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Asahikawa Middle School 2nd Year Student Death Incident: School and Municipal Board of Education Accused of 'Intentional Avoidance' (Kyodo News)
- Writing language: Korean
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Base country: Japan
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Summarized by durumis AI
- A re-investigation into the death of Sawaya Hirose, a second-year junior high school student in Asahikawa City, Hokkaido in 2021, has confirmed a causal link with bullying, and the cause of death has been determined to be suicide.
- The re-investigation committee criticized the school and the municipal board of education for failing to properly recognize the seriousness of the bullying and failing to identify and reduce the risk.
- This incident has prompted a re-examination of social awareness and response methods concerning bullying, and has had a significant impact on Japanese society.
The Asahikawa City Board of Education has acknowledged a causal relationship between school bullying and the death of Hirose Sawaya, a 14-year-old second-year junior high school student who died in 2021 in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, while being bullied at school. The board’s independent investigative committee, which was established to reexamine the case, announced its findings on March 30. The panel concluded that the student's death was a suicide and determined that school bullying was a factor. It pointed out that the school and the city's Board of Education had viewed the bullying as a mere issue of the perpetrators’ misbehavior rather than a case of bullying, and thus they failed to detect and minimize the risks. "The Board of Education intentionally avoided making it a school bullying issue to close the case early," said Takeshi Nomura, the committee’s vice chairman, who is an attorney.
The board’s initial third-party committee had determined in September 2022 that the causal relationship with bullying was "unclear" because it did not have access to medical records. In response to the family’s protests, Hiroshi Imazu, the mayor of Asahikawa, established the independent investigative committee, which was comprised of experts including Naoki Ogi, an education commentator, to conduct a reexamination. The panel analyzed about 4,000 messages that Hirose had sent on SNS, which were provided by her family. Based on the fact that she had repeatedly mentioned fear and death in the days leading up to her death, the panel concluded that Hirose had been suffering continuously due to being victimized by school bullying and had resolved to take her own life.
The investigative committee acknowledged the causal relationship between school bullying and the student’s death and further acknowledged the Board of Education’s negligence. The case has shocked Japanese society and has prompted a reassessment of social awareness and responses to school bullying.
