Reported cases of child abuse soar in Japan

Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 30 Jun 2004 - 9:00 PDT

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The Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry revealed Tuesday that the number of child-abuse cases handled at the nation's 182 child welfare consultation centers increased sharply in fiscal 2003.

At 26,573, the number of cases handled during the year was up 12 percent on fiscal 2002, and was about 24 times higher than for fiscal 1990, when the ministry first started compiling such data.

A ministry official attributed the sharp increase in the number of reported cases in the final quarter of fiscal 2003 to the rise in public interest in the matter following media coverage of a number of serious cases of child abuse.

An analysis of the overall number of 27,128 reported cases--including cases in which no evidence of abuse was found or in which the consultation center took no action--showed that the number for the April-December period of last year translated into a monthly average of about 2,000, the same as a year earlier.

Continues.....DailyYomiuri

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