The death of a 10-year-old girl, allegedly at the hands of her abusive father after authorities failed to respond to pleas for help, has prompted soul searching in Japan as the country comes to terms with a record number of child abuse cases.
“I’ve been receiving physical violence from my father,” the note read.
“He wakes me up in the middle of the night. When I’m awake, he hits and kicks me. Teacher, can you do anything for me?”
She was placed in protective custody and then lived with a relative. But officials decided to send her home when her father produced a letter, purportedly from Mia, which exonerated him.
According to Hitoshi Nihei, the head of Kashiwa Child Welfare Center, who read the letter out a press conference on February 5, it read: “It was a lie that I was hit by my father. Please do not come to see me, I don’t want to see the staff from Child Welfare Center.”
Nihei said that even then, authorities believed Kurihara may have forced his daughter to write the letter. “We were aware it was highly possible that her father insisted she write it.”
Mia was returned to her family in March 2018 but no child welfare or education officials made a home visit to check on her, Nihei said. Less than a year later, she was found dead.
Arrests made
A Chiba prefectural police spokesman said Kurihara, now 41, was arrested on January 25 on suspicion of inflicting the injuries that led to his daughter’s death.
When she failed to show up at school after the winter break, her father allegedly told school officials that she was staying with relatives in the southern island prefecture of Okinawa, where the family originally came from.
