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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Newsmaker -> 
Japan creates ‘Minister of Loneliness’ to tackle suicides
    2021-02-26  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

THE coronavirus turned out to be not the worst threat to Japan. Last year, the country lost thousands of people not due to illness — they voluntarily passed away. The main reason for suicide is loneliness.

The problem is so complex that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has appointed Tetsushi Sakamoto to his Cabinet as “minister of loneliness” to take a try and reduce loneliness and social isolation among its residents as the country deals with rising suicide rates.

The prime minister created the role in early February in response to a recent spike in suicides in the Japanese public, taking after the U.K., which created its own such role in 2018.

Strictly speaking, a separate ministry did not appear. Sakamoto simply expanded the functionality. The task was set nontrivial.

Sakamoto is already a minister in charge of dealing with Japan’s declining birthrate and promoting regional revitalization. Suga chose Sakamoto as his minister for economic revitalization when he was elected in September 2020.

“Women are suffering from isolation more (than men are), and the number of suicides is on a rising trend,” Suga told Sakamoto on a Feb. 12 news conference announcing the new role. “I hope you will identify problems and promote policy measures comprehensively.”

During his first press conference in the role, Sakamoto revealed that he was appointed to address matters “including the issue of the increasing women’s suicide rate under the pandemic.”

The new loneliness minister added that he hopes to hold an emergency forum before the month’s end to hear concerns of those who are struggling with mental wellness amid the world health crisis.

“I hope to promote activities that prevent loneliness and social isolation and protect the ties between people,” Sakamoto said. “We will work on a comprehensive approach to arrange a wide range of measures.”

The Japanese Government also announced the creation of an “isolation/loneliness countermeasures office,” which will be dedicated to issues including suicide and child poverty — which have also increased during the pandemic.

After testing positive for coronavirus, a young Tokyo woman went into self-isolation. She strongly reproached herself for having infected her daughter, and she, most likely, spread the infection around the school. The husband told about the mental anguish — already after the woman had committed suicide. “I’m sorry I caused trouble,” she wrote in her suicide note.

The pandemic has exacerbated an already difficult situation — many Japanese people voluntarily die. The epidemiological situation affects mental health, and there are high fears that the country will again be hit by a wave of suicides. Last year, more than 20,000 Japanese killed themselves, six times more than the people who died from the coronavirus — an eloquent example.

Traditionally, middle-aged men are at risk. They often poured grief in pubs and bars and were now left alone with the bottle. However, the past year has revealed a grim trend: more women, teenagers and children are taking their own lives.

Women in a traditionally patriarchal society are financially less stable. In addition, young Japanese women increasingly often do not marry because marriage sometimes implies giving up career ambitions. For some reason, it was October that turned especially dark: Suicides among women jumped 70 percent over the previous year.

The increase in suicide was also observed among students in junior, middle and high schools. In total, 479 children voluntarily said goodbye to life — 140 more than in 2019. Each new tragedy is investigated and the explanations are the same: anxiety, poor academic performance and difficult relationships with parents. In addition, depression has become more frequent during the pandemic.

The trouble is that there is no one to share the grief with – many Japanese suffer from loneliness and there is no one to support them at a difficult moment.

In a bitter irony, it was the secluded lifestyle and lack of social contact that partly held back the spread of the virus. A total lockdown and severe restrictions, as in European countries, were not introduced in Japan.

However, against the background of the coronavirus crisis, another problem has become aggravated – kodokushi (translated as “lonely death”) among the elderly. How many old people died in this way in 2020 was not specified, but the situation was clearly aggravated: Social services could not visit the elderly and they themselves did not have the opportunity to communicate with each other.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with people more socially isolated than ever, Japan saw a rise in suicides for the first time in 11 years.

Figures from the Japanese National Police Agency showed that 20,919 people committed suicide in 2020, a 750-person increase from the previous year and the first consecutive rise in suicides in 11 years. The surge is most noticeable among women and young people.

In October, more people died from suicide than COVID-19 in Japan in all of 2020. There were 2,153 suicide deaths that month and 1,765 total virus deaths up to the end of October 2020. Studies show that loneliness has been linked to a higher risk of health issues like heart disease, dementia and eating disorders.

Japan rated the highest in terms of people aged 60 or older who felt they had no one to turn to in times of need, with 16 percent of people saying so, compared with 13 percent in the U.S.

It is difficult to say whether Sakamoto is the ideal candidate – he has a wife and children. In addition, according to rumors, he has a mistress. In a word, the minister certainly does not suffer from loneliness. Whether his rich personal life will help resolve the situation with forced hermits is a big question.

Sakamoto is not alone in the field. The problem is long-standing and closely related to Japanese culture. The task is to scrupulously study and strategically plan everything, but first decide on the terminology. Without this, the work will not be effective, said Takako Suzuki, one of the members of the research team, which was created a year ago by young parliamentarians – members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

The opposition supported them in this. “We need to figure out how to collect data on isolation in order to build policies based on concrete information,” reasoned Yuichiro Tamaki, leader of the opposition Democratic Party for the People.

The loneliness of the Japanese can be compared to an iceberg: a whole complex of problems that are rooted in different spheres of life and long-standing trends in society.

According to statistics, more than a third of the households in Japan consist of one person. Every fifth person is “single for life” – there is practically no chance of finding a spouse at an older age. One in three marriages in Japan ends in divorce.

And although celibacy in itself does not mean loneliness and Japan is far from among the leaders of developed countries in this indicator, 15 percent of residents do not communicate with people outside the family circle at all. Forecasts are disappointing: By 2040, almost half of households will belong to single individuals. And the number of complete families with children will continue to decline.

In the Land of the Rising Sun, for example, there is another phenomenon – hikikomori. Literally the term means “to be in solitude.” This is the name for people who avoid contact and live like recluses.

According to various sources, there are 613,000 to 2 million people living as hikikomori in Japan. Most are men. Two years ago, Tokyo authorities included social services in the municipal health system that work with such “hermits.”(SD-Agencies)

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