TOKYO, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday handed down an eight-year prison sentence to the mother of a five-year-old girl who died from gross neglect last year in Tokyo's Meguro Ward, bringing the tragic nationwide epidemic into focus once again.
It was found that the mother, Yuri Funato, 27, was aware that her young daughter was being abused by her husband at the time, which resulted in Yua dying of sepsis after developing pneumonia in March last year.
Funato had chosen not to take her daughter, who had been heinously abused for a protracted period of time by her then husband, 34-year-old Yudai Funato, to hospital in late February, even when the young girl's physical condition was rapidly deteriorating.
"Her actions deserve strong blame... One can only imagine the pain, sadness and hopelessness the girl must have felt at not being saved by her beloved mother," presiding judge Minoru Morishita said, with reference to the girl's mother not feeding her daughter since late February and not providing the girl with essential medical treatment.
Prosecutors, seeking an 11-year prison sentence for parental neglect, said "she (Yuri Funato) failed to do a parent's bare minimum of protecting her child by contacting a medical facility or her own parents."
"She ultimately acted of her own volition," the judge added, although the court did recognize that Funato had suffered psychological abuse from her then husband.
Yudai Funato, the husband, has been indicted on charges of negligence and assaulting the child resulting in her death. His trial is set to begin on Oct. 1.
Yua's death and the fatal abuse of 10-year-old Mia Kurihara in Tokyo's neighboring prefecture of Chiba in January this year, as a result of being physically assaulted and deprived of food and sleep, not only shocked the nation, but also led to the government revising laws banning parents from physically punishing children.
In June, Japan enacted a revised law banning parents and guardians from physically punishing children amid rising cases of abuse.
Along with banning parents, guardians and others legally responsible for caring for children from physically punishing children while attempting to discipline them, the law also requires full-time, in-house lawyers and doctors to be based at child welfare centers so that information and professional expertise can be easily shared.
The revised law empowers child welfare centers to separate its staff members involved in taking a child into protective custody from those dealing with the child's parents or guardians.
The number of child welfare and consultations centers is set to be increased, and schools, education boards and welfare centers will be required to adhere to stricter confidentiality requirements, according to the revised law.
This is aimed at better safeguarding abused children and ensuring that abusive parents and guardians can not coerce institutions into providing potentially damaging information or make decisions that could further put an at-risk child in danger.
Local governments and child welfare centers are also encouraged under the revised law to use medical and psychological methods to counsel parents with a history of child abuse to prevent incidents from reoccurring.
The new revised law was instituted amid damning national child abuse statistics and in the wake of the tragic death of Yua.
It was revealed after Yua's death that child welfare centers had not communicated with each other effectively when her family had moved and had been tardy when it came to checking on the girl's safety.
Mia's abuse case, meanwhile, revealed fundamental flaws in the protocols of institutions and child welfare facilities that allowed for the young girl's written account of her abuse by her father being handed to him after he coerced her school to do so.
In addition, Mia being returned from protective custody to her abusive parents despite welfare officials knowing she would likely be abused again, revealed a disturbing trend of lax measures by authorities in charge of protecting her.
According to figures 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 not only risen above the 80,000 mark for the first time since comparable data became available and increased by 22.4 percent from a year earlier, but is also more than a 2.8-fold increase compared to figures from five years ago, the NPA said.
The government plans to ensure that the majority of the contents of the revised law will be effective by next April.
