【Aging, safety net and fiscal crisis in Japan】No.254: The number of consultations on child abuse continues to increase

As shown in Figure 1, the number of children that died from abuse fell from 98 in 2010 to 65 in 2017. This is due to the fact that the number of children that were victims of family suicides dropped from 47 to 13 during the same period. Yet, the number of children killed by abuse, not a family suicide, increased from 51 to 52. Since around June 2020, news about the death of children from parental abuse has been heard more frequently. It is unclear whether one of the causes is that people are refraining from going out, as per the government’s strategy to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In general, the trend seems to be that parents who abuse their children were also abused as children; as such, child abuse is becoming an increasingly serious social problem.

As of July 2020, there are 220 established child consultation centers throughout the country for people who are aware of child abuse. Figure 2 shows the number and the content of consultations in these centers. Between 2017 and 2018, the number of consultations increased from 133,778 to 159,850, which constitutes an increase of 19.5%. In the near future, the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare will announce the number of consultations in 2019, which is expected to greatly exceed the 159,850 consultations in 2018.

Figure 1 Number of children killed by abuse

Source: Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare

Figure 2 Number of consultations in child consultation centers

Source: Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare