\u00ab\u00a0Radiation! Bang bang! \u00a0\u00bb
\n Gesturing as if with guns, two boys in Tokyo repeatedly taunted a girl whose family fled to\u2026<\/b>
TOKYO \u2014
\u201cRadiation! Bang bang!\u201d
Gesturing as if with guns, two boys in Tokyo repeatedly taunted a girl whose family fled to Japan\u2019s capital to escape radioactivity unleashed by the Fukushima nuclear crisis of 2011.
Tormented by headaches and weight loss, the girl began to skip classes, and switched schools to escape the bullies, her mother told Reuters. But the very radiation that uprooted the family brought more pain in her new home.
\u201cFor her to be called \u2018radioactive\u2019 was heartbreaking,\u201d said the mother, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Six years after an earthquake and tsunami sparked the Fukushima meltdown, several cases of \u201cnuclear bullying,\u201d as the Japanese media calls them, have prompted discrimination similar to that suffered by survivors of the World War Two atom bombs.
Japan has long grappled with bullying, but discrimination against Fukushima evacuees is a serious problem, with a government panel last month urging greater efforts to safeguard such children.
It called for better mental care in schools and asked teachers to improve their understanding of the disaster\u2019s likely psychological and physical effects, besides watching for signs of bullying, so that it can be stopped.
Discrimination over the March 11, 2011 nuclear calamity, appears widespread. Nearly two-thirds of Fukushima evacuees faced prejudice or knew of some who did, a recent poll by the Asahi newspaper showed.
One boy suffered years of bullying after fleeing from Fukushima aged around 8, a regional educational board found in an investigation prompted by the family\u2019s lawyers.
Students in his new home in Japan\u2019s second largest city of Yokohama hit and kicked the boy, calling him a \u201cgerm.\u201d They also demanded a share of the evacuee compensation they believed he was receiving.
The boy, who is now 14 and wants to remain anonymous, paid them 1.5 million yen to avoid physical abuse, the family\u2019s lawyer said.
\u201cI thought of dying many times,\u201d he wrote at the time. \u201cThey treated me like a germ because of the radiation.\u201d
The board had initially refused to investigate, heeding only the written request of the lawyers, said one of them, Kei Hida.
Bullying, known as \u201cijime,\u201d is one aspect of the immense pressure facing Japanese children to conform, with the most recent data showing a record 224,540 cases in 2015.
The new guidelines for disaster-stricken children supplement laws adopted four years ago requiring better measures in schools to detect, and prevent, bullying.
The scale of abuse is impossible to gauge, as child evacuees rarely protest.
But more than half face some form of it, said Yuya Kamoshita, leader of an evacuees\u2019 rights group. \u201cEvacuees tend to stick out, and are easily categorised as \u2018different\u2019, which makes them prone to bullying,\u201d he said.
Schools and education boards\u2019 efforts to tackle the problem have fallen short, he and other lawyers said.
The cases are reminiscent of victims of the 1945 bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whose radiation exposure led to discrimination in marriage and at work over mistaken fears of infection, or birth defects in their children.
The bullying of Fukushima evacuees springs from similar prejudice, say victims, raising fears of the treatment they will encounter as adults.
\u201cChildren who were in Fukushima may be unable to get married when they grow up, or their husbands may wonder whether they can have babies,\u201d said the girl\u2019s mother, who is from Iwaki, a city 50 km (31 miles) south of the nuclear plant.
\u201cI think this anxiety will stay with her.\u201d
Bullying has a corrosive effect, said Masaharu Tsubokura, a Fukushima doctor who has treated disaster survivors and worked to spread understanding of radiation.
\u201cSome children can resist bullying, they can talk back,\u201d he said. \u201cBut others cannot, they just hide themselves away. They lose their confidence and dignity.\u201d
Meanwhile, the education minister indicated Friday that his ministry will launch its first nationwide survey on bullying of children who were evacuated from areas affected by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, Kyodo news reported.
At a press conference, Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Hirokazu Matsuno said the ministry will try to identify the number of bullying cases and how schools dealt with them.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017.<\/p>\n