Your cart is currently empty!
A girl is a girl with no home even though she lives with her family… Suppose her name is Kanako. This is not her real name.
There is a high school girl who feels that she doesn’t belong to anywhere. It is not about the welfare system as the politicians are discussing. There are too many children who are suffering in Japan at this moment.
The children want to kill themselves, end their lives. I am writing about a girl in a high school age not as news but as a story. However, sadly, this is based on a true story and I hope people think what society is for for the children in Japan.
Why do children have to end their lives?
There was a high school girl who had scholarship. Her father is a university associate professor and her mother a woman with decent part-time job. Her father’s income is nearly 100,000 dollars, which is well enough for him to pay for Kanako and her brother to go to a decent university in Japan. Being an associate professor of a university secures social status as a university faculty. He seems like a very decent person in façade. However, he has a different face.
Due to repetitive abuse since childhood and negligence of mental care, Kanako is in serious depression. Even when I see her, I can tell that she has depression clearly.
I asked her, “What is going on with your family?”
Kanako has a younger brother and her father is willing to ask for financing to the bank or her wife’s parents to pay for special education only for her son, not for Kanako. Kanako started to say, “My younger brother gets everything he wants. My father gets everything for him, but not for me. Even education and my high school life.”
Due to mental instability and depression, Kanako lost her scholarship due to her mental issues when she was in the final year of high school.
I asked Kanako, “Is your brother extremely high?” She said, “Yes. He gets prescription for his mental problems for being too high.” Based on my experience, it’s not difficult to assume that Kanako’s brother has hyper tension, opposite of Kanako.
I said to her, “Do you get prescription for depression? Can you sleep well? You don’t seem to sleep well.”
Kanako also sees the same psychiatrist as her brother. The doctor also knows that Kanako is in depression and is also in the state of sleep deprivation. She is saying that she can’t get enough sleep with all the worries about what will happen to her and also her enormous anger against her father.
No matter how much she hates her father and gets abused, she still has to deal with it for a university tuition her father might pay for. Her father is threatening Kanako that if she fails the university at the time of graduation, he would not pay for tuition.
Since Kanako’s father’s income is high, she cannot apply for financial pardon to universities.
When Kanako lost her scholarship, her father told her to take tests to qualify for high school diploma and quit her high school. Kanako wanted to go to high school to continue her club activities and feel free from her father. Her father was about to take away that freedom to pay high tuition for her brother.
“Were you abused when you were little?” I asked.
It is very difficult for a person to describe what his or her life was like especially when their mental state is in no good condition.
I asked her, “What do you want to do most now?”
Kanako’s father takes away her medicine and she is in extremely instable condition. Taking away prescribed medicine and making a child crazy is not sane at all. Kanako’s father seems like a control freak. Waco. I’m about to scream when I heard the entire story of Kanako and why she is depressed.
Her father even puts GPS in her phone and check where she is all the time. When she turned off GPS once, her father called her instantly and said, “Why do you turn off GPS?”Even though her father does not care her daughter much, he knows that he would be in trouble if the police fully understand the situation and gets serious enough to deal with her problem.
Kanako fled her home a few times and her family submitted the search warrant or the police found her and took her home. Of course, the police asks questions and eventually tell Kanako to act “decently” in front of the predator, father.
Sadly, to the police, Kanako’s father is a university faculty with class.
I have known a researcher who have done childcare and abuse issues for decades. I have also helped her make presentation for a special university lecture in Sweden and also helped her obtain visa at the Embassy instead of online. I have discussed many of the childcare issues in Japan. I do agree with her at some points. She had already retired from a university as a professor. Therefore, I phone her.
It has been years since I spoke with her. I used to speak with her much more often. Also, I was interested in children and their care for my cause. When I was much younger, I used to help my father’s friend who owned a very successful local organization for the elderly people and the handicapped people. Unfortunately, she passed away with liver cancer. She was very earnest about her activities and also planting flowers in a flower bed of cosmos so that people come to enjoy the change of the seasons.
Every time I see Kanako, my heart aches. She wants to study but she cannot focus at all with all the worries in her mind.
It will be one last time when I will see her in April this year. Kanako’s mind is not functioning. Her mind was killed by her father. However, her father worries more about how he looks outside and pretends to be a caring father. The truth is that her father makes sure her daughter has no freedom even to do anything after she comes to see me.
I used to give recitation and speeches, greetings on various occasions. However, these days, I hear so many problems children tell me. I call her “children” because they come to see me for many years. Some are have grown up, married. They take their children with them to see me. I feel like just staying quiet on social media such as podcast. However, one day, I would like to try podcast and speak on various topics.
Going back to Kanako’s story, where is this Kanako future?
Her father decided to pay half of her tuition of the final year of her high school year and instead she is forced to do the entire housework for the family. I asked what Kanako’s mother thinks. Her father tells her to find a part-time job to earn the rest of the tuition. He also makes sure that no one knows he is forcing her to work to earn tuition for her high school for the final year. He does not want to be thought that he is a type of father who is forcing her daughter to work to go to high school. However, in real, he is forcing Kanako to work. I asked Kanako what her mother would think of her chaotic situation.
Kanako said, “My mom doesn’t say anything to my dad.”
Kanako’s mother is indifferent to her children. Kanako has met with a retired professor of childcare and welfare once at my office. Kanako started to say that she just feels miserable with no help, looking at her living well off. When my acquaintance started to say that my city has no system to punish her father or revoke Kanako’s parental authority.
The legislators who speak of women’s rights and children are not working for children enough at all. This is something regardless of political parties.
I really want her father to come to my office and tell what I think of him but Kanako is so scared of him and asked me never to tell him that she told me her situation inside her home.
“When I pass a university, I never want to see my father. Do you think this is allowed?”
I said, “Of course, it is allowed.” These parents are free to do anything to children. Children are facing crises and they decide to end their lives. It’s the society that is supposed to support children but children like Kanako are abandoned by the society.
I have a very sad memory I can never forget.
When I was in Paris, there was a famous horse race and a famous horse called “Deep Impact” came to France all the way from Japan. Deep Impact was known to be an exceptional horse. Many Japanese, I believe, came to visit the horse race. A boy who was in a junior high school died. He left a will saying, “I want to freely be as fast as Deep Impact.”
I had already seen teens for cause. I felt like saying that human life is much better than the life of the race horse. Why on earth did this boy killed himself and he wanted to be a race horse? I had a very traumatic experience before this news myself in reality. I would like to refrain from speaking about it.
Why does the society not care about the children while children are supposed to be cherished by people? The Japanese legislators are promoting young couples to get married and have children. However, what about a single mother with children or children at an orphanage? Any children deserve a chance. Any children is supposed to treated with care and every child deserve equal rights for education and welfare until they grow up.
There are indeed parents who take very good care of their children until they finally leave for a university. I have seen many of them… However, it is not all.
I would ask…
What will happen to Kanako after I see her the last time?
Kanako’s scream in her heat totally ignored by this society. Women like Kanako turns 18 years old and are recognized as adults. What happen to them? They actually resort to prostitution to gain income or they are recruited to human trafficking.
I am tired of all the loud talks of female lawmakers who gained their position by sales of female rights to be famous. I have known those stories and I am just sick of it. I just believe that people have rights to live freely and happily. Now, I saw MeToo movement and their silence on Israeli women. Actually, I do not trust many of the activists because they make living by just talking, claiming about themselves.
And, the Japanese police thinks that university faculties are like … above the law. Many crimes aren’t even reported. There has to be serious legal reform to revoke parental rights so that a child has an opportunity to find a sponsor or couples who are willing to adopt them. Sadly, Kanako can do neither of this and she can not ask for financial aid to any university that she goes to just because of her father’s income and the legal binding that haunts her. And, Kanako’s father is saying that he is not going to pay any penny if she fails the entrance exam next February, 2025, and studies for another year.
On the other hand, her brother has a plan to be a politician.
What a world does Kanako’s father live in? He decides everything about Kanako and she is constantly watched, not because this father is worried or care about her. Entrance exam is not so easy and she needs time to study. By the time she finishes all the housework, she is exhausted.
The police does not even ask or investigate what is going on in this crazy family.
Leave a Reply