Calls in Japan for more suicide prevention steps targeting schoolchildren’s mental health

Suicides among Japanese schoolchildren remained alarmingly high in financial year 2023 with 513 deaths, underscoring a troubling surge in mental health challenges faced by the nation’s youth since the pandemic that experts say has shown no signs of easing.

The figure is one less than the earlier record high reported in the previous year and marks the second consecutive year that the total has surpassed 500, according to the Ministry of Health’s annual white paper on suicide presented to the cabinet on Tuesday.

The annual total is a sharp increase from the fewer than 300 suicides among schoolchildren reported in 2010, with experts blaming the latest statistics on several key factors, notably economic problems in their families, disillusion among children about their future, poor grades and bullying at school.

Analysts also point out that schoolchildren suicides rose in 2020, nearing 500 deaths in the first full year of the pandemic, a statistic which has not declined since.

“There are many potential reasons that vary from person to person, but one of the biggest problems among young people today is that they find it difficult to be optimistic about their future,” said Izumi Tsuji, a professor of sociology of culture at Tokyo’s Chuo University and a member of the Japan Youth Study Group.

“Another leading reason is that they only participate in events with people through their schools, not their families or communities, so if a child is having trouble at school they have nowhere else to go,” he told This Week in Asia. “Children who are unhappy at school feel there is no place for them.”