A Japanese couple poisoned their four-year-old daughter with chemicals and drugs purchased online, a rare pre-murder case that also exposed the alarming severity of child abuse in Japan.
Last March, Yoshiko Yoshida from Tokyo suddenly fell unconscious at home and died after being taken to the hospital. Doubts arose about the cause of her death, and after a year of careful investigation, it was discovered that she had in her body the deadly antifreeze ethylene glycol and the psychiatric drug olanzapine.
* A search of her parents' computers revealed that they had purchased the chemicals and drugs online, and that Yoshida's sister also died in 2018 and that an autopsy also found ethylene glycol in the body.
On the 15th of this month, Kenichi Yoshida and his wife Shiho were arrested by Japan** and charged with intentionally killing their daughter.
This case caused an uproar on social **, and many netizens said "incomprehensible", "unforgivable", and "unspeakable".
According to preliminary data released by the National Police Agency on February 8 this year, a total of 122806 child abuse cases were reported nationwide last year, an increase of 6 from the previous year1%, the highest since statistics began in 2004.
Experts point out that some parents are venting their frustration on their children in the face of the pressure of stagnant prices and wages, and more cases are being siphoned off, which may also be related to increased awareness of the problem of child abuse in schools and society.
While Japanese society has become accustomed to the constant reported abuses, some cases are still shocking.
In addition to Yoshiki's case, last January, Mia Kurihara, a ten-year-old girl from Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, died because of long-term violence from her father, which also sparked public outrage and reflection.
Mia Kurihara reported her father's abuse to the school last January, but the complaint was leaked to her abuser.
In the questionnaire, she wrote: "I was beaten by my father. He woke me up in the middle of the night, and during the day when I was awake, he kicked me and hit me. Teacher, can't you do something? ”
Her father, Yuichiro Kurihara, used a forged consent form for his daughter to force the Child Welfare Counseling Center to hand over the questionnaire and his daughter to him.
This amounts to a betrayal of the trust of adults and is a significant reason why Mia Kurihara did not report the abuse again in the ten months leading up to her death on January 24 last year.
Her parents have been arrested but have not yet been charged.
Yuichiro Kurihara insisted that he was only disciplining his daughter, not abusing her, and that it was only in the process of punishing her that he had an argument with her that caused her to fall unconscious, and he called the police.
He said the "punishment" lasted more than 12 hours, from 10 a.m. to 11:10 p.m., during which time he splashed her with cold water and choked her neck.
Yuichiro Kurihara also lied to his daughter's school that the family had returned to their hometown in Okinawa and asked her to take two weeks off.
However, his wife, Nagisa Kurihara, has revealed to ** that Mia Kurihara was actually deliberately concealed because she had obvious scars on her body.
These heartbreaking cases have forced Japan** and society to face up to the seriousness of the problem of child abuse and take more effective measures to protect the safety and rights of children.