa City responsible for her case.
But in her hometown in Noda City, officials realized that Mia had likely been taken home on Feb. 26 last year by her father without the approval of the officials in Kashiwa, who were dithering over her father's request to take her home.
On Feb. 28, Mia was formally allowed to return home. This decision was made by the center although it fully knew the likelihood of the young girl being abused again, an investigation into the matter subsequently confirmed.
The revelations of the multiple failures of the relevant institutions in protecting Mia's life come on the heels of damning statistics released recently showing that suspected cases of child abuse in Japan have reached an all-time high.
According to preliminary figures released Thursday from the National Police Agency (NPA), suspected abuse cases involving minors aged below 18 years old reported by the police to child welfare officials stood at a record-high of 80,104 in 2018.
The figure has risen above the 80,000 mark for the first time since data become available for comparison. It shot up by 22.4 percent from a year earlier and is more than a 2.8-fold increase compared to figures from five years ago, the NPA said.
In the recording year, the NPA said that cases of psychological abuse against children comprised 70 percent of the total cases.
Cases of physical abuse were suspected in 14,821 cases referred to child protection authorities and 7,699 cases of children being neglected were also reported, the NPA's figures showed.
Cases reported of children being sexual abused stood at 258, the police authority said.
Of all the categories of child abuse, the figures marked an increase from those reported by the NPA a year earlier.
The NPA's figures also showed that intervention by law enforcement officials in suspected child abuse cases in the recording period was three times higher than that of 2009, with action taken in 1,355 cases last year.
The government has now decided to increase the number of child welfare officers working at consultation centers at an earlier date than was previously decided last July, sources with knowledge of the matter confirmed Friday.
