The Horrors and Reality of Child Abuse

Two years ago, a young girl wrote the following in a school survey: “I am receiving physical abuse from my father. Can you do anything for me?” However, last month, the ten-year-old girl was found dead in her house’s bathtub, her lungs filled with water.

According to the police’s investigations, the girl was experiencing consistent abuse from both her mother and father. Her mother would leave the girl in a cold hallway with no food for days. Her father would wake her up in the middle of the night just to leave bruises on parts of her body that were hidden under clothes. They broke her ribs and left it. Eventually, it became too much.

The biggest question of this incident is why, despite the girl’s call for help to the school, did she still not receive any aid from the authorities?

The answer is actually: yes, she did receive help. After she reported her violent father to the school, the local Children’s Welfare Center was notified and the girl was temporarily placed under protective custody. The father was called into question, but here’s where it all went wrong. The so-called ‘confidential’ school survey was shown to the father. The school claims that the father was too intimidating and they had no choice but to break the confidentiality. The father then proceeded to coerce his daughter to write a letter denying her previous words. A month later, the girl was released back into her parents’ custody.

Unfortunately, this is often the reality of child abuse. Even when physical abuse from a parent is identified, the Children’s Welfare Center cannot directly take action without proof of the abuse. The center could not recognize the girl’s long-term absence from school, ultimately being incapable of getting a true grasp of the situation. This case—which happened in Japan—brought the world’s attention into the lack of true safety and security for children receiving physical violence in their households.

Eventually, the violent father was arrested, but currently continues to claim that he was simply teaching discipline to his daughter. He states that he “cannot remember” or “doesn’t recall” ever committing such harmful actions. The mother, on the other hand, explains her abusive actions as an attempt to avoid physical abuse from her husband herself.

The issue of child abuse is not one just of the abused and the abuser, but the entire environment of the household and the community. Previously, the biggest hindrance to identifying these cases was the inability for the children to call for help. But now, society is seeing a much bigger difficulty in actually taking action to protect these children. Although this particular case happened in Japan, the intensification of efforts to eradicate child abuse should be a top priority for the rest of the world as well.

For more information, please visit gendai.ismedia.jp, CNN.com, telegraph.co.uk, fnn.jp, and straitstimes.com.